I loved the idea of Big History, but I hated the implementation. The main site for educators is clearly designed for classroom. The Kahn Academy adaptation was a little better, but not much. The site (and series) for the general public barely skims the surface and does so in a frenetic manner.
I don't know what made me think that all of a sudden short little videos and classroom style activities would work for us. I suppose I wanted it to work because I loved the idea of telling the history of the universe. But I don't think a holistic home learner can easily get on board with quick and slick videos for learning. Where it the depth? Maybe it works with students who have never been taught to pay attention to anything for more than five minutes. The BHP seems to try to cram as much information as they can into the students as quickly as possible.
Deciding to toss the BHP led me to rethink what we were doing in every area, even though we had just started our home learning year. I had wanted to bring in literature that would tie to the BHP, but no longer needed to do that. Papa expressed a desire that the boys continue with classic literature and that we make an effort to weed out the less-than-stellar books that they love to read over and over again.
I didn't want to do Waldorf style main lessons; now that we are in the high school years I want less spoon feeding and more discussion. And then it hit me ... Charlotte Mason.
Charlotte Mason education has appealed to me all along, but in the younger years I preferred Enki and Waldorf. In the light of our changes, however, I decided to take a look at CM high school and liked what I was finding. It includes many subjects so that the student has the opportunity to be well-rounded. The studies are gentle, but in-depth.
We also decided, last minute, to do lab biology this year. We had thought to put it off one year, thinking that T might be fine with two years of lab science before he graduates, but moving it to this year keep alive the possibly that J can graduate early and still have three years of lab science.
(By the end of J's junior year he will have completed algebra, geometry, algebra 2, trigonometry and either precalculus or calculus, as well as biology, chemistry, and physics, and all his other subject learning will far surpass anything he would learn in high school so will we decide at that point if his maturity is such that he would benefit from moving on the college.)
I spent a week scrambling to create a lesson plan for the year. Since I have one child in grade 9 and one in grade 10 (although J child did grade 9 coursework last year) I leaned heavily on the Ambleside Online curriculum plan for completing grades 9 - 11 in two years. I took out the books that didn't fit in with our worldview (I see no reason to fear teaching secular history and science) and added in more US history, taking out the British history (it will get incorporated into world history). We ordered books (both paper and kindle) as well as a great microscope and a lab kit to go with the biology text we chose (CK12).
It is amazing to me how well CM education fits in with what I want for my boys in their high school years. I want them to read high quality books, both fiction and nonfiction, and to be able to discuss them orally and on paper. I want them to be well-grounded in Shakespeare just as much as I want them to have a firm grasp on mathematics and science. I want to continue with subjects such as nature study, music appreciation, and the like (those subjects that have been pushed out of public schools).
Today was our first day, and we traditionally have great first days, but today felt different; it was better than great. Compared to last year I felt more engaged as the boys' teacher. Our day looked like this:
- Wake up, care for dogs, eat breakfast, do chores.
- Have second breakfast (my boys always have their breakfast in two parts, a fruit smoothie early and then a whole grain based food an hour or two later) and discuss together how our day will look.
- First hour: assigned reading in biology, geography, and government
- Second hour: geometry. We are also supposed to do a short penmanship/copywork lesson during this time, but with a child in a cast it will be postponed for another month.
- Third hour: This was supposed to be our time for current events, map work, and time line work; however, I had forgotten about an orthodontist appointment so we'll get it started next week. I didn't have a newspaper or map at hand anyway.
- Fourth Hour: Spanish and written narrations (switching off between rooms/computers)
- Lunch
- Music practice for 45 minutes
- Free time
- PE: weekly recovery road ride for 90 minutes
- Late dinner
- Reading and bedtime
Amazingly, that is 6 hours and 15 minutes of homeschool work, but it didn't feel like it. The boys will have between 5.25 - 6.25 hours of homeschool work on weekdays and an additional long PE session on Sundays. It seems like a lot, but this is high school. They work the first hour independently while I accomplish morning chores (baking bread, laundry, etc.) and then I spend the next two hours actively engaged with them. For the final morning hour I prepare our main meal while providing support as necessary.
I am taking the geometry with the boys as I feel that I didn't learn it as well as I could have when I was in high school. I am also doing their readings with them, excepting biology; Papa is teaching them biology and I only assign the reading and any narrations I want to pull from it. I plan to catch up to where they are in Spanish and continue forward with them; it should be easy as I did take three years of Spanish and did rather well in it. I could simply say that I have already learned these things and to step away, but I think that being engaged in what they are doing is the key to them enjoying it.
I'll check back in soon with an update on how it is going!
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