Today we started on The Story of the World, Vol III. and began incorporating greater literature, dictation, and started on a poem memorization. The poem is a limerick as follows, and is introduced in the introduction of SOTW3:
The Pacific is largest of all,
The Indian starts at Bengal,
The Atlantic Ocean
Is always in motion,
The Arctic and Southern are small!
He has already learned most of it. It was our dictation exercise today, as well - just the first two lines. We started the year out doing dictation, but we didn't do it very consistently and it fell by the wayside in recent weeks. So again we got out his little black composition notebook and he wrote in that, and he really did very good work - it was some of his best handwriting to date. Not one mistake!
I really liked the way I was able to incorporate an art project (coloring in a picture) and literature and memorization (the poem) and history all in one. The history and geography was what I was most excited about. The first step was to set up shop. You see, in PJ's room is a large map, I'd say 4' wide and 3' tall, of the United States. It was a two-map set that came with a world map, with the flags of the world printed below it (the US map has the flags of all 50 states). Unfortunately, we have no space on PJ's walls to hang the world map in our tiny one-bedroom apartment, so it's been sitting rolled up in a corner for about a year or so.
Well, now that we're studying world history, I decided it was just time to hang it up in the hallway. It's already got two clothes lines where we hang up art projects so it's not like I'm too proper to have a giant map of the world in the dang hallway. LOL PJ loooooves geography, so he was excited about the world map and the prospect of re-adding geography to his school day, since it has been wholly absent with 3rd grade Switched on Schoolhouse history. It was also helpful in a tactile sense, because we traced a path in order of the poem from one ocean to another on the map.
The first time we tried The Story of the World three years ago, I think he was a bit too immature and his auditory deficits too great because we found it very tedious. I loved the book FOR MYSELF, but my kid haaaaaaaaated it. I just feel like the average six-year-old child wouldn't find stories about Ur or Mesopotamia or anything like that. Asking 1st grade children to care aboug Sargon the Emperor or the inception of Egyptian irrigation and the development of the Phoenicians' cuneform, etc is a waste of everyone's time for most children I know. My kid thought it was just all one big super-boring and irrelevant fairy tale.
This is the one big backdraw to the traditionally recommended classical four-year cycle of history. IMHO I think it is a good idea to go through it in 5th through 8th and then again in 9th through 12th because it DOES make sense that it's most intuitive to go through history chronologically. But starting ancient history with a 6 year old? I just don't get why they recommend doing things this way as it seems anathema to their other ideas. The authors of The Well Trained Mind elsewhere in all other parts of the book are such huge advocates of "starting from the concrete and moving gradually into the abstract." Well, for a Miami 6yo there's not much more that's abstract than the history of Mesopotamia, you know? At that age, I think they get more out of learning about their community, their cultural traditions, why we celebrate the holidays we do, where they came from, etc. And then perhaps a survey of American history in 2nd or 3rd grade and then possibly a brief introduction to world history in 4th. It's just more child-friendly IMHO. I know there are people for whom this has not at all been the case, though, so whatever works for your kids, I guess!
Anyway, this time around, since we have already independently studied the renaissance and medeival history (he is very big into knights, dragons and castles) and we had a huge quarterly-long unit study on the greeks and romans last year, AND the fact that he's become obsessed with Liberty's Kids which is all about the American Revolution, we dove directly into Vol 3 of the series which covers it. We are doing a Book of Centuries that I downloaded a template for at http://www.simplycharlottemason.com. After we took turns reading the pages of the first section, we did the activity book's review questions orally and I was very pleasantly surprised at how much he had retained. He was also able to do an oral narration of the first chapter with a medium amount of prompting. I'm sure he'll be an old pro. He was very happy about doing real hands-on mapwork again and he loved being able to color the portrait of the king they talked about in the chapter. This time around, I think the history is finally making sense. Today we read about Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I and Phillip II of Spain; tomorrow is about Mary Boleyn, Queen of Scots. Cool!
After the narration, PJ got inspired and drew what he thought the two flags of the two empires looked like just based on their description in text. He was pretty close! I of course was pleased as punch that he was so into it.
Once a week, we are going to start working on correspondence skills. Today, he wrote out a postcard to his great-grandparents in Massachusetts. I addressed it, but he wrote them a cute little note that I'm sure they'll enjoy.
We still did Switched On Schoolhouse for math, grammar and Bible study as we'll likely contintue to do all this year. As I mentioned a couple of entries ago, I took out all the quizzes and tests in Bible Study, took out some of the review exercises and excessive quizzing in the math, and took out all the reading comprehension assignments in Language Arts. I don't imagine I'm going to be using the History curriculum at all - off to eBay it goes! - but the science curriculum does cover some of the topics I picked out for his survey of age-appropriate chemistry. So I may still use that.
Tomorrow is his PE class for homeschoolers, and then academics, then Cub Scouts. I have heard of people who devise an entire year's worth of unit studies based on that year's scouting manual. A neat idea, but a little too esoteric and ambitious for me, I think!! We are 1/4 down with the requirements for Bear cubs, so far, and there are other homeschoolers in his den, so that's been cool. Also allows me one more social outlet cause I get to sit around gabbing with the moms, too :) And I secretly love the great outdoors, and can't wait to go camping this year. Lord help us all. LOL
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Oct. 24, 2006 - Hello from Texas!