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    Joined: Mar 2008
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    Our unit studies are like Lorel's... More seat-of-your-pants tangents rather than anything planned in advance. Sometimes it's interest-led and sometimes just kismet -- we had a weekend in Gettysburg that turned into a big long email discussion between DS and my dad and has moved on from the Civil War to "necessity is the mother of invention" and the mixed bag that is technological advancement.

    I've not tried to link everything, but everything sort of comes up. They're currently on navigation and Bowditch and there's plenty of geometry inherent in that... and of course history and geography, and DS is reading Carry On Mr. Bowditch and thumbing through the American Practical Navigator. If I get around to recording it as schoolwork it will all go under history. We're still doing other math, and other science (and other history and literature for that matter) -- it's just a side thing that feeds his particular interest in the topic, and while I do make sure to give him time to pursue it, I'm not really involved beyond supplying the books wink

    We get a lot of mileage out of wikipedia and its recommended links.


    Erica
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    Kriston Offline OP
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    Hmmm...Interesting. So maybe now I'm overplanning, and my feeling that I was pretty much unprepared this past year may have been wrong, huh?

    Good input. I do tend to be a seat-of-the-pants sort of person. Even when I was teaching, I tended to lay out my syllabus only in the broadest terms and then follow good discussions as they arose. I've been feeling that as a homeschooler, I should be working against my natural (i.e. lazy) impulses more than I did last year. But maybe that's not so.

    Hmmm...

    So let me ask you this, Lorel and Erika (and anyone else, for that matter!): how focused are you on goals for learning? What I mean is, do you have non-content specific skills goals that you aim for your kids to achieve? Or are you more casual about it than that?

    I'm still trying to figure out just what makes the most sense for us. You'd think that after a year, I'd be more confident in my abilities. It seems that because I had no time to dither and worry last year, but had no choice but to dive right in to HSing, I apparently saved all my dithering and worrying up for this year! smile


    Kriston
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    Hi Kriston - I'm no authority by any means and my current goal is for DS to learn SOMETHING! We've been test driving homeschooling for about a week. But we are really doing a Unit Study on the civilization game! It involves marking up a world map with the actual locations that wonders exist, their real names, where world leaders were born, technologies were invented, etc. I also got a long, huge roll of paper to build a time line. I got a bunch of large sticky notes that we're assigning 1 per item we're researching, so if we need to juggle the timeline or research out of order we can fix the overall timeline at any point. This has already taken off to him diving into the Pyramids and finding out way more information than I would have thought (I was thinking 1 or 2 interesting facts, move onto the next thing). But whatever! It's a summer project (that we could probably spend the next 3 years on) and I'm flexible.

    Anyway - I have a feeling that we'll be doing a lot of this kind of thing. It does cover history, geography, reading, writing, etc. (We are also doing Singapore Math/working on multiplication tables via Timex Attack.) I doubt we'll spend much more than an hour a day on anything during the summer (unless he takes off on it like the Pyramid research). If it's a go in the fall, we'll dive in longer and more structured probably. I'd love to hear anything you come up with!

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    Kriston Offline OP
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    A Civ4 unit study? Oh, girlfriend, you're killin' me! I will get NOTHING WHATSOEVER done this summer if we go there! wink

    But seriously, what a great idea!


    Kriston
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    I like to look at the worldbook.com grade level standards, Rebecca Rupp's Home Learning Year by Year, and the What Your X Grader Needs to Know books every so often. These can alert me to possible holes and give me a reality check on how my kids are doing. I start at the usual age/grade level and go up from there until I have a short list of ideas. I may decide to do a quick unit on tally marks, or Roman Numerals, or American Tall Tales, if I see that we haven't covered something. I don't really do a lot of planning ahead though. As the kids get older, I sign them up for more distance learning and outside classes, but of course I don't have to plan these.


    Last edited by Lorel; 06/12/08 08:08 AM. Reason: typo
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    Kriston Offline OP
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    Thanks, Lorel. I've been using Rupp and Hirsch's books, and they definitely help with the hole-filling. But they're mostly content-based, I think. Less about skills.

    I think I'm not explaining myself well, partly because I don't really know what sorts of skills-based goals one should set for a 7yo...

    What I'm thinking of is the way that I set learning goals when I taught college writing. For example, one goal was "have students learn how to write an evaluative essay." Obviously that essay could have been written about virtually any subject. The content was irrelevent to the skill of evaluation.

    Do you have goals like that for a 7yo? I haven't really had anything like that yet, but I'm wondering if I should...


    Kriston
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    Kriston - a friend of mine who will be HSing officially this Fall, looked at her states standards (for current grade and one to two grades up) to get an idea of what needs to be covered. And there's no reason to limit yourself to your own state's standards, if they are very low, unless of course you'll be putting DS into PS some time soon.

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    Well... I look for an overall pattern of growth and don't get worried if my kids move ahead in different areas at different rates. I am way too lazy to set up detailed learning goals! My homeschool method is to support their passions and try to watch out for loose ends/holes/deficiencies as they reveal themselves. Then we work on those.

    DS 11 who never took a science class before this year just scored a 35 (out of a possible 36) on the practice ACT science section, so the approach seems to work for him. DD 8 likes it too, though she'd prefer it if she never had to do any math.

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    Kriston Offline OP
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    That's very reassuring, Lorel. As always, thank you for your good advice! laugh

    I should really know better than to read/hear about what other people are doing and allow their way of homeschooling to make me feel like I'm doing it wrong. I'm afraid that's what I've been doing lately. But supporting passions and trying to plug any gaps worked nicely this past year, so I don't know why I need to be more official (and less lazy!) this year. I think my insecurity is just showing. I just have to stop speaking to and reading the blogs of people who plan a whole year in advance...It's not my style! Nor is it probably very responsive to my DS's needs.

    Okay. I'm better now... Thanks for the sanity check! grin


    Kriston
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    A lot of states have their school achievement tests available to download. Texas has an on-line test & grading available. You could always find a state that has the full battery available for download, test your DS, and see if any area needs attention.

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