Posted in Curriculum

I am going to try to do a weekly update from now on. After all, that was one of the reasons I created this blog!  I was hoping to do it on Sunday but I am a little late this week.  We have been going from sickness to sickness to sickness lately.  Right now it is stomach flu...  DH got it last Wednesday night and was down for the count at the end of the week.  I kept hoping it was food poisoning, but it wasn't.  Not two minutes after I lit Shabbos candles on Friday night, the baby started throwing up.  Sunday afternoon, both girls started within 30 minutes of each other.  Now today, Dante started.  I am the only one left standing...  But I am holding strong and praying fervently that I don't get it.  Isn't there a rule some place that mom's can't get sick??

Then when you top it off with the foot of snow we got today, well let's just say it hasn't been the easiest of weeks.

For the most part last week was pretty good.  We began our Renaissance Unit and all in all it was a nice quiet week.

So here is a general overview of our week for Little Miss (3rd Grade - age 8) and Sweetie Pie (2nd Grade - age 6):

History -Done all together:
Quigley Pages 4-11, Intro to Renaissance
Story of the World Book 2 -Chapter 35 (Book on CD) Renaissance
Jewish History - 1 page with a general overview of how despite persecutions Jews got involved in Business, Science and art then also

I also had planned 4 activities for their lapbooks this week, but I was really pushing them to work on it.  So we sat down and had a little talk.  I told them that I had planned the lapbooks because I thought that they would like it.  I reminded them that last year when we were doing the Ancients we had done the Evan Moor History Pockets and they had really enjoyed them -and they agreed that they had.  Since there weren't History Pockets for the Middle Ages/Renaissance I had thought that lapbooks would be a good substitute and that I got them because I thought they would really enjoy them.  They both told me that they did not like doing the lapbooks,and that they weren't the same as the History Pockets.  Since I had gotten the lapbooks for fun, I decided not to force them to do them.  We will pick up other craft activities from TOG instead to do occassionally.  I need to go look it up, but I believe there are History Pockets on Colonial America and they said they would like to do that, so i will look into adding that next Unit.

Math: 
LM - Adding 4 digit numbers with carrying, place value to 100,000, writing numbers in Standard and Expanded Form
SP - Counting by 4's and 5's, Estimating, Greater than and less than

Spelling/Grammar/Handwriting
We are doing the easy way out with Spelling this year, since we are doing so many other very parent intensive curriculum.  I needed something easy, so we are just using the Spectrum Spelling Workbooks.  At the suggestion of TOG we are using Easy Grammar for Grammar and absolutely love that!  Grammar has quickly become LM's favorite subject.  For Handwriting we are using Zaner Bloser which is recommended in The Well Trained Mind, after trying a few other programs I wasn't happy with.  LM had done some cursive last year, but I wasn't happy with it and decided she wasn't ready.  So I brought her back to a practice handbook and decided to keep them together this year.  This week both girls started cursive (SP for the first time)

LM - Spelling Level 3 - Lesson 9, short u words (like Month, Monday, etc..)  Not sure how we got two lessons behind but that's fine.  Grammar Grade 3 covered mostly contractions all week.  Began cursive writing, letters a-d.

SP - Spelling Level 2 - Lesson 10, words with mp, ng and sk.  Grammar grade 2 is a mixed bag every day generally combining capitalization, punctuation, alphabetizing, parts of speech and making more complex sentences.  SP took to cursive like a fish to water.  She sat down last Monday and did letters a-g and all intermediate pages, before I made her stop.  She loved it.

Literature
LM - I, Juan de Parrera chapters 1-4 as well as a worksheet on re-naming the 1st 4 chapters.  She will be reading this book for 2 more weeks.  For unassigned reading this week she chose from the library Black Beauty which she seems to be enjoying.  She also started the Chronicles of Narnia, reading books 1 and 2 this week and starting book 3.
SP - Leonardo's Horse, we also went through the book and found adjectives and the nouns they were describing.  For reading on her own this week, she has been working through Beverly Cleary books, this week reading Henry Huggins and the Paper Route and Ralph S. Mouse

Art/Music/Misc
Artistic Pursuits Book 2 - Cimabue and Giotto, read a little about their lives and artwork, examined some of their paintings and then made water color paintings.
Music - Story of the Orchestra - Studied the makeup of the orchestra, development of string instruments and then violins.  We also listened to violin music.
Both girls also worked on their typing skills.
Wednesday morning, we made an impulse trip to go ice skating.  Also, after a 3 week vacation, the girls dance and gymnastics class resumed.

Hebrew Studies:
Studied Parsha Bo (Exodus 10.1 - 13.16)  Read the story and did the kids pages on Chabad.org

Modern Hebrew - We are studying how all nouns in Hebrew have a gender.  Since this is not the case in English, it is something they struggle with, so i am going slow. Did a bunch of vocab and worked on matching adjectives to nouns. 

Prayer - Working on memorizing the V'ehavta prayer (Deuteronomy 6.5-9) when we learned the part about writing these words on the doorposts of your house, we learned out Mezuzahs and where they do and do not go.  Counted all the mezuzahs in the house for fun (17!)

Chumash -Continued with Parsha Lech Lecha (Genesis 12.1 - 17.7)  Reading slowly in Hebrew dissecting it into Modern Hebrew and translating into English as we go.  Also studying the shoresh (root letters) and some of the Rashi commentary.

Tzivos HaShem - Learned about the Jewish Leap Year when we add a second month of Adar and where things fall when it is a leap year.

Wow, writing it all out, it seems like we did a lot!  I am so glad I am doing this.  In reality, I don't think we ever did school for more than 3 hours a day.

Posted in Curriculum

The Renaissance Unit - what can I say?  I really don't see how anyone would love it as written.  But I am sure some people do.  For those who haven't seen it, it is a 9 week long unit on the Renaissance.  4 of those weeks are spent studying just the Reformation.  Most of the rest of it is on Explorers.  One week is on Art.  Seriously - that is the curriculum for the Grammar Stage (K-5 approx)  I was just dumbfounded that anyone would want their 2nd and 3rd graders spending a month on the Reformation.  I am not saying that it isn't important, but C'MON!

Anyway, I decided that we were going to put a lot more emphasis on the re-awakening of Europe.  And once I decided how I was going to do that it was actually pretty easy to re-write the curriculum.  First I decided that we would use The Renaissance by Mary Quigley as our spine instead.  This was one of the Upper Grammar Alternate books.  I took the book and divided it by 7 weeks (I wanted the last two weeks to study the Aztecs and the Explorers).  This came to about 8 pages a week and it actually was a fairly nice split of topics.  And that gave us a theme for every week.  I then added in the HOAC Lapbook on the Renaissance (instead of the TOG Unit 2 Lapbook which would all be on the Reformation).  I assigned activities from that lapbook which would go with each weeks theme.  Since I already had Story of the WorId (SOTW) pulled out some chapters from that and added them in as well.  Along with some pages from our Jewish History Spine.  As I said, the last couple of weeks will be more on explorers which will segue nicely into our Colonial America unit I think.

I then went through the Literature selections that TOG had and discarded any that we didn't want and re-arranged what was left to fit more with the new schedule.  I then filled in some blank weeks with some books from the Sonlight reading list, after remembering that my biggest complaint with The Well Trained Mind is that if you only read literature selections to match your history, you are losing out on some really good books!  So not everything they will be reading is history related, but that is just fine.  I also added in some Jim Weiss CDs since he has some good ones for this time period.

Finally I decided to put more emphasis on Art and Music with this unit.  I already had Artistic Pursuits Book 2 (for K-3) so we are using that covering an artist every week.  I am also using Story of the Orchestra covering the different instruments during this unit (many of which were developed during this time period).  We will do the book backwards, and will move into the composers in the next unit.

We will stick with Writing Aids in the order it is, but just change the topics.  This is easy enough.  Little Miss (level 3) will spend the first 4 weeks doing a photo essay. She has chosen to do it on Michelangelo. After that she will spend the last 5 weeks writing a realistic story.  Sweetie Pie Girl (level 2) will learn about writing a paragraph for the first 2 weeks, and then will spend the next 7 weeks making a display board (topic TBA).

We will end the whole unit off with a Field trip to the Museum of Fine Art in Boston.

So this is basically how it breaks down:

Week 1

Quigley 4-11  Introduction to Renaissance
LapBook – Activities 1-4
SOTW Chapter 35
Jewish History – Page 161
I, Juan De Perrara - LM
Leonardo’s Horse – SPG
Artistic Pursuits Book 2– Cimabue/Giotto (watercolors with Gold Leaf)
Story of the Orchestra – Strings

Week 2

Quigley 12-19  Government Church and Reformation
Lapbook – Activities 12, 13, 19, 21
SOTW 36
Jewish History – Page 166
I, Juan De Perrara – LM
Good Queen Bess – SPG
Artistic Pursuits Book 2– Limbourg (Paper Mache)
Story of the Orchestra – Strings

 Week 3

Quigley 20-27 – Family Life, Clothing, School, Farming
Lapbook Activities 5-8
I, Juan De Perrara – LM
Tippy Lemay – SPG
Artistic Pursuits Book 2– Van Eyck (Layering Oil Pastels)
Story of the Orchestra – Woodwinds

 Week 4

Quigley 28-35 – Cities, Homes, Food and Sports
Lapbook Activities  9, 14, 15, 18
Jewish History – Page 164-165
The Secret Garden – Sima
Paint Brush Kid – Abigail
Artistic Pursuits Book 2– DaVinci (textured watercolors)
Story of the Orchestra – Woodwinds

Week 5

Quigley 36-43 – Crafts, Middle Class, Printing, Literature
Lapbook Activities 10 11
SOTW 39
Shakespeare for children – jim weiss CD
Bard of Avon Shakespeare Bio -Sima
The Secret Garden – LM
Midsummer’s night Dream by Corville - SPG
Artistic Pursuits Book 2– Michelangelo (apple carvings)
Story of the Orchestra – Brass 

Week 6

Quigley 44-51 – Science and Art
Lapbook Activities 16, 17, 20
SOTW – 37, 39
Galileo and the stargazers – Jim Weiss CD
The Secret Garden – LM
Hana in the Time of the Tulips – SPG
Artistic Pursuits Book 2– Raphael (tempera painting)
Story of the Orchestra – Brass

 Week 7

Quigley 52 – 59 – Exploration/Trade
Lapbook Activities 22-24
SOTW 31, 32
Morning Girl (Columbus) – LM
Pedro’s Journal – SPG
Artistic Pursuits Book 2– Anguissola (tempera over oil)
Story of the Orchestra – Percussion

Week 8

Aztecs
SOTW – 28, 33, 40
Around the world in 100 years – LM
Broken Shields (Aztecs) –SPG
Artistic Pursuits Book 2– Durer (block printing)
Story of the Orchestra – Percussion

 Week 9

 Africa/India
SOTW – 29, 30, 41-42
Jewish History – Page 167-175
Around the world in 100 years – LM
Encounter (Columbus) – SPG
Artistic Pursuits Book 2– Bruegel (painting with vegetables)
Story of the Orchestra – Keyboards/Conductor

 End of Unit Celebration –Field Trip to Boston Museum of Fine Art

I am also going to make an honest attempt to post a weekly update report on my blog every week.  I know lots of people do that and it seems like it would be helpful.

So, what do you think?  Thoughts suggestions and ideas are always welcome!

Posted in Curriculum

Well we finished up TOG Year 2 Unit 1 a bit ago and then took a break for a bit and will be starting Unit 2 today.  Before we move on I wanted to blog a bit with some final thoughts on the Middle Ages and things we added to it.

First of all, I need to say that we had a TON of fun with this unit!  We had some great field trips and learned a lot.  Our lap books are great (we used the TOG ones for this unit).  We actually did not have a big end of unit celebration.  We had considered it, but we had already been to a medieval feast at Castle Anam Cara.  We had also been to a Renaissance Faire.  And had even been to the Higgins Armory Museum.  There wasn't really anything we could do to top it.  And since it was Chanukah when we were ending, we celebrated that instead.  I do already have End of Unit Trips planned for the next 2 Units, so that will make up for it I think.

People area always asking me what I supplement with, so I thought I would talk about that instead.

First I have an all around Jewish History Spine that I am using.  I pull pages from there whenever it is appropriate.  The spine I am using is a 2 book set called "Understanding Jewish History" by Sol Scharfstein,  A lot of this set is available at Google books

I have linked to the first book, which goes up through the Middle Ages.  Book 2 starts with the Renaissance and is here to.  This is just a matter of fact account of Jewish History.  I would put it at an upper Elementary level, and I often just pull out important points instead of reading it word for word.

Probably the foremost Jewish historian is Rabbi Berel Wein.  Doing a search for his name on Amazon will get you pages of his books.  His website (click on his name to link to it) it also a veritable treasure chest of information.  I use it a lot for myself.  His books called "Sand and Stars" are an excellent Jewish Children's History series, but a bit old for my girls.  I fully intend to use them through the middle school/dialectic stage years.

Also, on Aish.com Ken Spiro, another excellent Jewish Historian has written a Crash Course in Jewish History.  It is all listed in time line form and is an easy way to find material to supplement with. 

For anyone really wanting to understand Jewish History, I would skip the Josephus, and check out these resources.

A few other books we supplemented with specifically for this unit:

The Travels of Benjamin of Tudela: Through Three Continents in the Twelfth Century by Uri Shulevitz.  This is a picture book based on the journals of Benjamin of Tudela.  A real Jewish traveler who explored most of the known world during the Crusades.  The journals have been edited and written for children, but the reading level is really for upper elementary ages. But it is a picture book and the pictures really add to the story.  An interesting fact about Benjamin of Tudela - while he never went to China, he was the first person to ever mention it's existence in his journals - more than 100 years before Marco Polo went there.  This book is the very definition of a "living book".  It really helped bring this period alive for my daughters.

The Fateful Mission by Meir Baram  (sorry I couldn't find a picture of it).  I assigned this book to Little Miss.  It is probably appropriate for ages 10-14 more though.  But she could handle it.  This story is historical fiction placed in France during the 13th Century (during the Crusades) and is based on actual events.  It is about a young man who is trying to save the Talmud before the Crusaders get there to destroy it.  I chose this book for Little Miss, because it was about saving books instead of people, so violence was less in this book.

2 other books which I also considered - and may have them read when they are older - were The Parnas also by Meir Baram and Fall of the Sun God by  Henye Meyer both of these books were about Jewish young people who were trying to escape from the crusades but they detail a lot more death and destruction than Little Miss is ready for.  They are both excellent books and would make nice additions to a middle school or older curriculum though.

So those are the major things we used.  I think for us a lot of it was more what we left out - which was a lot.  But I think my girls have a great handle on the Middle Ages.  We now move on to the Renaissance!

Posted in Curriculum

So about 2 weeks ago JennyBelle left me this comment:

"I have been looking at the Tanglewood Education website and for the ancient history, they used to recommend SOTW as the spine, but now they recommend Our Young Folks' Josephus, which is history from the Hebrew perspective. I was wondering if have heard of it, used it, and/or would recommend it. Our library has SOTW for me to look at and I think it's good for including OT history, but it also has a lot of myths in it which I am not ready to include. Our library does not have the Josephus book, so I'm trying to find someone who can give me a review."

It is a good question and I have been meaning to answer her, but life kept getting in the way.  This morning I am up extra early due to daylight savings time and the house is quiet - for now.  So I have some time to blog!

So for those who have never heard of Tanglewood, their website is here.  Tanglewood is a fairly new curriculum that advertises as merging Classical education with Charlotte Mason.  I am thinking that it came out about 3 years ago when I was doing K level work with the girls.  I remember them being a little too young for it (it starts in 1st grade) but that it looked like what might be a great program for us.  But there wasn't much there yet at the time.

I looked at it again before we started Year 1 (Ancients) and I remember being quite disappointed in it.  Now, I have never used the program so I can't speak to how it works in reality.  But looking at the program then, and then again today, I felt it was way to workbook heavy.  It seems to very much be a workbook based program (although in all fairness, not completely).  But Charlotte Mason was a huge fan of living books, and it concerned me to see that many workbooks in a CM program.  Even in 3rd grade, I don't use that many workbooks.

So that was a huge red flag to me.

The second red flag goes to the heart of Jennybelle's question.  The program uses Josephus as its spine.  At the time that was enough for me to say that I couldn't use their first grade program.  I decided I would look at it again in other years and decide, but I sort of fell into TOG for Year 2 and forgot all about Tanglewood until Jenny reminded me.

So why wouldn't I use Josephus?  Well to understand that, you need to know who Josephus was.  So let's start with that. 

Josephus was a Jewish General in the time of the Second Temple.  He was not a historian , a scholar, a rabbi -or in any way qualified to lecture on Jewish history. 

He led Jewish troops in the rebellion against the Roman Empire.  Specifically he fought in battles against Vespasian (before he was emperor), and wasn't even that good at it, since he lost. As the battle was winding down, Josephus and his remaining troops - I think there were 39 of them - hid in a cave.  No one knows exactly what happened in that cave.  All we have is Josephus' story, so we will go with that.

In the cave, the men decided that rather than surrender to Vespasian and be sold into slavery, that they would commit suicide.  This was a fairly common solution back then it seems, since it also happened on Masada a few years later.  Since Josephus was their leader,  they entrusted him with one final task.  Kill everyone, and then kill himself.  He went through with the first half of the plan - he killed everyone.  But, he did not then kill himself.

When Vespasian overcame the cave, Josephus emerged alone.  He claimed that as he was getting ready to commit suicide, he had a vision.  In this vision he saw Vespasian as the next Roman Emperor, and that Josephus had to help him conquer the Jews so that he could fulfill his destiny.  Vespasian, like most Roman Generals/Emperors, had a big ego and he liked this plan a lot.  So he spared Josephus, who then pledged his loyalty to the Roman army.

Josephus kept his promise.  He became a traitor to the Jews, helped Vespasian conquer them and returned to Rome as an advisor to Vespasian, who did become emperor.

Once in Rome, he was the highest ranking Jew in the Roman government, so he became their "token" Jew so to speak.  The Romans turned to him if they had any questions about the Jews or Jewish history.  And that is how he became known as a Jewish historian, eventually writing a book on the topic.

So the Romans, who became Ch-stians, put a LOT of stock in Josephus.  They read him and think they understand Jewish history.  The Jews - not so much.  It is kind of like asking Benedict Arnold to give you the history of the American revolution - from the American point of view.

"Our Young Folk's Josephus" is just a watered down version of that book for children.  I have never read or used this book, so I can't speak to it exactly.  However, it used to be available on-line for free.  I looked it up back then and read some of it.  I tried to find it again today though, and wasn't able to.

Really, all it was though was a very basic history of the Jews.  You could get the same from reading a Bible.  I was completely unimpressed with it.  I could see how it might be a good book in a Ch-stian program, but not as a spine for the Ancients year.  You just lose way too much.  Yes, the Jews did interact with other peoples, but you are only going to get a very small piece of the puzzle if that is all you teach.  For example, will miss 95% of Greek history and life, if all you cover is the Greek conquest of Ancient Israel.  What a waste....

I truly want my kids to have a broader worldview than that!  Yes, Jewish history is important in our school and I do use a Jewish history spine as well (but NOT Josephus), but to be a citizen of the world they need to know what happened all over the world.  Not just what happened in the Middle East.

So there is a very long explanation of why I did not choose Tanglewood and why Josephus will never be in our curriculum.

Posted in Curriculum

Some day I am going to figure out how to add our curriculum to my side bar - I am getting the hang of adding things after all.  But for now, I will just write about our curriculum here.

I already mentioned TOG - that covers History, Geography, Writing, Arts (mainly) and Literature.  So there isn't a huge amount to add to it.  Mainly just Math, Science, Grammar and Spelling - and then of course the Jewish subjects.  TOG does have religion in it as well, but obviously I skip that part :)

So what about Math?  Math is one of the subjects that homeschoolers are notoriously bad at.  Usually because their parents hated it, and pass that on to their kids.  I however wanted to break that stereotype.  I actually liked math - I wasn't a math/science geek or anything - but I actually liked how logical and clear cut it was for the most part.  I wanted my children to grow up to not be afraid of it either.  They didn't have to be math geniuses (unless they actually were), but I wanted them to feel comfortable with numbers.

I wasn't extremely successful with Dante in this regard - but I can't take full blame for that.  I pulled him out of school in 4th grade and the damage was already greatly done.  It took a LOT of deschooling and battles and everything else you can imagine to even get him able to give me the basic math facts - and he had been an "A" math student in school.  But I will discuss that another time.  Dante has actually come a long way.  He is competent  and did well with his college math class (with no desire to go beyond that). So I am considering that successful.

I used Math-U-See with Dante for about 1.5 years when I pulled him out of school - so approximately Grade 4/5.  This was 9 years ago, before they overhauled it.  At the time I was looking for a "fun" math program that would help us get over the hump that was caused by public school.  MUS did that admirably.  At that time the program was not yearly like it is now, but was made to be used for multiple years.  We got the "intermediate" level which was meant for grades 4-6, and we did the whole thing in about 18 months.  And then my son chose not to continue on with MUS, and that he wanted something a bit more meaty.  I bought the first MUS level for Little Miss when she was around 3, thinking it would be a good fun introduction to Math (Shiller was not yet available - it came out the following year and we were one of the first people to buy it.)

Unfortunately, I forgot the cardinal rule of homeschooling - what works for one child, might not work for another. From the first she just didn't like it.  She would sit in her room and count her toys well past 10, but asking her to count 5 unit cubes was like asking her to explain Einstein's Theory of Relativity.  By Chapter 10, she would get upset whenever she saw the MUS book.  By Chapter 15, she would tantrum whenever she saw it - and she was never a tantrumer, not even at age 2 when all kids do.  I noticed that she stopped counting just for fun.  She had always enjoyed playing with the MUS manipulatives for fun, and now wouldn't get near them.  If I asked her to set the table, she wouldn't count how many forks she needed, telling me she didn't know how.  I decided that she just wasn't ready for formal schooling yet, and decided to just put MUS away for a while.  I got it out again about 6 months later, and the results were pretty much the same, so I put it away again quickly.  6 months after that, I heard about this new Shiller program and checked it out.  I had LM check it out as well, and she said she liked it.  We got it and never looked back.  Now Math is one of her favorite subjects.  One day about a month or so after we got Shiller, I did try and do some MUS with her without her knowing (I drew what I wanted from the MUS book myself so that she didn't have to see the book, and used Shiller unit cubes) and still it just didn't click with her.  She couldn't understand what I was asking her to do, even though she could do it quite easily the Shiller way.  For whatever reason MUS was not a good fit for her.

So, that is my personal history with MUS. As I said it is not a bad program.  It works well for many people, but my daughter just wasn't one of them.

As for a comparison of MUS and Shiller - the only thing they have in common is that they are both Math programs. After that they are really not similar at all.  At the basic fundamental level, MUS is a Mastery program - you don't move on to the next lesson until your child has completely mastered the lesson you are on.  Shiller is a Spiral program that absolutely does not require mastery.  You do an activity until your child understands how to do it, then you move to the next one.  Lessons spiral around so you may be working on things at the same time, but before you know it your child has a much higher grasp of a topic than you would have thought. I think this was probably the biggest problem with my daughter - the requirement for mastery. And yes, you can skip that in the younger ages if you really want to, but within a year or 2 it will be required.  Topics are taught once and then really not ever again - or if they are covered again, the assumption is that you already know how to do it - that you have mastered the skill.  Shiller has constant review and building on of skills that MUS is just lacking IMO.  I know they have added "practice sheets" but those are made to be used with a particular lesson, not provide review of lessons you have already had.

Shiller is a complete multi-sensory program.  All subjects are taught in ways to appeal to ALL learning styles.  So you learn by listening, music, playing with manipulative, coloring, being physically active, and playing games.  This is a much deeper way of learning.  Learning styles don't really fully develop until around age 8, so before then it really is best to try to teach as many different ways as possible.  MUS is really just kinesthetic - they call it multi-sensory, but only if you consider 2 senses multi-sensory.  They do have a skip counting tape - I am not sure if you have heard it or not, but it is pretty awful.  The Shiller CD has songs on a much more wider variety of topics, and is a much more professional recording - my kids listen to it for fun.  Shiller has a much wider variety of manipulatives.  All you really get with MUS are unit cubes and blocks for each number, nothing else.  There are no shapes, no money, no dominoes, no scale, no ball to play games with - all the things that make Shiller fun are missing in MUS.

I used to be worried about what some call the "vagueness" as it does sometime seem that Shiller has ADHD or something LOL.  But I think that is what my girls likes about it.  Everyday they learn something new and different.  They know we are not going to be spending the next 2 weeks just doing addition facts every day.  Yesterday we did money and today we made shapes out of unit cubes and then used them to re-inforce columns/rows.  She thinks we just play math games every day and doesn't really realize that she is learning at the same time.  I will say that last year LM went through about a 3 month period where she didn't want to do Shiller.  She complained that it wasn't a "real" math program.  She wanted a workbook like all her friends had. LOL  I ended up getting her a Singapore workbook and let her do it for a while, but then one day she asked to do Shiller since the workbook was boring.  We did both for a while, but then about 2 months ago she told me that she just wanted to do Shiller now again.  She was doing Singapore Primary 2A (a 2nd grade book) but really she knew pretty much everything in it so it was boring. 

LM is now about 1/4 of the way through Book 3 and cruising right along.  She has good addition and subtraction skills, geometry and beginning multiplication and division.  CPG is about 3/4 of the way through Book 2 and is working on the higher addition facts right now.  Both love Math and think of Shiller as one of their favorite subjects.

I have come to think of Shiller as very gentle learning - it seems scattered and "vague" - but then one day you realize that they can do some really advanced things, and it just sort of happened without you really realizing it.  By letting go of my own preconceived notions about what a math program should be, I have been able to just go along with the ride and that has been good for both of us.

Posted in Curriculum

I feel that before I move to much forward with this blog I should talk about the curriculum we use.  As I mentioned in my "First Post" there really are no Jewish homeschooling curriculums, so I have sort of a love-hate relationship with curriculae as I try to find one to meet our needs.

I am often asked by new homeschoolers, "how do you choose curriculum?"  I think this is something everyone struggles with.  My advice to a new homeschooler is find a educational philosophy/method that speaks to you.  Once you have that, you can develop a vision for what you want your homeschool to be like and then it become easier to homeschool.  For me, that book that spoke to me was "The Well Trained Mind" by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer.  As I read it, I knew that this was the education that I wanted my kids to have.  There has yet to be a homeschooling book that has spoken to me so clearly.  So, a classical education it is.

From there I read some Charlotte Mason and Montessori and decided to pick some from there as well.  I of course read others, but they just didn't speak to me in the same way.

So, as I look over our years of homeschooling, I realize that i have yet to use the same curriculum 2 years in a row.  It changes every single year, to meet my families changing needs.  But, my vision for what our homeschooling will look like and what I want for my children has not changed a bit.  I can look at the curriculum I chose every year and see how it was the right fit at that time and completely fed into my educational goals and the needs of my children.

Also, when I first started homeschooling, I disregarded anything that was Ch-tian as I just didn't want to deal with that quite yet, and narrowed my choices to secular curriculum.  Then 3 years ago, for preschool I decided on Sonlight.  I had a lot of misgivings, but it was perfect in every way except religion.  We had a fantastic year with it!!  I loved it, and loved that while we have different views on G-d, G-d was still the center and focus of the curriculum.  Since then I have moved towards more Ch-stian programs because I like having G-d as the center of our homeschool, and I really have no other way of making that happen.

This year though, I am stretching this to all new limits.  I am using Tapestry of Grace (TOG) - probably the first Jew to ever do so.

It all started at the homeschooling conference last Spring.  I had heard people speak about TOG, but just assumed it was something I wouldn't be interested in.  I passed by their booth though and decided to see what all the fuss was about.  I had no intention of switching.  So I sat down, pulled over a unit and started to look through it.  A woman can over very nicely and the conversation went like this:

Her:  May I help you?
Me: No, I'm OK.  I have friends who talk about this curriculum so I just wanted to look at it a little to see what it was about.  But I am really happy with what I am already doing, I really can't imagine changing..
Her: OK, that's fine.  Let me know if you need anything....

Five minutes later I am calling her back over to explain this curriculum to me as it looks like something I would really like!

Sometimes I think my main purpose on earth is to give HaShem someone to laugh at....

But really there was so much I liked about TOG:

I loved that it integrated subjects together much better than I had been doing.

I loved that we would spend half of this year doing World History and Half Doing American History

I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the writing program - as that was a main area that I felt we were lacking in.

it seemed to fix the main problems I had with the curriculum we were already using - even though I liked them a lot.  The main problem - it was VERY Ch-stian!  Maybe not a problem for some people, but a definite drawback for us.  But most of the books it used were secular and  I have become a good editor over the years.  I KNEW I could make this work.  So I am using Tapestry of Grace's Year 2 Program this year (we had done ancient history last year) and will be covering basically the fall of the Roman Empire through the American Revolution.

So, is it all that I expected?  Yes, in many ways.  There is a LOT I love about it.  All those things above that I thought I would like about it -well I absolutely love them.  I have also found the curriculum extremely easy to use.  People talk about a fog at first, but we had none of that.  We slipped very easily into the school year.  Honestly, this has probably been the easiest school year we have ever had (so far anyway!).  We have had more time for field trips and other activities and we are having a ton of fun too.  In general it has been a great experience.

All that being said, it does have a really big drawback.  The Ch-stian bias is so amazingly deep that it gets frustrating.  Fortunately only for me - as I edit it before the girls see it.  But still, I am REALLY hard to offend, and there are some things that I have found offensive.  I understand that all history has a bias, and I of course teach with one as well, but the bias here is so deep that it provides for a very limited worldview.

For example:
The Crusaders are treated as complete heroes.  The fact that they killed 1000's for pleasure before even reaching the Holy Land is not mentioned.
The Spanish Inquisition is not covered
This week we are covering a Russian Saint.  He is a saint because he "brought so many people to Ch-tianity".  How did he do that you ask? Well they do admit, it was through forced baptisms.
We covered religion in the Middle Ages one week.  That's fine and legitimate.  The curriculum said read everything on these pages (from an assigned book), except this one paragraph.  What was in that paragraph?  How Jews were persecuted during this time period.  We of course, read that paragraph.
They spend 4 weeks on the Reformation, one week on Renaissance artists...

And we are only on Week 4!  So I know that there is a lot more in there that I just haven't seen yet.  It definitely becomes a bit cumbersome at times.  And just for the record - I am not saying that they should be giving a Jewish bias either (although those are obviously things I pick up on most).  But being a bit more balanced would not be so bad either.

Obviously I am doing a lot to supplement it and adding to it, so that my children will have a broader world view.  My kids of course don't see all this.  They see that they are having a great school year and that school is a lot of fun!

So, we will just keep on moving on, wondering where HaShem will move me next curriculum wise - but sticking with TOG until he decides otherwise.