Showing posts with label General Curriculum. Show all posts

Friday, August 8, 2014

Curriculum Considerations

Finally, a post! It's been all of 96 years (3+ months) since I've tended to this blog. I've been working on some things and learning new skills and moving, all of which have lead to me not only neglecting my blog, but my homeschool.
If you don't know, my daughter will be a second grader this year. During my little hiatus she's become very accustomed to watching tv and creating things from paper. She made a whole doll fashion line with paper and glue. She's been playing in water a lot lately, too. She even cut arm-wholes into a piece of fabric to make herself a wrap dress.
Before the school year begins, I hope to do a brief summary of summer. It will be very brief because we didn't do a lot.
Skipping to the nitty gritty. Our homeschool curriculum will be a bit of this a bit of that. I only plan on buying one complete commercial curriculum (math), but here is how we'll move forward. Click each subject to expand or contract.

Reading/ Language Arts

Feeling a bit conflicted about this one. Her reading comprehension level at this point is around the 6th grade level, but I don't want to skip because other things might suffer. For example, her fluency wouldn't be at 6th grade level. She has a great vocabulary, but as we move forward, the vocabulary that she has could be a hinderance to reading higher level books. She is an extremely accurate reader. As it stands, and it really may change, we're going to skip 2nd grade reading (for the most part) and try to work on areas that may be lacking, combining 3rd and 4th grade reading. We'll try to improve her reading level a bit by reading on level and beyond, often. We'll be using our vocabulary log and reading logs to help us along.
The main component to our ELA class will be Lucy Calkins' A Curricular Plan for the Reading Workshop, Grades 3 and 4. Most of the selections are things I already have on hand, given to me by other teachers who no longer needed the materials or bought from 2nd and Charles in Woodbridge, VA. 2nd and Charles was my favorite place to get second hand materials. I haven't checked, but I'm hoping and praying that there is one in ATL.

Reading Workshop: Lucy Calkins' A Curricular Plan for the Reading Workshop, Grades 3 and 4; Poems, Old and New; Lots of books below, on, and beyond her reading level.
Fluency: Building Frequency, grades 2-5; Fluency Practice, 3rd grade; Teaching the Brain to Read: Strategies for Improving Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension
Grammar, Capitalization, and Punctuation: Free online McGraw Hill Treasures Grammar and Writing, grades 2 and 3; Capitalization, Punctuation, and Spelling, grades 2 &3, by Karen Kallaher; Grammar: Parts of Speech, 3rd grade; Punctuation in Practice, 3rd grad; My own approximation of Shurley English- I pulled the parent guide from offline and that should be good enough for what we need.
Comprehension: Teaching Reading Strategies in the Primary Grades; Short Reading Passages with Graphic Organizers, grades 2 & 3; Comprehension Cliffhangers: Mysteries: 15 Suspenseful Stories That Guide Students to Infer, Visualize, and Summarize to Predict the Ending of Each Story; Reading Comprehension, 4th grade
Vocabulary: Vocabulary Building with Antonyms, Synonyms, Homophones, and Homographs; Vocabulary Expanders, 3rd Grade; Word Study Learning Packs: 15 Reproducible Learning Charts with Easy Lessons and Activity Sheets to Build Vocabulary; Vocabulary words encountered through our reading.
Word Study/ Spelling: Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction; Words Their Way: Word Sorts for Within Word Pattern Spellers; Words Their Way Word Sorts for Syllables and Affixes Spellers; Building Spelling Skills, Workbooks for grades 2, 3, and 4
Writing: A Curricular Plan for the Writing Workshop, 2nd and 3rd grades

Math

RightStart Math Level C: Here's a sample: Level C Sample.
Looking at the objectives (you can see them in the sample), I'm super excited about the skills we'll acquire. People say that this is equivalent to 3rd grade math. I think it's more like the end of 2nd and complete third, but who really knows. I'm super excited.; We'll supplement with adaptedmind.com

Science

We will also continue with SCRATCH to help her to think like a coder. Once a month we will be going to CoderDojo. Hopefully, she can be a part of the robotics classes, there. If not we'll take the SCRATCH classes. We'll also work on Khan Academy's javascript course, online. I'm not crazy about this one because it's not bare javascript. Once finished, she won't be able to just sit and type and have something without the Processing JS library. I feel the same way about some of the robotics kits. If a child doesn't have a kit, would they be able to make the robots? The kits are valuable. We'll try that approach through classes, but we'll also do our own robotics work without the aid of a kit.
Again, we are trying to combine grades 2 and 3. We will be using GA's curriculum map which has 6 units/ year. For both years, that makes 12 units. We'll do 8 units and will try to cover the other four by linking them to our units or just through our reading. Of course as we get closer, we will find books to support our efforts. Below are our Science units with some of the supports we'll use. We will also continue with SCRATCH to help her to think like a coder. Once a month we will be going to CoderDojo. Hopefully, she can be a part of the robotics classes, there. If not we'll take the SCRATCH classes there. We'll also work on Khan Academy's javascript course, online. I'm not crazy about this one because it's not bare javascript. Once finished, she won't be able to just sit and type and have something without the Processing JS library. I feel the same way about some of the robotics kits. If a child doesn't have a kit, would they be able to make the robots? The kits are valuable. We'll try that approach through classes, but we'll also do our own robotics work without the aid of a kit.

Properties of Matter: Melecularium Teacher's Resource; Ms. Nucleus
Energy: Energy for Every Kid: Easy Activities that Make Learning Fun; Ms. Nucleus
Pushes & Pulls: Ms. Nucleus
Night Sky: Digitalis Education
Life Cyles/ Habitats: Ms. Nucleus
Rocks, Soils, & Fossiles: Ms. Nucleus
Pollution & Conservation: Ms. Nucleus
Magnets: Magnets: Mind-boggling Experiments You Can Turn Into Science Fair Projects

Social Studies

In GA, K-5 Social Studies basically covers American History, along with some civics. Second grade is all about GA, and 3rd grade social studies deals with the setting up of the American government along with the rights and freedoms supposedly given to Americans through democracy. I am going to use GA's curriculum materials found here supplemented with books and maps. I may try to organize both years chronologically, together, or I may just do 3rd grade curriculum first and then come back to the 2nd grade materials. We will definitely supplement with Lessons from History and use iOS apps and Globalmania for geography.

Spanish

We only made it through 3 lessons of Pimsleur Spanish in our supplemental homeschool last year. It's not super exciting to do, but she sits and repeats. It's plenty of repetition, and even with 3 lessons and very little effort, I'm pretty impressed with what she can do. Click here for the results of lesson 1. We divide each lesson into about 3 to 4 sessions.

Art

Units for each element of art (internet research).
Art based projects (internet research).
Drawing course (from somewher off the internet).

Physical Education

Either softball or soccer with rec league.
Ballet/ Tap.
Youtube Yoga
Introduction to meditation.

Music

Music Theory Objectives
Baroque music and composers (will probably use The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians)
Musical Traditions of the Manding (internet resources)
Just singing and playing fun/ Times to enjoy music.
Homeschool performances.
Sight Sing-a-Song
Kodaly Today

Friday, March 21, 2014

Streamline Frustration While Developing and Implementing Your Own Curriculum

This blog could easily be called The Real Gangsters of Homeschooling. Sometimes its a fight just to figure out what to teach. With all the many options from which to choose and all the competing viewpoints, it all can become a blur. Not to mention you still have to design, plan, and implement lessons without knowing what your child's response will be. It can all be very intimidating, but before you go spend you lottery earnings or your retirement savings on curriculum materials, check out some of these tips on developing and implementing your very own curriculum.

Run To The Fight, Pick A Side, And Join In

Developing your educational philosophy can be a fight that you shouldn't avoid. My advice for developing a curriculum is to run to the fight and by that I mean run to the controversies. Find all the controversies and disagreements you can find about how something should be taught. My go to example of course is sight words vs. phonics, or better yet, common core vs. the no-name curriculum from before. Based on your own research, pick a side and start fighting. Get dirty. Go hard for what you believe. Those controversies can point you to what activities to avoid and can guard you when you're developing what it is that you will do. Research, pick, a side. Test your research. Get feedback from your child. How does your child respond to your educational approach/ philosophy? Does it match how he learns. If not, it's cool. Change your mind and jump ship. Go hard for something else.

Steal or Hijack

When it comes to developing your own curriculum, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Every possible way to teach 2 + 2 is 4 has probably already surfaced, and if for some reason, you're going to come up with a new way to teach material, looking at the creativity of others could be helpful in getting your juices flowing. Don't be afraid to know your state's standards and even try to put your hands on curriculum maps. Do the same for commercial curriculums. You don't need to purchase them, per se, but look for a table of contents online, or unit tests. This can give you some clues to or even the actual scope and sequence for each curriculum. You don't have to copy these or even use them for your curriculum, but use the knowledge gained from what others are doing to develop your own materials. Then implement, test, regroup, relearn, and reimplement.

Before you decide on what to teach in reading (maybe math,too), it may be necessary to check to see where your child is. There are plenty of commercial (some are expensive) products to help you gather information about your child's reading level. You probably can find Fountas and Pinnell testing information in your local library, or try readinga-z.com. There you can find instructions for checking your child's reading level. This access to their online program is about $79/ year, but they offer a 7 day free trial, where you can download daily from their site. They also offer free 7-day memberships during teacher appreciation week and again just before school starts in the fall. For early readers, I really did love readinga-z. I never bought the program. Those free times have been enough for us, but for more than one child or for classrooms and coops, the price would be well worth it.

I would suggest if that you have a very young reader that you start from the beginning with phonics. Lots of times children who learn to read early basically from memorizing sight words, generally are fluent readers sooner, but also are less accurate than students who learn using phonics. I've asked so many 4 year olds to come read to me and their fluency is great and they gather the correct meaning, but they aren't accurate readers. Without proper guidance this could become a problem later.

Once you've decided what to teach and in what order, google and pinterest (yes, these are verbs now) away for teaching ideas and activities.

To help with avoiding frustration:

Confer With Your Accomplices

Try to include a morning meeting or circle time with your children before you jump into learning. Sing plenty of silly songs (you can make up your own) and/ or include a movement component. For the little ones you could do weather and calendar. Whatever traditions you come up with try to include a talk back time. Now you might want to guard your talk back time because your circle time can get away from you, and sometimes that will be OK, but keep the circle times short- generally, 20 mins tops. A little too short is better than a little too long. Also, once you've gone through it a couple of times, allow the children to run it. During this time you can go over what it is you plan on doing for the day.

Even now with my 7 year old, if I gather that she's not ready for learning, we do a circle time, or cut away from our work just to sing and/ or touch base. This works amazingly well to get her back on track.
Before each new subject or activity, let them know what it is you're hoping to accomplish and why and how. Once you've completed your lesson or activity, assess immediately to see if they got it. Ask for feedback. How do they feel about what they learned and how they learned it? How would they have gone about getting the lesson across? Your child may be able to articulate a method that works, or they may be aggravated that you're asking so many questions. Either way is fine.

Provide Visuals

For the very young? Provide visuals for everything, or almost everything. Try to incorporate something visual at every lesson. For example, your whole lesson might be a National Geographic or YouTube video, or if you're singing a counting song, make a visual representation of what you're singing. When my child was young, our visual representation was mostly magnet board stories. I used them a lot in my music class in public schools, too. It just really adds depth to what you're doing and helps to keep the attention of the little ones.

For older students, this might look different, though. During the time I taught at a school that didn't have smartboards, I invested in an old projector from ebay. You don't have to project things, but plan ahead and use powerpoint or even free smartboard software to add just the right visual impact.

For my home I knew that I wanted a magnetic white board, but those were entirely too expensive, but I figured out a workaround. Be creative and try to find ways to make your homeschool environment a stimulating one.

Cross Reference, Cross Reference, Cross Reference

Use the theory of multiple intelligences to your advantage. Allow and plan for ideas and concepts to show up across subjects. When I was running my phonemic awareness program, I worked on isolated letter sounds. I did one letter per every couple of days. So whatever that letter was, using lots of visuals, we would go over its sound and words that either began with and/or ended with those sounds. Let's say that the letter was I, for a couple of days my child went over the sounds in circle time, again in read aloud time when we included My 'I' Book from First Steps in Reading, again during our phonics/ reading time when I found or either made I books for us to go through, again in handwriting when the same letter was the focus, and again in art when we made inchworms out of pipe cleaners, yet again in Science when observing insects/inchworms, and lastly in music when we sang made up songs about icky insects. This is easily accomplished with theme based learning, but can be done without any theme at all.

Keep It Moving

Find creative ways to incorporate movement into your learning. The movements don't even have to be related to the learning. You can try jogging in place or doing jumping jacks in between subjects, or just playing a song and letting your child jump around after something strenuous. I used to make up games where the idea is that you do something on one side of the room and then run to do something else on the other side. You can set up practice stations outside and have your child run through an obstacle course of sorts where the student would have to show some kind academic knowledge or perform a skill before running to the next station. Time it and encourage your little one to try to beat it the next day.

Take Instruction

Let your students show you what they know. Every so often, my daughter likes to play the teacher. I let her teach me the things we just learned. I ask plenty of questions, sneakily accessing any information learned. Allow for talk back times when students can teach the teacher.

Wear Your "Colors" with Pride

Congratulations, we are all well on our way to becoming a part of The Real Gangsters of Homeschooling. Ooh- Ooh(please, substitute whatever call you wish)!!! If you use any of these tips, let me know how it works out. Want to add more tips? Leave them in the comment box. Feel free to ask any questions and make any statements, and me? I don't even mind if you disagree. Leave that, too. Thanks for reading. All the Real Gangstas of Homeschooling- STAND UP!!!