The Tiger Chronicle: curriculum

Showing posts with label curriculum. Show all posts

Sunday, 6 September 2015

Year 6 Plans

This post has turned out to be more difficult to write than I had expected. In fact, I have deleted three previous attempts at writing about what we are going to do for Tiger's Year 6 journey because I've realised that what we do here is not just about book lists or the types of external activities that Tiger is engaged in.

Engrossed in his self-initiated cartography project.

This realisation came about after a recent conversation I had with a deputy headteacher of a private school where she was very interested to find out how Tiger is being taught. While I tried to explain to her about our approach which stems from the fundamental principle of mutual respect between the teacher (me) and the student (Tiger) that in turn results in positive relational interactions that propels our learning journey forward, she was convinced that I must be using some kind of secret formula/curriculum/resource that the school teachers have no access to, based on what she has observed of Tiger. I emphasised that it takes more than a curriculum list, although I also shared with her the sources of Tiger's curricula since Year 1 as the list was clearly what she was after.

Perhaps I have not explained it well, or maybe the actual process can't be explained so easily. Having said that, I do have a broad overview of what we will aim to focus on over the next 12 months. This is a plan that I now share with Tiger to get his input and feedback on the nitty gritty details with regards to the actual implementation as the months ahead unfold. Tiger is in the position to share ownership of the learning plan and to provide input in terms of the order in which he will approach certain topics, and the materials he prefers to use to learn.

So, here is our broad plan for Year 6:
History
History remains the spine of our learning plan, so we are returning to the Ancients in Year 6, which will span the first civilisations to the fall of Rome. This will be our second time studying the Ancients, so the focus this time round will be on developing analytical skills (for logic stage) rather than facts gathering (at grammar stage).

Science and Nature Study
Since we are taking on the Ancients again, it seems logical to us to focus on Earth Science, which allows us to start way back in prehistory and follow the development of Man's understanding of his relationship with land, sea, and the sky.

English
I believe it is important to acquire a love of the language before one can truly be motivated to put in the effort to really master it. Therefore, in addition to reading widely and in keeping with the historical period being studied, developing technical linguistic skills such as spelling, grammar and writing, Tiger will also be enjoying poetry, hopefully with tea and cake from time to time!

A spot of creative writing.

Chinese
After a very successful year at the Chinese school where Tiger took weekly Chinese lessons, we were both disappointed when there was a change in staff at the beginning of the year. Tiger's new Chinese teacher taught in such an uninspring way (compared to his previous teacher) that he could not bear to go to class, so I took him out and resumed teaching him at home. Unsurprisingly, we find that we are covering wider topics in a quicker pace compared to the Chinese school, so it looks like I will continue to teach Tiger the Chinese language myself.

Latin
I was listing the Latin resources for sale one day when Tiger walked by, saw what I was doing, and decided to have a go at the placement test, just for fun of it. When he scored 97% at the Level 1 test, having no contact with Latin in the past 18 months, he looked at me and mused, "I guess we'd better resume Latin!" It is so much easier when it is Tiger's own decision to take up Latin again!

Maths
We have been hopping around quite a bit in maths for two years, primarily because at one time, Tiger was not too keen on following any curriculum. Even so, we have been able to cover the same topics as are covered in schools, and more. In that sense Tiger hasn't suffered any gaps in maths compared to school-going children of the same age. This summer Tiger has shown signs of becoming more cooperative (!) so I hope he will complete RightStart Level E alongside the supplementary maths activities that we have been doing these past two years.

Music
Unless Tiger shows a strong desire for instrumental lessons, his music training will consist of:
composer study - I am happy to follow the suggestion made by Ambleside Online to focus on knowing the works of one composer per term. However, instead of following their schedule, which is a perfectly good one, we have picked and chosen the composers whom we are most interested in:

Term 1 - Mozart
Term 2 - Tchaikovsky
Term 3 - Beethoven

Art
Tiger had the opportunity to gain the Bronze Arts Award last year, which he completed successfully.

He has been invited to carry on with the next level but he has decided to take a break from it, in order to get back to just creating art for the sheer joy of it rather than worrying too much about documentaion and reporting. Tiger says that he may continue with the next level in a year or two to allow himself time to mature a little bit more and to grow in other areas so that he may get more out of the process of acquiring the award. What he says sound very reasonable, and going for the first level was just for a bit of fun and experience so it really doesn't matter in the overall scheme of things. I am nonetheless pleased with his show of self-awareness and knowing what he wants to do, so he has my full support in his decision to pause.

Without the pressure of working towards the specifications of the award (which involves a lot of report writing), we can resume our leisurely pace to learn art history as we encounter it in our other studies.

External Activities
As always, I seek to strive a balance between individual study and group actitivies for Tiger so that he experiences both in the most effective, productive way.

Small-group Tutorial:

Lab science
Practical STEM
English
History of Medicine

P.E.:

Tennis
Table tennis
Climbing
Swimming
Mountain biking

Clubs:

Geology
Theatre
Programming
Percussion

The above is quite enough for a Year 6 boy, don't you think?

Friday, 21 November 2014

A Christmas Curriculum

http://thetigerchronicle.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Christmas

I'm not going to over-plan this year, as I have done in previous years. In fact, I am going to under-plan in the hope to avoid the frenzy of Christmas preparation. The basket pictured below contains most of what I hope to cover in the three weeks before Christmas:

With luck, we shall have some space and time this month to focus on enjoying one another's company as a family (as opposed to busily running around to achieve 'goals' or 'targets').

English, History:
1. For the month of December, we will be reading through Dickens' Christmas, which contains the story, A Christmas Carol, in addition to all the other Victorian traditions surrounding the Christmas festivity.

Although we have read A Christmas Carol last year, this year we shall read it again and use the related back issue from The Boomerang to support our reading, in addition to learning more about Victorian Christmas in general as part of our history study of the Victorian era.

2. We are most likely going to have Christmas-themed teatime in December, so we will be looking at a few Christmas poems while enjoying some homemade seasonal food such as:

Maths:
I expect to use the following book over a few Decembers so we will be working through one or two maths problems together each day.

The Arts
1. Although we tend to celebrate Christmas in a secular manner, I feel that Tiger ought to be familiar with a few of the well-known carols, so we will learn to sing three of them this December:

2. Over the course of three weeks, we will look at three pieces of nativity-themed art work:

Jan Gossaert - The Adoration of the Kings
Geertgen tot Sint Jans - The Nativity at Night
Sandro Botticelli - Mystic Nativity

3. We will also be keeping our hands busy with the following crafts while listenening to Bach's Christmas Oratorio:

I shall be very pleased if we manage to do everything on this list by the end of the third week in December, leaving the week of December 22nd to enjoy the Winter Solstice and to do some last-minute shopping before we get together with the rest of the family for the big day!

This post is linked up to:

Monday, 25 August 2014

Our Routine for Year 5

http://www.ihomeschoolnetwork.com/6th-annual-not-back-to-school-blog-hop-day-in-the-life/

As we haven't started our new term yet, I am not able to write a day-in-the-life post. However, I do have some idea of how our day should turn out when we start.

The basic structure of our day goes like this:

Wake up
Breakfast
Morning chores
Morning lessons part 1
Break
Morning lessons part 2
Lunch
Lunchtime chores
Afternoon lessons

However, no two days are the same, as most homeschoolers will tell you.

The timetable above reflects the emphasis that I feel is needed in Tiger's Logic Stage years: English, specifically writing. I have been very gentle with Tiger when it comes to the process of writing in his elementary school years, giving him time to develop his fine motor skills and build up his stamina to write more than one sentence at a time.

This past summer we have done a few dictation sessions and some copywork. The outcomes of those far-and-few sessions show me that Tiger is now ready to write for a longer time than before and is ready for some formal instructions to get him started on the road to writing. While some children are natural writers who can write long compositions with zero or minimal instructions, Tiger is not one of them, and he recognises this in himself. To this end, he feels more comfortable having some kind of structure to guide him along (as do I!) and he sees the value of using a formal writing programme to bridge the (very wide) gap between his reading level and his writing level, so we'll be spending most of our time in the new year to develop his writing ability.

This seems like a U-turn from our more autonomous approach from a year ago. It is in some ways, in that there are certain basic skills that Tiger needs to master before he can confidently progress onto the next level of learning. Acquiring these skills (e.g. writing) isn't always going to be fun or easy, so if I didn't plan them into our week, there is a very high chance that they will get pushed aside and we will not have progressed at all on those specific areas by next summer. The timetable helps us stay focused on our tasks but we are not bound by the clock to move to the next subject if and when a topic really takes our interest. Homeschooling allows us to maintain a high degree of autonomy and flexibility in our learning approach while keeping a focus on achieving the goals that we have set for ourselves.

Having a timetable while maintaining an interest-led approach makes perfect sense to me but perhaps not so much to the reader yet. Afterall, I do have the advantage of having all my plans, schedules, activities and calendar at hand so I have a clear view of what's going to happen. We shall see how the new year pans out. It promises to be a very busy and exciting year of learning.

Each year our approach seems to alter just ever so slightly:

This post is linked up to:

Friday, 8 August 2014

2014-2015 Tools of the Trade

Based on the plan that was published on Monday, how on earth am I going to pull it off? Well, with the help of many good books, materials and good people in my community, of course!

http://www.ihomeschoolnetwork.com/6th-annual-not-back-to-school-blog-hop-curriculum-week/

Maths

RightStart Math levels D and E
Key to... series (Fractions, Decimals, Percents, Metric Measurement)

Science

Various materials to be used in accordance to the theme that we are learning.

English

Grammar - First Language Lessons levels 3 and 4, Editor-in-Chief A1
Spelling - All About Spelling levels 4 and 5
Vocabulary - Vocabulary from Classical Roots grades 4 and 5
Handwriting - Cursive Writing Made Easy and Fun, selected paragraphs from Structured Reading books (see list below) copied onto the handwriting practice worksheets
Writing - Writing with Ease level 3, Writing & Rhetoric Books 1 and 2, creative writing*
Poetry - Enjoying Poetry, poetry performance*
Structured Reading - Oliver Twist, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia
Drama - drama*

Modern Foreign Language

Chinese Mandarin class*
Pimsleur Chinese Mandarin 1
Easy Steps to Chinese Level 1 texbook and workbook
Supplementary readers
Happy Chinese
Growing Up with Chinese

History
Various materials to be used in accordance to the theme that we are learning.

Music

Instruments - piano, recorder
Music appreciation - The Story of the Orchestra, The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra

Art

Drawing - The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain textbook and workbook, Sketching and Drawing for Children
Art Appreciation - various materials to be used in accordance to the theme that we are learning.

Logic

Character Building

What Would You Do? Book 1

P.E.

tennis*
swimming*
table tennis*
squash

* external classes.

This post is linked up to:

Monday, 4 August 2014

2014-2015 Learning Plan

This autumn, Tiger will be ten years old and will head towards the Logic Stage (according to the Classical Education convention). As we are progressing according to his interest and ability, we are not adhering strictly to school year definitions when choosing what he will be learning in the new academic year. In fact, Tiger's study programme will be tailored, as much as is possible, to align with his continued interest in military history.

While Tiger is strong is a few areas (history, reading, maths), he needs to develop in others (notably writing). Therefore, instead of rushing into Logic Stage, we will be spending the next 12 months concentrating on language arts to bring Tiger's skills up to a level where he will be ready to take on the amount of written work required of a Logic Stage student. In short, I am looking to focusing on three specific areas over the next few years:

writing
character building
study habits

The resources that we will be using will vary according to the theme that we are studying at any point. I will share the specific resources that we use as we progress through each theme.

Maths
Topics that will be covered this year include:

Decimals
Prime numbers
Percents
Factors
Addition
Subtraction
Multiplication
Square numbers
Division
Fractions
Money
Constructing triangles
Angles
Coordinates
Symmetry
Measurement - imperial and metric units
Patterns - numeric, symbolic and algebraic
Data and graphs
Probability

Science

Topics that will be covered this year include:

Forensics
Biology - genetics and DNA
Physics - engineering, sound, flight, relativity
Scientists and inventors - Faraday, Bell, Wright brothers, Einstein

English
Topics that will be covered this year include:

Grammar - Eight Parts of Speech, Plurals, Four Types of Sentences, Diagramming, Simple and Complete Subjects, Direct Objects, Predicate Nominatives, Predicates, Abbreviations, Contractions, Direct and Indirect Quotations, Compound Subjects and Predicates, Fragments, Splices, Punctuation, Synonyms and Antonyms, Double Negatives, Dictionary Skills, Oral Usage
Spelling - Prefixes, the four sounds of Y, Months of the Year, Spelling Strategies, Unaccented A, Words ending with double S, Words with silent E, Plurals
Vocabulary - Suffixes, Prefixes
Handwriting - cursive copywork
Writing - Letter Writing, Oral and Written Narration, Dictation, Analogy, Comprehension, Sentence/Word Play, Rewriting, Summary, Amplification, Idea, Conflict, Outline
Poetry - Similes and Metaphors, Sound-words, Rhyme and Limerick, Rhythm, Alliteration, Comparison, Personification, Recitation, Interpretation
Structured Reading - written narration and summary, plot and character analysis, comprehension, book reports
Drama - Improvisation, Storytelling, Performance, Movements, Voice Work

Mandarin
Topics that will be covered this year include:

Countries and languages
Subjects of study
Making phone calls
Weather
Seasons
Sickness
Hobbies
Vegetables and fruits
Meals of the day
Eating out
House
Furniture
Neighbourhood

History
Topics that will be covered this year include the following period, with a emphasis on war studies:

Victorian Britain
Edwardian Britain
WWI
WWII
Military history (self-directed study)

Music

Topics that will be covered this year include:

Instruments - piano, recorder
Music appreciation - instruments of the orchestra

Art
Topics that will be covered include:

Drawing - contour drawing, negative spaces, proportions, light and shadow, hatching and crosshatching
Art appreciation - the Pre-Raphaelites, war art of WWI and WWII

Other Areas of Learning

Logic - Describing shapes, Figural similarities and differences, Figural sequences, Figural classifications, Figural analogies, Describing things, Verbal similarities and differences, Verbal sequences, Verbal classifications, Verbal analogies, Coding
Character building - discussion of different scenarios and stories
P.E. - tennis, swimming, squash, table tennis

"You can make your own son or daughter one of a kind if you have the time and will to do so; school can only make them part of a hive, herd or anthill."

-- John Taylor Gatto

This post is linked up to:

Thursday, 24 April 2014

Anatomy of a Self-Determined Education: an Overview

Most non-homeschooling people find the idea that we don't follow the National Curriculum, or indeed, any curriculum at all, to be incredulous. To these people, the idea that there are those who actually know what is important and personally relevant to their own lives or circumstances is beyond belief.

The response I hear most often is, "Without using any curriculum or guideline, how do you know what to teach your son?"

The truth is, I don't teach him. I stopped teaching him about 18 months ago. My son basically teaches himself.

When I say that my son teaches himself, the only people who know how it works first-hand -- because they have seen the process themselves -- are Tortoise, my mother-in-law, and I. It is certainly not a case of my piling a stack of textbooks or 'required readings' in front of Tiger and making him work through them -- although I'm sure this is what some people think happens in our homeschool. For some reason -- maybe schooling has trained it out of most people -- many people find it hard to believe that anyone, let alone a young child, has the passion and motivation to learn widely and deeply without being told to do so by anyone.

I spoke briefly about the process as applied to maths, but I think it will be more clearly demonstrated by sharing how Tiger pursues military history, a topic that is neither examinable nor taught in the National Curriculum, GCSEs, A-levels, or in most universities around the world. If we were to take the traditional curriculum route, we would have hit a brick wall very quickly because there is absolutely no guidance whatsoever for children who are interested in this topic. Does it mean that Tiger is wasting his time learning about something that is irrelevant because it's not on any curriculum? Well, try telling military historians or anyone who's involved in the military industry that their professions are a waste of time, and I'm sure some very interesting conversations will follow.

While a lack of specific guidelines (bad news) may deter some people from pursuing the topic further, Tiger is actually interpreting the situation to be a lack of boundaries (good news) so that he is free to decide how far and wide he wants to go with this. I suspect that his optimissm at learning may be attributed to the fact that he has never attended school and therefore has never had anyone told him where the limitations of learning (which often disguise as the "syllabus") are.

In my attempt to recording Tiger's self-driven education, specifically in the area of military history where the process is most obvious since he is 100% in the driver's seat, I shall be writing a few posts to record my observations.

My role these days has become less of a 'teacher' and more of:

an observer - who gets out of Tiger's way to let him teach himself
a consultant - who asks questions like "Do you think this book/event/workshop/lecture/article/programme is interesting or useful to what you're learning?"
a chauffeur - who takes Tiger where he needs to be for a related event
a P.A. - who organises Tiger's diary so that he can attend all the events that he wants to go to
a sponsor - who pays for all the books/events/workshops/materials that Tiger says he needs for his study

So, without a syllabus/outline/guideline to follow, what has Tiger covered in the area of military history, and how?

A Broad View
It appears to me that Tiger first gets an overview of the various aspects of military history by reading very broadly and widely.

The broad interest then extends to modern warfare, which Tiger then continues to read about and update himself on the development of battle tactics and weaponry used.

The information that Tiger learned from books leads him to search for more online, and often leads him to documentaries such as:

1. Battlefield (he watched the entire six series)
2. 20th Century Battlefields (watched all eight episodes)

Leadership and Strategy
Names, places, and strategies (or mistakes) of all the battles are mentioned in the various sources from the "Overview" phase above. Such mentions inevitably leads Tiger to want to know more about the men behind these decisions that shaped the world.

Tiger's research in this area often involve reading books, articles, and magazines.

He also often plays war games. As in chess, he often plays different scenarios out on the board by himself before engaging either Tortoise or I in the games.

We started with Risk, but Tiger soon got the hang of the game and quickly moved on to the more complex game of Axis and Allies 1942. The Axis and Allies board game is stretching Tiger's learning needs in many ways as he has yet to gain a consistent stream of successful campaigns when playing against Tortoise. The game is set to keep him busy for a while.

In the next few posts, I will write about some of the details that Tiger goes into for his military history study and how I provide support when asked.

Thursday, 20 February 2014

Eye on the Ball, Please! Part 5

http://thetigerchronicle.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/series-term%20plan

This is the fifth part of a series of my termly plans from now until Easter (April 2014). The first three parts are:

Ball #5: History and the Arts
British History
It seems that we have been studying Medieval England for ever and ever. The short stint with Chinese culture over the two weeks of Chinese New Year has rekindled my interest in exploring world history through the trading route of Marco Polo.

The last time I looked, we were still studying the Plantagenets with Edward I and his trebuchet. There are two more Edwards who ascended the throne immediately after him, so I thought it would be a good idea to round up the next two Edwards before we take a break from British History.

Therefore, in the next two months our focus will be on various significant topics that happened during the reign from Edward I to Edward III, specifically:

Medieval food
Medieval queens
Medieval jobs
Medieval medicine
The Black Death

Being the out-and-abouters that we are, there will definitely be plenty of field trips and workshops to supplement our study at home. Now, if only I can get myself organised to make them happen...

At the same time, because of Tiger's interest and involvement in the Young Archaeologists' Club, we will also be working through the Archaeology's Dirty Little Secrets course this term.

The Arts
Visual Art
I have been wondering for some time now why our artist study has taken a back seat this year. The answer seems to point to the new (and positive) focus that we have been taking in Tiger's Chinese study. The time and energy required to establish a strong foundation in the Chinese language makes it difficult to carve out extra time in our week to do proper indepth study of any artist's style. Nonetheless, I am still very fond of going to art galleries and exhibitions, so we shall strive to bring artist study back, now that we have established some routine and method in how we study Chinese.

From now until Easter, I plan for us to study the following artists:

In addition, there will be many opportunities in our history study to create crafts so we will be spending time on that as well.

Theatre
As a supplement to his drama sessions, Tiger and I will be learning about another aspect of theatre, physical actor training, from the course here.

Music
Music has been terribly neglected since September, apart from Tiger playing around with the electronic music software by himself and experimeneting with different sounds. In this respect, he is not inclined to have instructions, at least for now, so I intend to let him just play around with it until he finds his own gaps and feels the need for further assistance.

I haven't found an approach to composer study that I like, but this term we will endeaver to start the process by focusing on one composer -- Beethoven. There is no particular reason for choosing to study Beethoven over any other composer. The choice is made simply because:

Klimt made a famous Beethoven Frieze that gave us the connection between visual arts and music; and
there is a course on Exporing Beethoven's Piano Sonatas being offered. This course will be more relevant to me than to Tiger, but attending the course will help me make better contributions to our study and overall discussion about Beethoven and his work.

Monday, 10 February 2014

Eye on the Ball, Please! Part 4

This is the fourth part of a series of my termly plans from now until Easter (April 2014). The first three parts are:

Ball #4: Science, Nature Study, and Geography
Weather
Before we took two weeks off from our normal schedule to celebrate Chinese New Year, we had spent some time studying the erratic weather in the UK this winter. It appears that the flood is not letting up at all, so we shall resume our weather study next week.

Since we have studied about the rain (through the water cycle), which is the most obvious cause of the flood, the next topics to follow on from that will to be:

storm
wind (hurricane, tornado)
blizzard

I am looking to using the following book as the main source of ideas for projects and experiments but I shall also be using other resources online to support our study.

Our decision to study the weather is borne out of its immediate relevance to the current state of our environment. Not only does studying the weather allow us to understand better the environmental crisis that is unfolding around us, the issues involve spans across multiple subject areas such as nature study, earth science, and geography, thus enables us to better appreciate the importance of looking at things from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Tuesday, 28 January 2014

Eye on the Ball, Please! Part 3

This is the third part of a series of my termly plans. The first two parts are:

Ball #3: Mathematics - Addition and Area
The way that we have been learning mathematics here seems to be increasingly topic- or themed-based rather than curriculum-based, which suits us fine. We started off following a maths curriculum, which worked very well, but was starting to get a little tedious for Tiger. Once we started experimenting with learning-what-we-want-to-learn-when-we-want-to in maths, the approach feels a lot more logical and natural to us and is what we do now.

This term we are going to focus on two topics:

addition
area

What About Gaps?
It seems that many homeschoolers are uncomfortable with the idea of not following a curriculum in maths. Usually their biggest concern is gaps in their children's maths skills or knowledge. Following an established curriculum certainly gives some people -- notably adult and children who are naturally predisposed to a systematic, highly organised way of learning -- a sense of security that they have "covered everything" that a child of a certain age/level needs to know.

The way that I handle the question of gaps is very simple: I make a mental note of it when I notice it, then I find an opportune time to introduce it. The next question then is, what is an opportune time? Well, my definition of an opportune time is:

when I have gathered the necessary teaching materials/resources; or
when the topic ties in with another area that we are studying, e.g. there are many cross-curricula opportunities to be created around the topic of geometry, symmetry, tessallations, Islamic art, etc; or
immediately - we are prepared to drop everything else if it is a matter of urgency to learn a certain topic. So far, we haven't come across any situation that requires us to adress our mathematical deficiencies immediately.

My confidence in our approach comes from the realisation that:

Time is on our side. Tiger is only nine years old so he still has quite a few years to go before he has to worry about standardised tests or entrance exams. I might start panicking if we were still on the topic of addition when he is 19 years old.
Tiger is capable of buckling down to do the work when it becomes necessary.

Once I got over my initial fear of gaps (yes, I experienced much doubts and fears in the early days as well), I have come to view the learning of mathematics to be more than the acquisition of multiple sets of facts, short-cuts, and formulae. It is a language of its own. As soon as I realised that mathematics is a language, I decided that, as with any language-learning, establishing a strong foundation is very important. Just as a strong language user needs to have a contextual base to understanding and mastering the subtlties of any language, a strong maths user needs to have be able to apply mathematical skills and knowledge for them to become meaningful. Merely memorising mathematical formulae without the experience of applying them to solve real problems (as opposed to clinically designed textbook problems) is akin to memorising English idioms without knowing how to use them in the right context.

What About Practice and Mastery?
Having explained (I hope) above why I'm ok with Tiger's maths progress not following exactly in the same order or at the same pace as determined by any curriculum, you can see why I can tolerate us dwelling on any topic -- addition comes to mind immediately -- forever. However, the time that we spend on any one topic is not used on repetitive drills or learning the same set of skills at the same level over and over. An example is the latest addition game that we played. Different maths skills were used at the same time to solve that set of problems -- addition, long multiplication, counting, number sense. When we play maths games or riddles like the example that I have just referred to, both Tiger and I can easily and clearly determine whether he has any gaps in his knowledge (in which case we will work at closing those) or where his gaps are (so that we can direct our effort more effectively)

A tool that I find to be effective for practice is the Khan Academy's maths section. I've mentioned before our sporadic use of the website whenever we feel Tiger needs to have more focused practice on any topic. Most recently, we discovered a new feature on the website called Mastery Challenge, which is very similar to a series of short composite tests on various maths topics. Tiger doesn't mind working on a few rounds of these each day.

To me, it works in the same way as what we have been doing at home to identify gaps and areas of improvement. For example, one of the recent challenges shows that Tiger needs more work on the long division (which we had touched upon briefly in November but not formally worked on yet). With this information, Tiger watched the two-digit division video:

and worked through the example alongside the video, before attempting several rounds of two-digit divisions on the site. Working on these exercises enables Tiger to solve a recent maths challenge, but it is not the way in which I would like him to learn long division (even though he certainly can do them mechanically now), so we will spend some time later in the year to learn division in a more visual, hands-on way.

I don't claim that our method of learning maths is superior to any other method, but it is one that suits Tiger's need for variety, applicability, and minimal repetition.

Monday, 27 January 2014

Eye on the Ball, Please! Part 2

This is the second part of a series of my termly plans. The first part is Ball #1: Language Arts.

Ball #2: Mandarin - Language and Culture
Language
Tiger's Chinese class is working out very well for him. He has been able to keep up with the speed of the lessons (by putting in a fair bit of hard work) and it is paying off. His interest and confidence in learning the language has increased substantially because: (1) he feels encouraged and recognised by his teacher when she gave him a classroom assistant role to teach the rest of the class a small part of the new lessons, and (2) he is motivated to maintain his recent exam success.

We are all encouraged by Tiger's positive experience at the Chinese school so he will continue with the course there. Staying on top of the weekly homework and revisions will be our focus -- there is very little time or need for us to do much else in terms of studying Mandarin at home.

Our commitment to learning Mandarin also means that we will have to forego Latin. Boo. Sed valefaciens, et lingua decora!

Culture
Learning a language is best supplemented by an understanding of its culture of origin. Getting to know a culture makes the language come alive, so while the Chinese school is now taking on the bulk of language training for Tiger, we are supplementing his learning and experience by watching a few cultural-related clips online.

We find the individual lessons at Growing up with Chinese to be very lively and interesting. Each lesson focuses on a certain aspect of social engagement, as well as a few tips on understanding the Chinese characters, all set within a story.

For a more contemporary understanding of modern China, we are currently watching the 10-part BBC TV series, Real Chinese:

After we have watched the series above, I plan to continue with our armchair cultural immersion by working our way through the documentaries here.

A new project that I'd like to take on this year is to spend two weeks focusing on Chinese New Year. It will be very similar to how we usually spend the month of December focusing on Christmas-related activities. I am getting a lot of ideas for Chinese New Year from Marie's Pastiche, which has a whole year's worth of China-related ideas and activities to learn from.

This post is linked up to Chinese Activities Link Up.

Wednesday, 22 January 2014

Eye on the Ball, Please! Part 1

This is a bit of a planning post for this term, mainly to help me keep our focus for the new few months. I realise that it is now near the end of January 2014, but a few of Tiger's classes have not settled until very recently so it is until now that I have a better idea of what our term will look like from now until the Easter holidays in mid April. Over the next few days, I will be posting up the rest of our plan for this term.

Ball #1: Language Arts - Poetry and Shakespeare
Poetry
This term our focus for language arts is poetry. This is driven primarily by the happy coincidence that both his drama teachers, without knowledge of what the other is doing, want to focus on poetry. Tiger has two drama teachers -- one focusing primarily on literary analysis and acting skills, the other focusing on speech and recitation. Since such a serendipity doesn't happen all the time, I shall take my cue from it and use our time at home to brush up on our poetry skills through our weekly poetry tea where we shall continue to bake and read to each other. Nobody here will object to more tea and cakes!

I hope to add a little bit more meat to our weekly tea sessions by using the Arrow Poetry Guide, and to focus on two specific poems:

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes

Literature
Somehow this is turning out to be a rather Shakespearean term for us. To begin with, his drama/literary analysis class will be doing five sessions of The Winter's Tale.

In addition, I found out about a MOOC looking at Shakespeare's Hamlet, which I am personally very interested to attend since I have not read Hamlet before. I asked Tiger whether he would be interested to study this particular play with me and he said yes, so we are attending this MOOC together while working at our own levels.

Shortly after this course ends is the start of another Shakepearean course -- Shakespeare and His World, which Tiger and I will again attend together.

Grammar, Spelling, Writing
Handwriting will continue to be practised, because I think it is important to have beautiful handwriting. We will start with a review of print handwriting, followed by cursive handwriting.

Most of writing will be covered through our study in poetry and literature, as well as the monthly book club which has a creative writing component in addition to book discussion.

At home, we will change our strategy with regards to grammar study. Instead of a touch-and-go approach to the different parts of speech, we will focus on just one or two aspects of it so that Tiger can have a good understanding of the different components of grammar. As such, this term we will focus solely on studying nouns.

For spelling, we will resume where we had left off with All About Spelling level 2.

This post is linked up to:

Saturday, 7 September 2013

2013-2014 Curriculum

Curriculum Week in the 2013 Not Back to School Blog Hop

Every now and then someone will ask me which school year group Tiger is in. Since Tiger has always learned at home and we work at his pace in different areas to cater to his asynchronous development, it always takes me a while to answer this question. To those who follow the traditional school approach, a mother who can't rattle off the school year that her child is supposed to be in instantaneously looks slightly lame. To make life easier for myself (so that I don't have to go into a discourse of how my son is all over the place in terms of what he is learning), I found the Grade Equivalents table which will no doubt be of enormous help to the next person who asks me this question. So, for the academic year of September 2013 - July 2014, in the conventional school system, Tiger would be in the equivalent of:

Year 4 (in UK); or
Grade 3 (in USA); or
Primary 4 (in Asia)

Grade level is quite meaningless around here, to say the least, but that'll do for now.

To sum up what I foresee as the way forward for our homeschool in three words: integration, relevance, engagement.

If I saw the previous academic year as a year of change from a structured learning environment to an autonomous environment, the coming academic year will be one of an increased application of the living principle whereby we strive to make more connections among different subject areas. That also means that we will be slowing down and going into deep learning, rather than skimming over the surface of many areas and ticking boxes to show "achievements".

We shall enjoy the process of learning rather than rushing through anything just to 'get it done'. Therefore, we may not have a lot to show in the coming year in terms of output -- which is going to be hard for this results-oriented mum -- but that's only because we are switching our focus to the joy of discovery and to obtain a real understanding of whatever we are going to learn. I don't think learning through discovery can be rushed, certainly not in the same way as spoon-feeding the student with answers or the right formulae can.

A large part of my own growth from the previous year has been to recognise and honour the interconnectedness of various aspects of what we were learning as parts to a whole picture of life, rather than disjointed, artifically-separate "subjects". As such, I am putting forth a broad scope of what Tiger and I will be covering from September 2013 to July 2014 in themes rather than specific curricula materials. If our Marco Polo study is an indication of the scope that we can achieve for a topic/theme, then it makes more sense for me to plan in terms of broad themes.

The Wind in the Willows (finishing up from the summer)
Marco Polo (carry on from where we have left off before the summer)
Magic (we'll take time out around Halloween to do this)
Explorers (if and when we complete Marco Polo)
Mystery (postponed to next summer)

Now for the specifics for 2013-2014, where applicable:

1) Language Arts

Spelling: All About Spelling Level 3

Grammar: Grammar Games and Activities that Boost Writing Skills

Literature, Vocabulary, Writing, Poetry

The biggest area of integration for the coming year is in language arts. Even though we plodded along with grammar, vocabulary and other aspects of language arts last year, it became obvious to me by early spring that a segregation of topics only resulted in busywork for us. That took the joy out of what should be an enjoyable learning journey, since Tiger loves languages. Therefore, this year I am going to adopt the Brave Writer Lifestyle, and slowly work towards a fully integrated language arts programme via The Writer's Jungle. This book contains many gems that can seem overwhelming to implement all at once, so I am taking my time to introduce one element at a time. For the specifics, we will be using

Friday Freewrite
Poetry Teatime
Nature Journaling
Partnership Writing
fortnightly drama class*
monthly literature and creative writing club*

2) Other Languages

Chinese: Details in Planning: Foreign Language.

Latin:

3) History, Geography, Maths, Craft, Science, and Nature Study

theme-based study using various resources
weekly general science class*
weekly chess club*
monthly Young Archaeologists Club*

4) Art
Details in Planning: Art.

5) Music
Details in Planning: Music.

6) Sports

weekly tennis club*
monthly swimming

7) Life Skills

Details in Planning: Life Skills - Cooking.

* external classes

This post is linked up to the iHomeschool Network Not-Back-to-School Blog Hop: Curriculum Week 2013.

**Update in January 2014: Our plans have altered a fair bit at the half-year mark. Please refer to the termly plans for the changes.

The Tiger Chronicle

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