Curriculum, Part I

We're wrapping up the school year - just a few days left! - and already boxes are arriving with next year's books.  I'll be spending the summer going through them and getting ready for next year.  Starting this early might be overkill, but we'll have three kids doing school next year and I'd rather be familiar with the texts now so I can spend the school year worrying about logistics of getting everyone through the work!

I've had quite a few people ask about how we chose our curriculum for this year and what changes we're making for next year.  We were enrolled with Kolbe Academy this past year, and it was definitely a good decision to have a curriculum provider for our first year of homeschooling.  If I followed their plans, I knew I'd finish the year right on target, and that eased a lot of my newbie angst.  There's an overwhelming variety of texts and curricula out there, so mostly following Kolbe's suggestions helped to narrow down our path.  And, quite frankly, since at the beginning of the year we weren't sure we'd continue with homeschooling, we thought it was a good idea to have curriculum provided by an accredited school, hoping that would ease any potential transition back into traditional education.

We're in homeschool-land for the long haul, though, and that coupled with our growing experience in educating our children means that we're changing some things for the coming year.  We won't be using Kolbe, although we'll be borrowing  heavily from their methodology and using many of the same texts - I very much like their educational philosophy, but have quibbles with some of the details, which we'll be hopefully bypassing this year by branching out on our own.

With all that said, I'll take the next few posts to walk through our curriculum - what we're changing, what we're keeping the same, where each child is at, and why.  First - the things we loved:

Math - Singapore Math Series, Standards Edition

I'd read people singing the praises of the methodology and rigor of Singapore Math on the interwebz, and so I chose it over Kolbe's other offerings of MCP Math and Saxon Math.  Kolbe offers the Standards Edition, which is a bit more accelerated than the more popular US edition, and I really liked the progression.  Sprout is a strong student in math but would rush through his work and didn't have much confidence in his ability.  Singapore Math worked extremely well for him.  The pictorial explanations of concepts that moved into equations and then to word problems made sense to him, and his confidence went through the roof.  He now says that math is one of his favorite subjects.  He finished the second grade books this year, and will start the third grade ones in the fall.  Kolbe's plans moved a bit slowly for him at times, so we'll play it by ear next year and move as quickly as his understanding dictates.

SweetPea loves math, and we'd started the year with just printable worksheets and a preschool math book.  By winter it was clear she was ready for something more systematic, so I bought the Singapore Math kindergarten texts - and she's finished them!  I'll have her start the first grade books in the fall, and we'll go through them at her pace - she's a year "ahead" in math already.  SweetPotato started to dabble with school this spring, and we'll go through the first semester kindergarten books slowly over the course of the year.  They're right at her level, with counting practice and learning to write numbers.

Religion - Faith and Life Series

This is a really solid, no-frills series put out by Ignatius Press.  It's one of the few series out there with any real depth - most that we've seen are very light, "Jesus loves me!", picture-drawing, talking-about-feelings sorts of programs.  And there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not a complete religious education.  The Catholic Church teaches a lot of heady stuff, and it takes some knuckling down to really get to the bottom of it.  At the same time, kids need to develop a relationship with God, and the less catechetical texts are undoubtedly better for this.

We've chosen to enroll the kids in weekly religious education classes at our parish, and they use the Christ Our Life series - one of the more personal, prayer-based texts.  So since the kids are getting that focus in religious ed, we'e chosen to use the drier books at home.  They've worked well for Sprout, in part because he's fascinated with all things Church-related - he reads the Bible with a flashlight after lights-out.  The dry text doesn't bother him at all.  I did look around for a more approachable text - I worry that Faith and Life could be too dense for some - but ultimately didn't find anything I liked better.

Sprout used the second grade (First Communion prep) books this year, and will do the third grade books next year.  SweetPea used Kolbe's recommended kindergarten book, from the Image of God series (Faith and Life starts in first grade) this past year, and it was maybe too light for her - lots of coloring and matching.  It seems like a good preschool text, so SweetPotato will use it next year, and I've bought the kindergarten book from Loyola Press' Finding God series for SweetPea to use at home next year, before she starts the Faith and Life books.  We'll supplement all of it with learning about the saints and observing the liturgical seasons in our home, and hopefully combining it all together will result in a well-balanced curriculum.

Phonics - Pearson/Modern Curriculum Press Phonics

We've got a crew of avid readers so far, and so phonics is an "extra" in our curriculum, as it's really a learning-to-read subject, and something that a confident reader who reads a lot will pick up largely on their own.  This series is straightforward, colorful, inexpensive (!), and presented logically and well enough that the kids can usually work through it on their own without help.

Sprout started with the second grade book this year, but we'd dropped it entirely by Christmas, as he clearly didn't need it.  I've bought the third grade book "just in case" we hit any trouble areas, but I don't anticipate using it.  I had bought the kindergarten book for SweetPea this year but she'd already worked beyond it just with reading practice, so we've dipped in to Sprout's abandoned second grade book a bit, just for fun.  Next year we'll work through the first and some of the second grade book more systematically, and I'd guess that she'll be done with phonics at that point.  SweetPotato will use the kindergarten book, which focuses on letters and letter sounds and finishes with easy sight words.

Next up - I'll talk about some of the things we're changing for next year and why.  Stay tuned!

Speed Demons, and Smiles All Around

While it isn't important to us that the kids "play a sport," it is important that they find things they enjoy that keep them active and healthy.  SSHH has run two marathons and done a triathlon.  I'm an avid runner, qualifying for the Boston Marathon and logging marathons while pregnant with SweetPotato and Doodle.

That means that the kids have been around a lot of running, and when Sprout and SweetPea both voiced an interest, we signed them up for a local youth track program.  It's low-key, they have fun.  We'd support them in whatever sport they were interested in, but running is great - it's something that they can do throughout their lives, it can be done with a minimum of equipment and facilities, it's a sport where the achievements of those at  the back of the pack are celebrated as much as the race winners.  Runners are a uniquely supportive group - I've slowed at the end of a race to offer encouragement and food to a struggling runner, and I've had others do the same for me.  Everyone makes sure that everyone else finishes, and to finish is to win - while it isn't a team sport, it is a community sport, and that's a great environment for a kid to learn in.

Like homeschooling, it's also a sport with very few artificial divisions, and the chief barometer of growth is your own ability and performance yesterday.  Sprout ran his first 5k race with me last summer, and there were runners from six years old to eighty-six out on the course.  Experienced racers offered him high-fives as they passed him, and middle-aged women cheered him on as he passed them.  He didn't run against a group of eight year-old boys, he ran against himself and his own abilities and against a pretty fair cross-section of society.  That type of challenge, of knowing your own limits and pushing them, and of working alongside others as they push their own limits, different in degree but equally significant, seems to be a pretty fair approximation of life.

So today marked the end of spring track season, and Sprout and SweetPea had their first track meet.  They were bouncing around with nervous energy beforehand:

And they were so worried that they would be the only kids to come home without a ribbon.  The running itself was heartwarming to see - the kids cheered each other on loudly, and offered congratulations at every finish.  One of Matthew's friends sprinted alongside him when he got tired, yelling encouragement.  They helped each other out, and I didn't hear a single negative word all afternoon.  SweetPotato appointed herself Chief Cheerleader, and hollered herself hoarse when she wasn't busy picking flowers.

The kids came home with their share of ribbons and happy smiles.  Sprout, who enjoyed that first 5k race last summer, wants to run another, and SweetPotato wants to race with the grown-ups, too.  In the meantime - they're mighty proud of themselves.

Sex Ed

At one of his Cub Scout meetings this year, I overheard one of Sprout's den-mates remark that an eight year-old classmate was "sexy."  While we've always tried to be simple and up-front about bodies and how they work,, this comment threw SSHH and I into a minor tizzy as we realized that we'd soon be dealing with Sprout's nascent adulthood and all the rocky moral ground that brings with it.

And it was one of those times when I was really glad that our children are learning at home.  New curriculum standards include, in many places, sex ed starting as young as kindergarten.  It's just learning about bodies and self-care at that age, but even that engenders a whole lotta angst for many out there - myself included.

I don't think too many other groups have thought more about sex and sexuality than the Catholic Church.  And, contrary to what the mainstream media says, Catholicism is pretty darned positive and open about sex.  There's really only one thing they stand firm on: that sex makes babies, and that this simple fact must be respected.  Everything else is just an outgrowth of the procreative capacity of sex.

This is why seeing videos like this, which has been making the rounds of the Catholic mom blogosphere, go viral is so disheartening:

Seriously?  Aside from the fact that people apparently think in such a misogynistic, self-serving way, this video has a hundred thousand hits.  A lot of people love this stuff, this thinking is mainstream.  And that's just not a village that I want raising my child.

I don't want my children to grow up thinking that "sex without the babies" is the way it should be, because that's just a way of faking commitment without real self-giving.  I don't want them to think that the way a woman reaches her full potential is by chemically subjugating her body.  And this is being taught in schools, and while my children need to hear it, they need to hear from their parents more.

They need to hear about how a woman who is open to life can still have a fancy-schmanzy education and career and do everything she wants.  They need to hear that sometimes, in the midst of that education and career, she discovers that what she wants is to throw herself headlong into motherhood, and that's okay, too.  They need to see that a marriage that embraces life exemplifies respect and self-donative love, and that while there is exhaustion and frustration, there is also unbounded joy.  They need to be taught that there are ways of planning a family that are still respectful of a woman's body and that are compatible with the Church's view on sex.

And they need to see that all this is counter-cultural, and therefore that it is even more important that they fully, deeply understand what their faith teaches them about relationships and their bodies and that they are ready to go out into the world and live joyfully in defiance of people like Bedsider and his videos.  Women are far from united in thinking that chemical birth control represents a step forward for them - and our schools are teaching that it is a viable and even necessary answer to a whole host of societal problems, from teenage pregnancy to women's underrepresentation in the workforce.  But I don't buy it, and I don't want it taught to my children, either - and so we will learn about sex and bodies and life in the place that is the heart of it all, in the family, where all of those things find their fullest expression.

And the next time one of Sprout's friends calls a classmate "sexy" - I hope Sprout tells his friend to grow up, and to start treating women with the dignity and respect they deserve.

Osmosis

I think that one of the biggest benefits of homeschooling we've seen is that when the kids are not kept segregated in classrooms, they do a fantastic job of learning from each other.  We've seen so many times where SweetPea and SweetPotato have learned from something Sprout is doing, just by virtue of being there.  SweetPea has gotten to read along with us in several books, and SweetPotato is starting to pick up reading and writing on her own.

As part of our springtime study of plants and living things, Sprout learned the parts of a flower this week.  After he did a worksheet on them, I ventured out into the pouring rain to nab some flowers from our front yard so he could dissect them (he had to look that up in his dictionary!) and see if he could find all the parts he'd just learned about.

It was a great lesson for him, because each flower was slightly different from the others and from the picture he'd learned from.  But as he poked and cut at his flowers, a little voice piped up from behind his chair - "Whatcha doin'?"

And as she peeked over her brother's shoulder, she started inspecting all the flower bits and asking questions and by the end of it all, wound up with a pretty good bit of knowledge.  She's asked for her own flower dissection-session sometime, too.

I love those moments - not every day, but often enough to be noticeable - when learning is natural and relaxed and organic, and especially when the teaching and learning is among the kids themselves.  Sprout and SweetPotato both learned a lot about flowers that morning, but it was just two kids at the dining room table, chatting and having fun and making a bit of a mess.  And all I had to do, after a little help with the first flower, was stand back and watch.  Pretty cool.