Now that we are back to our full schedule this week I have more time to continue my self-imposed evaluation of the new school year. This is the time when we homeschoolers decide what to ditch and what to stick with, right? Tell me I'm not the only one . . .
I chose Mother of Divine Grace because I felt ready to try a pre-planned curriculum again and would really like a program we can stick with through high school. I also wanted to free up some brain space and free up my evenings that I used to spend planning and researching on the computer. I have certainly needed extra sleep the last four months, so I think this was a good choice!
I am mostly happy with our choice. Right now we are liking about half the subjects in the 4th grade MODG curriculum and are assessing the need to switch books in other subjects. The subjects that are working well for us are religion, poetry, history, science, drawing and Latin. The subjects I have qualms about are math, spelling, phonics and geography.
Back to Dancer. If you have gleaned anything about her from my blog you probably know that she loves ballet (even though she is not currently enrolled), is coming along well on the violin and is my sweet, melancholic deep-thinker and feeler. She is developing a sweet gentle nature after a bout with an eldest sister "bossy boiler" phase. She picks up a lot from me when it comes to emotional reactions and anger, unfortunately. Our personalities are so much alike that that we often clash, but over time we seem to becoming closer and more understanding of one another. Dancer is the one who loves to cuddle in bed the longest in the morning and the longest at night. She loves one-on-one time with mom or dad and is learning to graciously but slowly put some ways of childhood behind her such as jealousy and envy. Lately she has been a stellar big sister to Sunshine and Dino, even designing a reward chart for them. Last night I overheard her say, "Play Memory with me and you get one mark. If you win you get two marks. When you get ten marks we will do the pinata!" Evidently she made a pinata out of a shoebox and extra Halloween candy. Unbeknownst to me!
As for school - here are the subjects that are going well ~
Religion: This would include Baltimore Catechism memorization, Bible stories followed by narration and copy work, and lives of the saints. This is all going well. As I have said before, I am amazed at how much a child can memorize in just five minutes a day. Even though the children are already familiar with most of the content, memorization solidifies their understanding and gives them words to use in family discussions. Hopefully this will be a great foundation for apologetics later in life. I am excited to facilitate this treasure, being of a CCD generation that received a much lighter religious education.
Poetry: Although poetry memorization is not new to her (I was inspired some years ago by someone's daughter's recitation of The Lamplighter) we are duly impressed that she was able to memorize a six stanza poem in seven weeks. I do include copy work as part of the memorization process, rather than waiting until the end to write the poem in her blank book. There are only five poems total to memorize in 4th grade MODG from The Harp and Laurel Wreath, but some are quite lengthy.
Science: In the past we have used Sonlight Science and Noeo, as well as plenty of Magic School Bus and various nature books. MODG recommends ABeka's Understanding God's World. This is going better than I expected. The content is familiar, but the level is deeper than we have dug in the past, with specific terminology and tests (gasp!). She has to get a little more used to remembering the content of what she read and being accountable for knowing it rather than just enjoying it and letting it wash over her. The units include insects, plants, birds, matter, energy, geology and astronomy with experiments throughout. Bird study runs throughout the book and students are asked to draw birds in their nature notebook. I like that the student gets a variety of subjects throughout the year, rather than one subject all year long like the Apologia books that I am tempted to buy and feel a little guilty for not using. I could always splurge on those books to supplement, right? We are supplementing with A Beka's Health, Safety and Manners book. I might also buy a Christian Liberty Nature Reader since her sister enjoys hers so much.
History: This is Dancer's favorite subject. My heart is glad, because isn't history really THE subject? After considering Winter Promise and Sonlight and the Prairie Primer I settled in with MODG mostly for the history from a Catholic perspective. Texts include Our Pioneers and Patriots, The Catholic Faith Comes to the Americas and the Evangelization of the New World. In addition there are dozens of supplementary books, old and new. MODG 4th grade covers history from the Vikings through George Washington. Here is our collection thus far:
Also recommended - keeping a time line and adding writing exercises on what the student has read.
Latin: MODG students would be in Latina Christina 1 by 4th grade if they had completed Prima Latina in 3rd. Dancer did half of Prima Latina two years ago and remembers nothing so we are reviewing this book. I remember that she hated filling out the workbook at such a young age (what was I thinking?) and I think she is dreading filling out the other half. She seems to retain more now. I am also supplementing with English From the Roots Up since she would have done that in MODG 3rd grade. There might be better programs out there, but for now I think this is going well and a vital (Latin, meaning fundamentally concerned with or affecting life or living beings) component to a well rounded education. (where are the smiley faces on Typepad?)
Art: MODG recommends The Drawing Textbook, various Dover art postcards and Mommy, It's a Renoir. Looks like she will do the drawing book only through week 8 and then move on to the schools of art. I think this will be fine, although I might add exercises inviting her to copy the art from the postcards. We also supplement with Draw Write Now, various drawing books, crafts and projects from the Art Explorers Series. For next year I am looking at adding Artistic Pursuits.
Subjects with which we are struggling to get used to:
Math: Who doesn't have qualms with math? Ok, ok a few of you don't and have programs you happily use year after year. What are they? We started with Horizons, which was fine, even though math has never been Dancer's favorite subject. Then I became intrigued with Singapore which we used until the multiplication became overwhelming and we had to stop and spend time memorizing rather than just understanding the concept. MODG recommends Saxon 5/4 in 4th grade so I was willing to give it a try. I think it is good for her, actually. I think she needs the speed drills of basic addition and subtraction (100 problems in five minutes) to get these facts down cold and fast. She is able to read and understand the lessons on her own. The daily lessons provide plenty of review (which Singapore did not). The problems? One is the time - it takes her an hour or more to complete her daily math. Another is that the text is all black and white and she misses color graphics. The other is that she scores well on the tests but makes sloppy errors on the daily assignments. I think we sill stick it out for this year, perhaps making some adjustments and trying to make it more fun for her (like saving math until dad comes home!) For next year, though, I will take a second look at Math-U-See or Teaching Textbooks.
Spelling and Phonics: MODG recommends The Writing Road to Reading and Starting a Spelling Notebook. The first part of this program reviews phonograms, which was a worthwhile review, but would have been a lot easier with ready-made flash cards. Many of the directions in the syllabus I find confusing and tedious. I am perplexed as to why they want students to learn the "Spalding marking system" the same week as the language arts book has a lesson on the pronunciation markings found in dictionaries. We have finally come to the point of taking a diagnotic test for a starting place in the Ayer's word list. I hope this program will work for the rest of this year. I am looking into MegaWords or A Reason for Spelling as a plan B. Advice here is welcome.
English/Language Arts: The text here is Intermediate Language Lessons. This is an old-fashioned looking Charlotte Mason style book that includes a rotation of copying, dictation, memory, observation, conversation, language usage, narration and creative writing. I think it's the rotation part that seems haphazard to me and the level of language usage could be more rigorous. I know many believe that grammar can wait even longer but I think this particular child is capable of more. I may supplement with more writing assignments because she is such an excellent story teller, but a reluctant writer. Letters to her pen-pal may become fodder for learning - perhaps a first draft that is corrected before it is copied onto stationery. Next year I am looking at Voyages in English or Winston Grammar as well as Karen Andreola's Story Starters. Advice here is welcome too!
Geography: As I mentioned in Sunshine's report, there are more creative ways to learn geography than just flash cards. Flash cards do serve a purpose, but we are using them to copy the information into a United States blank book. She copies the information and draws the state. I print out the state flags from Enchanted Learning as well as a fill-in-the-blank page about the state. I copied a page of state birds and flowers from the ABeka science book for her to cut and paste. We also enjoy state puzzles, Sequence, a states and capitals CD and a license plate sticker book. All together we are reading the Holling C. Holling geography books and Sunshine is completing the map activities. We like these online games , collecting quarters, state and capital wraps (like Math Wraps) and States and Capitals Sequence. We are also checking out the state books from Sleeping Bear Press from the library. Under consideration for next year is: A Child's Geography.
Music: We do not follow the MODG syllabus for music since we take piano and violin. I am trying to get back to a composer of the month. This month I had meant to do Handel by listening to the Music Master's CD and reading the book by Zeezok publishing but we didn't get to it.
Some non MODG subjects -
Literature: Here are photos of Dancer's reading choices for the next year (or two!). We used the Pizza Hut reading program coupons for the first time in October and enjoyed a family dinner out. She has a little less time to read literature with all the history reading, but I think she will figure out a way to make time. Keeping in mind for the future - the Sunflower Basket.
Foreign Language: I will copy and paste the same thing I wrote for Sunshine: We added French to our curriculum after purchasing Rosetta Stone at a homeschool conference. Dancer does this about twice a week. She doesn't seem to mind it, but she is still repeating lesson one until she can score better than 48% or whatever her average score has been. I also don't hear her using any French vocabulary around the house. I am wondering if we should have gotten something more child friendly like Muzzy?
I think we are at least 75% pleased with MODG. Please do keep in mind that I just ordered the materials without enrolling. I am sure I would receive sound advice for working out the program to suit our family if I had enrolled. I might do that next year, or I might just use MODG for the subjects that work for us and choose other programs for the rest.
