Pulling Together An Education On The Road

Ok, admittedly, we are not on the road but after so many weeks of being unsettled and travelling up and down the north and south of England, it is a luxury to be staying put for even four weeks. Four weeks is a long time.....enough time for some routine, enough to make plans for work, as such I am grabbing the opportunity with both hands and we're making every effort to get back into our work routine.

So what are we doing? Not having any of my usual curriculum, books and supplies has meant that I have had to improvise. This is the part in which I could wax lyrical about  the beauty of internet access! 

Below is a look at how we are doing school:

Devotions:

We are carrying on with our daily devotions and I am using the character studies from Confessions of a Homeschooler as the basis of our short morning devotions. It has been very helpful for all of us. These last two weeks, we have focused on Arguing (dealing with it rather than actually arguing!) and Peacemaking. We  have all found it very helpful and I have to say that I have noticed a calmer atmosphere at home which is a blessing!  Last week we memorised:

1 Peter 3:8 " Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another, be sympathetic, live as brothers, be compassionate and humble."

(I made up some silly actions to go with it as it helps my four year old remember it better and I have to say it works a treat!)

Some of my personal favourite verses were from Proverbs:

"A gentle answer turns away wrath, a harsh word stirs up anger." Proverbs 15:1 

"Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop a matter before a dispute breaks out." Proverbs 17:14

So the week was spent declaring to each other whenever an argument threatened to break out - " Don't breach the dam!" and "Be a Peacemaker!" And it worked (mostly) LOL.

Math:

I was using a combination of MEP math and Singapore Math before we moved but I don't have my workbooks with me and while MEP is available online - I didn't fancy  printing out the materials again and to be honest, it was too time-intensive during our period of family crisis. 


I discovered ConquerMath after joining some UK homeschooling forums. It is a programme that follows the British system right up to the GCSEs and you can buy the CD or subscribe for online access - no books to cart about. It works brilliantly for us as each subject starts with a video of a short 5-10 minute tutorial which is clear and concise afterwhich the kids go on to do a series of exercises online - all independently. Records are kept of their progress and they can go back anytime and do more exercises. This is such a help as it frees me up and they have someone else other than slow-at-math-mum teaching them.

English:

As my girls are at different grades - I am focusing on different things for them.

My elder daughter signed up to do two literary analysis courses with Brave Writer (The Hobbit and Anne Of Green Gables) over the last 4 months. I've said it before and I'll say it again - we love Brave Writer classes. She learnt a lot and enjoyed the classes immensely. She has really come along in terms of thinking about and analysing a text. She is now doing some work towards preparing for the IGCSEs with a UK based tutor called Catherine Mooney. She offers exam support, tutoring and marking of assignments. While I have no immediate plans for my 12 year old to take the IGCSEs just yet - she is certainly ready for the work. So we are using Catherine's course as a way to work through the concepts she will need to know for her understanding. It is written in an engaging and interesting way, so my daughter has been enjoying it so far. I am also thinking about using Susan Wise Bauer's Writing With Skill to work on her writing skills - I've downloaded some sample chapters for her to work through and we will see if it works out well. We are also continuing with copywork using Brave Writer's Arrows and Boomerang programmes as well as quotes I am pulling off the internet and books we are reading.

My younger daughter is working on building up fluency with her reading, writing and spelling. A friend recommended Units of Sound ( a programme designed to help dyslexic kids build a firm foundation in spelling, reading, memory and dictation). While my younger daughter is not diagnosed as dyslexic - she does have some issues. So in the period where I haven't had time to sit with her for spelling and copywork - I decided to give the programme a try. She says it is helpful especially the dictation and memory sections. We are also throwing in handwriting practice and more recently, we have started copywork again using our Arrows monthly publication.(I bought a number of different back issues at 50% off during an offer with the Homeschool Buyers Co-op - very happy about that!). She has recently started Catherine Mooney's Word Weavers course which should help her with establishing her grammar and writing skills. It comes with an audio CD which is an extra help. I also purchased in downloadable PDF format Susan Wise Bauer's Writing With Ease Level 3 as I think she could do with building up her narration and comprehension skills and with that book I don't have to think - I just print it out and go.

Outsourcing help and using online programmes or computer software has been the key to keeping homeschooling on the road during our time of uncertainty.

History:

As we are in the UK and all our Tapestry of Grace books and curriculum are in storage - I had to pull together a plan for our history studies. Being in England - studying British History seemed to make the most sense. 

As the spine of our lessons, I am using The Story of Britain by Patrick Dillon which I stumbled across in the bookshops. It is an engaging and well-written overview of the stories of british history written in chronological order for children - a little like a modern version of An Island Story by H.M. Marshall (also in storage!) I started reading this aloud and I also purchased from Audible the audio book of An Island Story. Both books give a helpful introduction into Britain's history. We have been reading it through but these few weeks we have gone back to the beginning to solidfy their understanding with more in-depth work.

I did a quick review of early British history including the Celts, Roman invasion, invasions of the Vikings (Danes), the Angles and the Saxons - ending with the death of Edward the Confessor. The girls made a notebooking page on an introduction to Ancient Britain. Click here for the Early British History notebooking page. 

Then we took up our story with the Battle of Hastings and conquest by Duke William of Normandy in 1066 - a crucial turning point for British History.

I found some excellent resources and made some notebook pages:

I used this powerpoint entitled "Who Should Be King?" from this useful website www.schoolhistory.co.uk to introduce the different claimants for the throne upon the death of Edward the Confessor. We then made a notebook page on Who Should Rule England?

  
The Battle of Hastings - I used this excellent website to tell the story of the battle using the Bayeux tapestry and this helpful powerpoint on The Battle of Hastings to go through the events of the battle. The BBC have produced wonderful hands-on resources on the Normans - using their lesson ideas,  I told the girls to pretend to be news journalists in the midst of the battle - one was reporting for the Normans and the other for the Anglo-Saxons. They had notes and then made short reports on the battle as it progressed. It was great fun role-playing newscasters and it really helped solidify their knowledge of the actual events of the battle. Finally, they finished off the lesson by making a newspaper front page on the battle. They used this template . It was definitely one of their favourite things to do.

Other resources:

Perfect for Co-ops - a Battle of Hastings game (the ultimate in hands-on learning) 

Reading list about the Normans from BBC 

Bayeux Tapestry activities from the BBC

Computer game recreating the Battle of Hastings

We shall be continuing a more in-depth look at British history as we go on and I will post more on the resources we use.

I have to mention our favourite show - CBBC's Horrible Histories which is available on Youtube. We all love it. It is very silly and funny (british humour) but it is amazing the little facts that stick through all the silliness. The girls have learnt the sequence of the Kings and Queens of England from this skit. Even my 4 year old is singing it! We love love love the Horrible Histories TV show. Go on Youtube and watch it - I guarantee you'll find it impossible to tear your kids or yourself away from watching.

The Kings and Queens of England Video

Another video on the War of The Roses (just for fun!)

And one more, just because I love it! About the Domesday book. Enjoy!

Science:

Science was hard for me to do consistently without my books.We read a variety science books picked up from the bookstore and started using a borrowed Apologia General Science book - however, I needed something they could work on independently and provided some hands-on work and experiments for them to do. I heard about Exploration Education's Physical Science programme from a friend's blog and liked the sound of it. It allows them to learn independently through interactive text on the computer and it comes with box of experiments and hands-on learning. The programme takes them step by step through a variety of projects such as building a car, a circuit board and a motor and using those things to carry out experiments. The experiments come in organised, well-labelled bags and it practically has everything you need. They managed 3 lessons to date and then got stalled because we didn't have a glue gun! That has now been ordered and we are looking forward to getting on with it! The girls like it and enjoy putting together the projects. We are also reading through The Story Book Of Science by Jean Henri Fabre which is a lovely read-aloud book that centres on the conversations between three children and their very knowledgeable uncle who takes them on journeys of discovery through story about nature and the world in general from ants milking "cows", spiders building suspension bridges, how we make cloth from wool, flax, hemp and cotton, volcanoes and earthquakes.

 Art Appreciation:

We are using The Story of the World's Greatest Paintings by Charlie Ayres which I picked up from the bookstore. It is an easy no-fuss way to accomplish art studies at the moment. It works well as a jumping off point for learning more about the artist and his work. I also use the SmartHistory videos for a more in-depth analysis of an artwork or artist. 

Poetry and memorisation:

I am trying to get back to encouraging the kids to memorise bible verses and poems. So we have a bible verse to learn each week and I am printing out poems for them to read and memorise once a week. I am also trying to incorporate poetry reading during our tea-times. Winter is a lovely time for hot chocolate, muffins and poetry!

Music Appreciation:


Another no-fuss solution to incorporating music appreciation in our week for now - I found this book My First Classical Music Book  which comes with a CD and an introduction to instruments and an orchestra. Although it is aimed more at my four-year old - we spend 15 minutes going through a chapter a day and listening (and dancing!) to the music. It is a nice way to keep up with some music appreciation without too much effort.  

Nature Studies:

You may have read in an earlier post that we do not enjoy the climate of the tropics at all and while we were living in Singapore - nature studies always had to be deliberately planned. It is so much more fun in temperate climates - you just want to be outdoors (admittedly less so in the winter). Nature studies have just happened naturally as the girls have taken an interest in the world outside. They have really got into birdwatching after we put a feeder in their grandparent's garden - they are taking pictures, using the field guides to identify the birds and checking out their tracks in the snow. Their experience was further enhanced when I bought this DVD - Beginning Watercolor Journalling. I bought it after reading about it in this inspiring post at Pondered in my heart. It has paid off and the girls have been completely inspired  by what they've watched and started to journal and paint more regularly. These are some early efforts. 

French:

I found a lovely lady who comes twice a week to teach all three kids. She does a great job engaging them using stories and fun games. I have asked her to start the girls on more serious grammar as they have progressed quite nicely. She recommended languages online as a good website for practice.

My Rosetta Stone software is in storage so I'm not getting much use out of that at the moment although I suspect that they are going to be able to progress much quicker with it after these lessons. I've heard about Galore Park French and have been looking into using this - possibly since we may not be in our current accomodation for long and will move to another part of the UK and lose our lovely french teacher!

PE:

Being active is a total challenge in winter and not being in a place for more than a month or two makes it hard to join any organised activities. So I am literally trying to make sure we get off our bottoms for 20 minutes each day at least to exercise . It's too cold to go outside for too long so I've devised indoor games (like an active Simon Says) or exercises like circuit training. We might start off with some stretches and then on some days, I'll have them pick 5 exercises from a pile of cards - it might say something like 10 sit ups, run up and down the stairs 2 times, 20 jumping jacks etc. On On other days I will lead the exercises myself. I'd love to play more silly run around games (we used to play dodge ball with a soft squishy ball and have obstacle course races in our old home) but there just isn't enough kid-friendly space for that kind of play indoors.

So that's us at the moment, for the next few weeks at least - who knows what the next month will bring for us but I'll take what we can get.

Using copywork to teach grammar and spelling

I could have entitled this post "oh, so that's how you do Copywork!" - Maybe I'm just slow on the uptake and this is going to be old news to most; it was, however, a bit of a revelation to me when I discovered how copywork could be used as an effective means to teach not just spelling but also grammar, punctuation and the literary elements of writing. I also picked up some great tips on how to make it work for a struggling reader and writer.

When I started out homeschooling, many of Charlotte Mason’s ideas and methods appealed to me. I was intrigued by the idea that children could learn how to spell and write beautifully and turn out language worthy of the greats if they spent time diligently copying wonderful literary prose and verses. It made sense and so that's what I did. I assigned my kids copywork featuring wise proverbs, witty sayings, inspirational passages and beautiful passages of prose - all in the hope that that they would absorb everything they needed for elegant writing and thought.

However, I was faced with boredom and resistance and I noticed their spelling wasn’t really improving. Self-doubt flooded in and I began to look around for other language programmes to fill the gap. Maybe I need a spelling programme? So I dutifully did my research and bought All About Spelling for my struggling reader and I bought Spelling Wisdom (the Charlotte Mason approach to spelling) for my strong reader, who was a careless speller.

What I hadn't really understood is that the exercise of copywork was not really something to just hand over to your child and let her get on with - not if you wanted her to get the full benefit of it. I learnt this while doing a Brave Writer course - "Foundations In Writing". It was here where I learnt how to use Copywork and dictation to teach grammar informally, how to teach them to notice and learn spelling and how to set my kids up for success in writing and spelling.

One of the key ideas was intentionality -  intentional copywork (knowing the goal you want to achieve - is it neat handwriting, accurate copying, grasping new spelling concepts or learn how to punctuate dialogue etc) and  intentional editing (modelling and teaching your kids how to go back to the passage and edit their own mistakes). 

The idea of "pre-teaching" was new to me – so now even before they start writing, I teach the passage depending on what I want to achieve. The pre-teaching helps the kids to pick up on important spelling, punctuation, literary elements and grammar.

This is what one week typically looks like for us - first I have them read the passage aloud to me and we discuss its meaning to ensure comprehension. Then depending on my aim for the day, I might draw their attention to a literary element such as a metaphor or hyperbole or some interesting phrasing (informally introducing and familiarising the child with the literary terms and elements so essential for good writing). I might then point out punctuation like semi colons, speech marks, commas, colons and explain their usage. I usually highlight words that I anticipate they may have problems with, underlining them - explaining spelling rules and pointing out spelling families and maybe have them practice spelling the words on a whiteboard. I sometimes have them practice breaking down and segmenting long difficult words. All this prepares them for success even before they start writing and goes a long way to alleviate stress and frustration. 

I don’t do all of these things in one day, I may teach a few of these and then have them copy the passage, and then return to the passage the next day and point out more things. Depending on time, we might then practice dictation which is a great way to solidify new spelling words. For my struggling writer, I may take more time over teaching spelling and segmenting words and even leave the copywork and dictation until the following days.

On the next day, we might review the difficult words and discuss grammer - nouns, pronouns, verbs etc. It is also a great way to introduce and discuss new vocabulary in context – I might help them notice vocabulary choices and ask why the author uses one word instead of another, perhaps asing my child to come up with an alternative word.

In my Brave Writer class, I learnt that if my child is struggling with spelling I need to teach her spelling and word study rules and help her recognise it in action when writing – this is achieved much more effectively within the context of reading and writing and hence copywork is ideal. We were told to get them to “spell with your ears and check with your eyes”. I found this very helpful and have made an effort  to teach my daughter to learn to connect sounds to letters to help strengthen her phonological processing skills. This strategy of encouraging them to sound out the words as they write them is useful - as they can hear what they are writing and if they have a tendency to drop letters from their words and make careless mistakes, it helps them to catch them more quickly.

Before they copy the passage, I have usually already highlighted or underlined key words so they can take note of them when they write. With each child, it is helpful to encourage them to progress from copying letter by letter (arduous), to whole words and then getting them to keep whole phrases in their heads and eventually whole sentences. It is an exercise in teaching them to copy accurately and efficiently, increasing speed and reducing any sense of tedium. This is an important skill – increasing the attention and memory skills – forcing them to interact with the content and attend to what they write.

The next step for them, after they have copied the passage, is the process of intentional editing. Initially I modeled how they should check each word, phrase and sentence and circle mistakes caught and then as they learnt, I let them edit their own work. They have their own coloured pen and will check their work, mark out and correct any mistakes. This increases their awareness of spelling and punctuation and their sense of ownership over their work. I reward them with 25 cents if they find any mistakes and if it is mistake-free they get 50 cents. The only time they don’t get anything is if I find a mistake after they have proof-read their own writing. The financial incentive is probably not necessary but it is a fun little motivation for them at the moment.

I never used to get around to dictation but I’ve appreciated how it helps build accuracy and reinforces lessons learnt in spelling and punctuation and so I try to make it a point to do it each week.

It is very helpfully explained here on the Brave Writer website:

Dictation enables children to discover how to write from memory properly spelled words, and how to assemble them on the page using proper punctuation. Because they are transcribing someone else’s words (not their own), they have a model to compare to. They can evaluate whether or not they have successfully reproduced the original. Happily, the challenge of accuracy is the primary task in copywork and dictation. As a result, no one’s feelings get hurt when you point out mistakes, unlike when you correct your child’s spelling in his or her original work. The focus is entirely on accurate reproduction. And that’s the beauty right there! Mechanics can be taught using beautiful literature more effectively than the wooden practice sentences in a workbook or attempting to edit a child’s freewrite. Dictation works because children keep spellings and punctuation in meaningful writing contexts and thereby reinforce the intuitive level of mechanics, rather than mere memorization of rules.

I have taken onboard many ideas learnt from Brave Writer such as mixing things up by doing a french dictation whereby you type out the passage leaving blank spaces for key words and phrases. Another thing you might try is reverse dictation where you type out the passage with mistakes in punctuation, lower case letters where there should be capitals and make spelling errrors and have them edit the passage and highlight the mistakes. All great ways to reinforce lessons learnt in context.

These few ideas have really transformed my approach to copywork and I can see that it is working on many levels for both my kids. I still have a lot to learn but I'm certainly pleased with the new tools I've got to work with to help teach my kids.

Some great resources:

Brave Writer - Arrows and Boomerang are a monthly resource which features passages from one classic novel which can be used for copywork and dictation - it supplies you with notes on important punctuation or spelling to note, or literary elements to consider and gives you ideas about what to discuss with your child in terms of language, writing style, vocabulary and so on. You download a sample from their site. I have not yet subscribed to it but downloaded back issues based on books we are currently reading. The cost effective way to get these issues is to subscribe for a year. It is pricey (in my opinion) but I do keep coming back to them. I really should take out a year's subscription - but I do like being able to choose the issues based on books we are reading already.

Wildflowers and Marbles - Jen's beautiful blog has a lot of wonderful information on the Charlotte Mason approach to Language Arts and she put together in printable document - a collection of articles from a series of posts she wrote on her blog. It is called Considered Language Arts which is an awesome resource that covers copywork, dictation, narration, grammar and composition. Reading this will really equip you to implement a Charlotte Mason approach to Language Arts. It is so clear and thoughtful. It really is an excellent resource. Many thanks to Jen!

These two books are my two reference books when I am trying to explain spelling and grammar rules.

Brave Writer Review

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.  ~William Wordsworth

I have an enthusiastic writer and a reluctant writer and I really want to encourage both of them in their individual learning journeys.

I chanced upon Brave Writer when I was in search of some inspiration to help me teach my kids how to write. What I found was not a curriculum but an approach to writing that started to help me formulate a clearer view of what I wanted for my kids.

This is what I hope for my kids:

1. I would like for them to love or at least, enjoy writing i.e. the process of putting their own creative ideas and thoughts down on paper and to have a desire to develop it and see it through into a finished piece they can be proud of.

2. I would aim for them to write well - not just grammatically accurate sentences but arguments that are logical, meaningful, well thought out and put together, as well as stories that are inspiring and beautiful, most importantly - wholly in their own voice.

Can a writing programme do that? Can I teach them that?

The Brave Writer approach is about teaching children to write as a writer would learn rather than learning the mechanics or formulae for good sentence structure or the three rules to writing a novel. It seems to me to be centred around helping kids to discover their voice, to enjoy the process of writing about the things they feel passionate or knowledgeable about.

Brave Writer is run by Julie Bogart, a homeschooler, writer and editor and she offers an online writing and language arts programme in the form of  "The Writers Jungle" and "Help for High School" Home Study courses, online classes, and a downloadable language arts programme that covers dictation, copywork and literary analysis. She also enables direct access to the herself and the other Brave Writer teachers through their forum and classes.

The centrepiece of the programme is "The Writers Jungle". It is a manual for parents. Julie offers to hold your hand on this writing journey through this book as well as through her forums. It provides a full explanation of her approach and then many examples, activities and exercises to try out on your kids. There are no lesson plans but it is structured in a way so that you and your kids go on a journey together - where parents learn to teach and encourage their kids to write without killing their passion.

On her website she writes "Once kids realize that paper is a safe place for thought exploration, they can learn how to craft their writing into satisfying finished products that use all kinds of writing devices. Writing becomes a safe playground instead of an intimidating foreign country. Brave Writer works through all the steps from thought-origination to published work of writing."

You can get a fuller description of The Writers Jungle and read the introduction and table of contents by clicking here.

I have signed up for numerous online classes and am considering more! They are not cheap but we've learnt so much and had lots of fun in these classes. I keep going back for more so it must be worth it. :-)

The kids and parents interact in a forum and the teacher will give exercises, assignments and feedback to each child's work. It is indispensable for the parent as we are being coached in the best way to help our budding writers.

The classes I've done to date:

Kidswrite basic- The Writers Jungle grew out of these classes (although the book contains much more). My eldest daughter and I did it together and we both enjoyed it very much. Our first assignment was to play a communication game which illustrated the importance of using the right words and images to convey what you see your mind and how to convey that to another person accurately. This was followed the Keen Observation exercise which forced us to take time to really observe an object of our choosing and take time to find words to describe it. We were encouraged to use all our senses - sight, smell, sounds, taste and touch. I really enjoyed this as it made us move beyond the basic descriptions of colour and shape and think about the object in unusual and creative ways. We then were given a  freewriting exercise which is designed to give children freedom to write without concern for spelling, punctuation or grammar. It is about writing without stopping for a specific period putting down whatever comes to mind based on a topic or suggestion. Armed with some of my daughter's freewriting we could then go through the process of drawing out the interesting things from the freewrite. We were modelled different techniques to use to help them expand and edit their work. Before long we came out with a finished piece of writing and I was given a model of how to coach my child to deliver a piece of writing that was theirs alone.

The other two classes we signed up for were the Grammar and Poetry class which we loved! My reluctant writer declared that she wanted to be a poet by the end of the poetry class. They got to try their hand at writing all styles of poetry from Haiku, Cinquains, Shape Poems and Free verse, as well as learn to analyse song lyrics, recognise various literary devices and generally meet with lots of different types of poetry. There was a lot of positive feedback from their teacher and they were able to showcase their poems on the forum and read the work of other kids too. 

Grammar was enjoyable too because our teacher deconstructed the whole idea and got us to play with words by getting us to collect all sorts of interesting words, and then we played with them, moved them around and got to see how they might work in different contexts, we built word sculptures, created our own words and phrases and started a dictionary of these words. We then went through an excercise of trying to categorise our collected words and began to understand how words can take on different functions in a sentence. Finally, we read and analysed "The Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll and then we were asked to write an original poem using our own nonsense words and using The Jabberwocky as a jumping off point. I think we all came out with a better sense of the value and function of a word when placed in different parts of a sentence. This was a grammar lesson unlike any other grammar lesson I had ever seen.

Brave Writer also provides a language arts programme that helps you to teach or at least to stay consistent with copywork, dictation and explain literary elements to your child. For example, Arrows is produced once a month and offers copywork and dictation based on a selected book. What I personally like about this is that Julie will also highlight literary elements in the passages and explain what makes the passage compelling or surprising. You can get a free sample here. I really like them but have to say I am reluctant to pay the monthly US$ 9.95 per month subscription fee. If you subscribe for a whole year - you pay a reduced rate of US$79. You can also purchase individual issues as well - check out the backlist here.

Finally, Julie talks about the Brave Writer lifestyle which is really about making writing, words and books a part of every day life - from watching and discussing movies together, reading aloud, copywork, making time one on one to talk to your kids and establishing  a regular tea time where you relax and read poetry and a good book together. I love tea-time. It was the first thing I implemented after discovering Brave Writer and it has become part of a precious family ritual.

How are my kids doing in writing? My eldest has had a very positive experience and she loves to write. My reluctant writer still does not enjoy the mechanics of writing or spelling but in the classes, I noticed she was much more willing to write because she was enjoying the creative process so much. I also know that there is a creative writer in there who just has to overcome her particular issues about the act of writing. 

Bravewriter is a wonderful programme and I certainly plan on signing up for more classes.