Update about H.

[DadDude]

I posted it a few days ago but anyway here it is.

Lots of big changes: we now use Supermemo/spaced repetition to review; we added MEP (the math program) to the other two we were already using, and Mama is teaching this (mostly); H. is typing more than handwriting, and he's up to 15 wpm; curriculum is very "social studies"-heavy (not through any conscious choice, it just happened that way) between all the history, geography, and civics (U.S. Constitution stuff); we started going through science systematically and are 1/3 or 1/2 through introductory physics; H. discovered "Scratch" programming and wastes huge amounts of time on it; and he now practices piano for fun (yay!).

[susankhan]

We LOVE mep math     Have you also looked in to Beast Academy???  At the moment I am using mep, math in focus (singapore math) ,  math mammoth, http://www.crewtonramoneshouseofmath.com/ , http://www.educationunboxed.com/,  and will start to use hands on equations see here ( http://homeschool-ninjas.blogspot.com/search/label/Hands-On%20Equations)  and Life of Fred. 

I know this seems like a LOT for a math curriculum but honestly my kids LOVE it.  They are ages 8 and just turned 7.   

a favorite blog of mine is http://homeschool-ninjas.blogspot.com/   just fabulous.....

I enjoy reading your posts and updates over the years.  Homeschooling here in Florida is so easy and I hope you find it the same where you live.  We LOVE homeschooling and are so blessed to be able to do so All the best for you and your family ....

Susan Khan

[Korrale4kq]

I too love reading your updates. We are 4 years behind you. But you give me some great ideas for the future.

Good luck ith your school district. I will certainly be interested in reading about how that goes. We will be doing the same thing in a few years. I am hoping state wide things are similar.

[mom2bee]

What language does H. speak with his mother? Does your family practice OPOL and is he being raised bilingually?

[DadDude]

Yes, more or less we do use OPOL. 

[DadDude]

We LOVE mep math     Have you also looked in to Beast Academy???  At the moment I am using mep, math in focus (singapore math) ,  math mammoth, http://www.crewtonramoneshouseofmath.com/ , http://www.educationunboxed.com/,  and will start to use hands on equations see here ( http://homeschool-ninjas.blogspot.com/search/label/Hands-On%20Equations)  and Life of Fred. 

I know this seems like a LOT for a math curriculum but honestly my kids LOVE it.  They are ages 8 and just turned 7.   

a favorite blog of mine is http://homeschool-ninjas.blogspot.com/   just fabulous.....

I enjoy reading your posts and updates over the years.  Homeschooling here in Florida is so easy and I hope you find it the same where you live.  We LOVE homeschooling and are so blessed to be able to do so All the best for you and your family ....

Susan Khan

Hi Susan, we haven't tried very many systems yet. I did look into Beast Academy and have seen people praise it, but looking back, I see why we aren't using it--the books are only for 3rd grade, and H. isn't there yet. I have looked at Math Mammoth in more depth, and it looks good to me. If we weren't plenty occupied between Primary Mathematics (Singapore Math), MEP, and 5 times 5 is not 10, Math Mammoth might be our next choice. As to crewtonramoneshouseofmath.com, I've just learned about it like a couple of weeks ago. So, he's all about manipulatives & Cuisenaire rods. I know I might incur the wrath of...various people...particularly if I were to say this in the WTM forums, but my personal opinion FWIW is that heavy use of manipulatives is a bit of an unnecessary gimmick. Don't get me wrong, I don't criticize people who use that stuff heavily--after all, we use our "connect-a-cubes" quite a bit--it's all good. It's just that I am not convinced that manipulatives are the holy grail of math ed. Math is all about symbol manipulation. It is inherently abstract. What the symbols represent can be usefully demonstrated, just as what physics formulas represent can be usefully demonstrated; but in both cases, you aren't doing the main part of the study of math, or physics, unless you're manipulating symbols, rather than things. Anyway, I am not dogmatic about what is most pedagogically effective. Show me persuasive studies, and I'll switch. We haven't tried Crewton Ramone's method (as much as he recommends), so maybe I will some day and see the light. Two more red flags: Ramone's FAQ is annoying, and in it he links to a well-known video, entertaining but philosophically bankrupt, touting an educational philosophy very much opposed to my own.

Anyway, thanks for your encouragement re homeschooling. Right now, this morning, I'm letting H. take a break. When he decided at breakfast time that he wanted to build a robot (this will definitely be mostly an imaginary robot), and got down a bag of electronic stuff, I decided to let him do that instead of read in the morning. I've shown him enough how to do things that it's time for him to rediscover it himself, so he can work on that stuff independently. We did do Supermemo first, though. That's our new first-thing-in-the-morning activity.

[Korrale4kq]

I have a question... It has been on my mind since reading about it on your blog.

Why did you start sciences with physics?

I think with James I plan to start science with biology. Albeit I am not set. I was just wondering if you had any reasons for physics foremost.

My current thinking is. Biology can start with self and easy observations. We would probably start with anatomy,  body systems, senses etc. 
Then move onto broader life and nature sciences,  plants, weather, seasons,  animals and their classifications and habitats.

I too am not a big fan of already assembled curricula. So I am trying to think ahead and devise my own sequence.

For what it is worth, maybe because I am a nerd, I agree with you so much on your education choices and I look to your updates as inspiration. I too am not a fan of theme based curricula. I would much rather open a book and read and learn about the necessary content.

I belive in having a heavy literary background too. I have been trying the spaced memorization technique as i reread books to James. And some well read tales are really sticking with him  I really want him to know his traditional fairy tales, folk tales, myths etc.
James is only 2 and already pulling out his own moral lessons from these stories. He tells me goldilocks is bad for breaking into the bears house. Curious George is a bad monkey for doing things like painting on walls. We read Little Red Riding Hood for the first time and he told me that Red Riding Hood was bad for not minding her mother as she wanders off the path. All these ideas I never once mentioned as we read.


The only exception to deviating from a heavier book based curricula is with math. Maybe this is because I remember my own math education being very manipulative. In primary school I remember spending a lot of time on the floor with base ten and other manipulatives. Australian schools in the 80s and early 90s did not have textbooks at all until highschool and very few work sheets. I loved math. I flourished and Infact I still enjoy it.
Right now at 2.5, for James math is play. We love the cuisenere rods, and other Montessori manipulatives. We will see where we are in 3 more years though.

[DadDude]

Nerds unite!

I am not sure that my idea is the best way, but I can explain it anyway. The usual way that people think about curricula is that one starts with the easiest-to-understand information, the concrete and here-and-now, and you work your way to more abstract knowledge. This is the thinking behind the usual social studies curricula, in which one begins by studying one's house and neighborhood, then city and state, then country, then the world--this is repeated in history and geography. It is also reflected in the notion that one starts with "hands on" natural history in one's back yard, biology generally, then geography and then more abstract sciences like chemistry and physics. This was the science sequence at my high school.

The way I see it, however, when we started reading science more systematically, we had already read hundreds of mostly easy science books spread across all scientific disciplines. We had also done a wide variety of experiments. We definitely were not starting at ground zero. So--why think there was any pedagogical advantage to starting with biology then? Biology would be easier, but it will always be easier at every level of attainment. Besides, while it is certainly challenging, I find it is not that hard to get H. to understand principles like friction, conservation of momentum, and so on. Apart from the calculations, the concepts are easy to demonstrate; in fact, you're really just giving names to aspects of nature that it's easy for kids to observe and notice. The required mental discipline simply involves focus on specific features of nature, to the exclusion of others.

This brings us to abstract thinking. The other reason for thinking that kids should start with concrete subjects and rather than something abstract, like physics, is that abstract thinking is supposed to be beyond a five-year-old. Fortunately, I'm a philosopher and like all philosophers I have thought long and hard about what abstraction are. I know that any property can be called an "abstraction"; so our concepts of colors are concepts of abstractions. So even babies are capable of grasping abstractions. But, you might say, they're not really general, or somehow anyway more difficult sorts of abstractions--like gravity. It's hard to teach a child things they can't see or hear or feel. And yet this is nonsense, isn't it? They get a rough idea of what God is supposed to be, of air that they can't see or always feel, and indeed of gravity. I remember teaching H. about gravity when he was 2 or 3. I hung something over a table and dropped it, and the thing dropped with a satisfying thunk, and then I said, "That's gravity! Gravity is what made it go down!" I then repeated the same sort of thing in other circumstances, and pretty soon H. was dropping things and saying, "That's gravity!" and could answer questions like, "If I threw this ball up into the air, what would happen to it?" and he would say, "It would come down," and I would ask, "Why?" and he would say, "Because of gravity!" Most of us do not have any more sophisticated idea of what gravity is than this, although we might know more facts about gravity. The abstract nature of the concept, however, obviously does not make it impossibly difficult.

Why do I start with physics? Precisely because I want to start with the most general, fundamental scientific concepts and principles, because this will provide us with the concepts to understand, more deeply, the more derivative concepts of more "concrete" sciences. For example, I'm not sure when we'll do astronomy, but I suspect we'll do it after physics and chemistry. Having studied physics and chemistry will enable us to understand better what is meant when a book says that the sun is made of hydrogen and helium, or that nuclear fusion happens there, or what a spectrograph is and how one might learn about elements using one. So it goes like this: for any given science, which uses the fewest concepts of any other? That would be physics, I believe; maybe chemistry. Then, excluding physics and chemistry, which science uses the fewest concepts of any remaining science? Astronomy, I guess. Then earth sciences, then the more general or abstract parts of biology such as molecular and cell biology, and so on.

I don't claim this is a knock-down argument for this sequence, but the only constraint on the order of the study of the sciences--admittedly a very weak constraint, at this level--that I can see is conceptual dependencies. Physics and chemistry are always going to be challenging, whenever you study them. Putting them off until later won't make them easier. You might be capable of studying a slightly more difficult version of the "difficult" sciences if you wait a few years, but so what?

All that said, I really don't think it matters very much what order you study the sciences in. I could change my mind and conclude that it does matter, but I doubt it does.

[PokerDad]

I think I can agree with that. All sciences are observable.

Physics & cosmology are the ones that really blow my mind at my age.

For example, gravity. Just picturing that gravity is nothing more than a curvature of space itself and yet how certain it is while standing on the face of the Earth - it's difficult for me to comprehend. And then what about gravitons? I can't fathom them either. 10 or 11 dimensions, can't fathom them either. Is magnetism one of those dimensions?

The list goes on and on. I'm no physics guy, but it sure interests me. Sorry for the derail - I guess I see no problem in starting with basic physics since we DO use it everyday from walking, running, swimming, turning on a light, talking, playing music, etc etc. The world around us is simply fascinating

[Korrale4kq]

Than you! I love hearing why people do things.

I think my overal pedagogy for science and social studies  will be roughly based on the classical education system. I plan to introduce the simple form of all the sciences I can over a period of a few years. Which you have already been doing Daddude. And it is what we are doing now. Right now we like the Usborne Beginners books  Then we will  revisit them again 3 or so years later and again in depth, and again other 3 or so years beyond that. That way I figure they are building on content and knowldege they have already touched.

I think I am drawn to biology and life science myself. Astronomy, palaentology eh...
I am the kind of person who wants to learn everything I can about everything.  (history, philosophy and psychology major)  But for some reason, astronomy and dinosaurs has never interested me much.  I know it sways my decision about what I read to James now. He is only 2,  we will get to astronomy. But it will be a later one for us, probably.

[Korrale4kq]

Oh and I do agree that kids can understand the abstract. They are capable of more than many adults would give them credit for.

We haven't started in out community for geography yet. Instead I showed my son a map of the world.  I showed him where I live and I showed him where gramma lives. Then I told him it was a long way away. And he looked at the world map for a bit then looked through the atlas and had 2 aha! moments. He found the USA and found Australia. He went back to the world map and showed me where gamma lives and said, "gamma with the white hair (we have never once talked about her hair) lives with kangaroos! And JJ lives here on the H." he pointed to Ohio.

Sure he doesnt really understand it. But he certainly understand that we live in different places far apart.

[PokerDad]

IMO... (so not worth a whole lot  )... if you're passionate about something, your child will pick up on that passion and is much more likely to become passionate about it, too. So if life science really gets you going, it's more likely to get your child going... and that's really the most important thing; becoming passionate about learning.

[Mandabplus3]

Interesting. I agree that the passion is probably most important. It's really difficult to get a child enthusiastic to learn something you don't care for. Another thing I have found is that in teaching sciences, they build on from each other. So if you start with biology it's pretty easy to slide into some molecular construction and from their into chemistry ( what's it made of? Why? ) or from biology to seasons to astronomy.  That way you as a teacher can use your strengths and passions to teach the topics that you arent so interested in. As a bonus you can show how the world links up.
Also I ( admitting a biology bias up front!) think learning basic concepts of biology early is a good idea as let's face it that's what most kids around the world learn first. It would be interesting as a teacher to have a class that knew all about biology except for the one kid who could draw a periodic table from memory and talk about it all. I would feel really bad if I had to fail that kid in biology or even have to give them a B. Of course if you are home schooling long term it isn't going to matter.
As to the math manipulatives. I will use a manipulative to introduce an idea. Once a kid understands what the point is I switch them to abstract numerals. There is no point in demonstrating everything in concrete form if they just don't need it. We expect them to read "ball" and know it represents a round bouncy object, why not expect them to know that 10 is a group of .......... ? I like manipulatives to ensure understanding in the beginning but they can become a crutch. Obviously it can take longer use of manipulatives for toddlers to understand then for a 6 year old. The point is ditch them when you can, as soon as you can for each concept.

[JainaRei]

DadDude your writings on H's progress has been inspirational to me also. I've been eagerly anticipating teaching my LO the love of learning. So much so I started to watch some programs on Albert Eiensten and Steve Hawkings and their therories. I don't rememeber much physics from High School. Sadly I'm a few years away from teaching things like science though.

I'm not sure where I stand on manipulatives yet but I do like your point Mandabplus3, it makes sense to me (i also really like the Marshmallow Maths concept of using everyday things to teach maths). I'm a very hands on learner myself (a problem when my homeschool require large amounts of reading) and could only grasp concepts when I understood their real world application. I find this approch to teaching comes naturally to me. That said I also believe I was a bright child, I loved that maths had rules. It seemed very logical to me. I picked up fractions without too much difficulty (apparently a hard concept for children). My mum only had to cut up and apple for me once to show me that 2 halves equals a whole etc. I have seen other kids shown various real world versions of fractions only for it to take them a whole month to grasp the concept. Then again maybe I had seen fractions at work my whole life (having a brother only 2 years younger we were always cutting things in half to share) and I didn't need much prompting for me to connect the absract with the concrete. Maybe thats the key lots of early exposure to the practical applications to maths.

[DadDude]

Well, re the order of studying sciences, what can I say--I'm a contrarian. The fact something "is usually done that way," at least when it comes to education, holds little water with me. This might make me seem like a crank or otherwise off in certain other communities, so I'm glad that ya'll at least tolerate me. :-)

Seems JJ and H are neighbors!

I do like manipulatives to introduce new concepts. Absolutely, we do that. I also think it's a great way to introduce math in preschool, although I haven't tried it yet with baby E. (age 20 months).

Of course I do agree it's great to encourage specific interests, and that kids pick up their parents' interests. I think H. sees me writing a lot and so that is probably why he writes quite a bit, on his own little Netbook. He also knows I work on software-related stuff so I think that has inspired him to do Scratch. His interest in electricity (which goes way back, to when he was one or two) is his own, though.

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