I need plans. I feel disorganized. I really just wanted to find an already made curriculum that fit for us, but haven't had any luck. Not much is geared for such a young audience that follows this specific Classical Conversation Cycle 3 timeline. I figure if I write my plans here, I can access them more quickly and from anywhere, and I can help anyone else with 4 to 6 year olds going through Classical Conversations. I didn't want that many hands-on activities anyway. We're not ready to do written narrations, or worksheets/lapbooks of any kind. We truly don't have enough time to do all I want to do and mostly, Bear retains exceptionally well when she hears stories of people and when she reads herself the books. Thus, many of the books listed are level 3 and 4 readers because Bear is already comfortably reading these and I am able to start transitioning her to reading for information. I still read these aloud to her, but often I find her rereading the stories to herself. We'll be going through Cycle 3 again when Bear is 7 and 10 so she will get many chances to go deeper with American History and use more literary works. We read plenty of good literature about early US history. I am just finding it much harder to find such works that are suitable for a 4 year old for more modern US history.
I started going through the library catalog and seeing which books on my list were available there. You'll see my note to myself (library) next to some books, but I haven't gone through all of them. Honestly, at this time, I feel just buying them, though it is spending money, would allow me to slip the books into a file folder system to allow me to be even more organized this second semester. I felt completely disorganized and not prepared all through the Fall. Anything that helps me be more organized is money well-spent. Also, the books would serve me three more times through the cycles as stepping stones to more challenging and meaty books. Still not completely decided.
January 9th Week 13: Tell Me about the 14th Amendment (week 12 was about the end of the Civil War so we've already read plenty about slavery. I want to focus more on life of the African Americans after the war and before the Civil Rights movement.)
- read Rosetta, Rosetta, Sit by Me! and White Socks Only
(library)
- read Freedom Summer
(library)
- read An Age of Extremes 1880 - 1917
(library - in adult department so may be just for me to read and then weave into stories for Bear)
- inventions/age of industrialization: Eat My Dust! Henry Ford's First Race
,
Listen Up! Alexander Graham Bell's Talking Machine, First Flight: The Story of Rome Tate and the Wright Brothers
, Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares
(all are readers)
- read The Legend of the Teddy Bear
- read You're on your way, Teddy Roosevelt
(library)
January 30th Week 16 Tell me about immigrants coming to America
- read The Long Way to a New Land
and sequel The Long Way Westward
- read If your Name was Changed at Ellis Island
(library)
Not really seeing much for World War 1. The book I have is more of an after the war one about the Depression. If anyone has ideas, I'd appreciate it in a comment! Thanks.
- read Dust for Dinner
print out the Cher Ami coloring book and do some of those pages.
February 13th Week 18: Tell me about Pearl Harbor (World War 2)
I will have to preview these books. I want to shelter Bear from the horror of war. I searched on Amazon for titles that seemed to talk about what happened in a gentle way. There's no way I can know for certain without reading them first. If anyone has read these and thinks I shouldn't read them to Bear, please let me know.
Always Remember Me
One Splendid Tree
One Thousand Paper Cranes
I will Come Back for You
(This last one seems quite appropriate as it is listed for ages 5 and up and the preview I could read seemed gentle.)
February 20th Week 19: Tell me about NATO
??? Mmmm. Communism for a 4 year old? Anyone?
February 27th Week 20: Tell Me about Brown v. Board of Education
- read Rosa Parks book I am Rosa Parks
- read about heroes of the Civil Rights Movement
, The Story of Rosa Parks
, A Picture Book of Rosa Parks
Week 22: Tell me about September 11, 2001
- revisit the book The Man who Walked Between the Towers
- Fireboat: The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Harvey
- The Little Chapel That Stood
Week 23: Tell me the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution
- some lesson plans on the constitution
Now exhausted from gathering all this information in one sitting. Plan on finding appropriate book about the branches of government and the passing of a bill to go with this week.
Next up...planning Science.
Is this what they require from Classical Conversations? We were thinking of joining but K had allergies to the church building. They might move to a new building so we are considering next year. But it seems like so much work. I am not as organized as you so all this would be tremendously overwhelming for me!
ReplyDeleteClassical Conversations can be overwhelming. You have 24 bits of information to memorize for each of history, science, math, English grammar, Geography, and Latin. At 4, you aren't expected to memorize ALL of it. You revisit those pegs every three years, so by the time you are 10, you may want to try for Memory Master, in which you do memorize ALL of it. Bear has memorized all the history and geography and the Bible verse, but that is all we are asking from her this year. The hard part is that it spans too much in one year for us to really delve into a subject. For example, if I want to use the Sonlight curriculum next year, it spends one whole year on Ancient Egypt and Greece, while CC will cover that in the first two weeks of memory work. That said, Classical Conversations isn't so much a curriculum as a way of learning in the Foundations years. It supplies all the pegs of information that you want a child to memorize so that when they get to the next plane of development, they will be able to start making connections between the pegs or diagramming sentences without worrying about what a noun is or the parts of speech, etc. It's tedious to try to formulate a plan to go with the memory work, but if I keep in mind the end goal/product of that kind of education, it makes me want to persevere. For Cycle 1 next year, I am just going to use the Sonlight curriculum (Core B - just the history component). I'm too tired to try to do this again next year.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like I was right not joining one because I don't think it would have been a good fit for us.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to think of a good book for WW2, the Dear America books have some good ones, those are chapter books. I know there is at least one WW2 one, but it might be a longer book than you're wanting to try.
Thanks for the detailed feedback. The more I think about it, it may not be right for us. I was pretty good at memorizing facts when I was a kid but ask me now and I can only remember that I had known it at one time in my life. K is a holistic learner and needs to see the big picture before learning the parts. The Classical Conversations seems to go in the opposite direction. The Sonlight curriculum sounds better in terms of taking time to really learn the material. I think it would be more enjoyable as well. With that said, I need to ask someone to show me their Sonlight curriculum to see what it's like. It's such a huge purchase without knowing all the details. I've purchased things in the past with much regret. I don't want to make that mistake again.
ReplyDeleteThanks again for sharing!
Are you going to do CC next year? I just went to the info. session and now I'm considering it again. I feel like I have a better idea of it. If I do, I will probably work as a tutor at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing that if you take it simply as memory work (without a lot of meat) then it shouldn't be too bad, especially if the 4-6 year olds aren't required to memorize. It's more like exposure or introduction. I wouldn't mind that. Also, if the memory work is set to music, then it can be fun. I'm hoping to do CC with the intention of building a timeline of history as a general guideline. Then, can follow SOTW and spend as much time as needed to dig in. What do you think of this idea? I would love to hear your perspective since you've been through it already. I would like a bit of structure but not the stress.
We almost chose to stop CC, but love our community so much that we decided to keep going. I am not going to use Sonlight though as I stated in an earlier comment. We've decided to go through SOTW as well. We're not going to focus too much on memorization. One thing you may want to look at though is the Foundations guide thoroughly to see the memory work for history next year; it goes by regions and is not as much chronological like it was this year for American history. It still advances through time, but not linearly through one region. Does that make sense. At first, I was very much bothered by this, but now, I am of the mind frame that we will just focus on SOTW and have that be our chronology, while CC will give us pegs of info that we will get to eventually, even if it isn't this year. Hope that makes sense. I'll be posting my "what we are using next year" post soon. Although we are schooling year round, so we may actually start some of that earlier.
ReplyDeleteThat makes sense. I've been told that SOTW skips around too but in the audio, Jim Weiss gives the parents the dates to note. I think I will use that to make our own timeline and then use some of the CC cards to hang them as pegs. This is when it would be nice to have a large classroom. I like the fact that we will be starting with cycle 1 with CC and they will be getting new cards with geography printed on the back. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I'm interested to see your plans for next year.
ReplyDeleteIf you are doing CC next year, I was wondering if you would like to research books together? Having another person do it at the same time would motivate me to get it done. Ideally, I would like to start research now for August and have the books reserved at the library.
ReplyDeleteSorry to go back and forth but I don't think CC is right for us after doing more research. Same reasons as I've mentioned before...K is a holistic learner and memorizing random facts doesn't appeal to either of us.
ReplyDeleteNot a problem. We actually almost didn't continue, and the only reason we are is that we made such good friends there and aren't ready to leave them. We are going to do our own thing for school at home and not worry if we stay in line with CC as I did this past year. We'll play the music in the car but will focus on SOTW for history and BFSU for science and not worry if it matches up or not.
ReplyDeleteForgot to add: CC can be holistic if you do try to match up the weeks at home, but then, there is still the problem of the fast pace that one has to fly through the material to stay matched up. It's tiring to say the least. You could still do parts of CC (ie. pick the memory work that fits into what you are learning and do that as memory work).
ReplyDeleteAre you going to start SOTW Vol. 1 this year? I have found a video links for SOTW Vol. 2 that another homeschooling mom put together but none for Vol. 1. I'm thinking of starting one. Would you be interested in doing it together? I'm planning to begin in June and cover it until May 2013, totally 42 weeks spread. I found a video for the first chapter so far. But I'll be planning 4 chapters at a time or when I can get to them. It would be helpful to have a second person on board to get another opinion on the videos selected.
ReplyDeleteYes, we are doing SOTW 1. I was going to start it later, like in August, but can still go ahead and plan with you. What is the link to the video links you mentioned for SOTW 2 and the one you found for SOTW 1? I am not sure that I understand what you mean. There are videos that correlate to the chapters? You can email me at thegirlwhopaintedtrees at gmail dot com. I think it will be easier to have conversations this way.
ReplyDelete