High School Work Plan

Legoboy and I have had a few life experiences in the last 3 years. These experiences have ranged from absolutely amazingly wonderful to the most terrifyingly horrific.

Needless to say, schooling had to work around and through life, as it always has for us: fully integrated and meeting our family's unique needs.

Legoboy and I worked together to develop his high school work plan. Way back when, we started with a daily work plans, moved to a weekly and a monthly (click on the "work plan" tag at the bottom of this post to see our other work plans through the years). Now, we can start looking at mapping out a multi-year education plan.

Legoboy was looking at college studies in architecture and started his high school plan with what those kinds of colleges were looking for in a potential's student's history. Together, we then compared those to the local high school requirements and developed a personal transcript form.

We then went through it and filled in names of courses and resources used for each. He organized which items he wanted to do in each year, if there was a preference or an order, so he could get a feel for where the non-preferences would naturally fit in.

A notebook contains our notes for each course, which flesh out the names of the resources on the transcripts, describe the required areas of study in each subject, desired areas of interest in each subject, final project for each subject and any other pertinent information.


Legoboy finished up all but one of the final 9th grade requirements in October of 2019, having already begun some of his 10th and even 11th grade plans. The plan was to take the month of November off, with the exception of finalizing his research paper which was more for fun than for academics.

He took the resources he was going to use for 10th grade and organized them out by the months of the school year. This wasn't a perfect document because some of the bolded main headings didn't make it onto the printed page from the Excel made he had created.

He really wanted to organize things into something akin to a block schedule. Fewer areas of focused study, more intensely, then swap it up. Just a few things were every month, including literature and apologetics.

Each month we were to read together at least one book of extra-cultural origin, with the goal of reaching around the world, with representative samples from each continent.

He was also continuing with his taekwondo (working towards second degree black belt) having started discussing 28 hours earlier about opening a school with his first instructor. Service projects and involvement in our church community as well as the community at large through various venues.

He had started applying for jobs and would have started driver's education in December.


The specific resources don't matter at this age as much as the planning, the organization - the personal responsibility and integrity.


But for those interested, here are some highlighted resources that suit Montessori educated students:

• Cover Story and One Year Adventure Novel
• Mike Waski's Algebra and Geometry resources
• Life of Fred
• Ramsey Solutions - Foundations in Financial Peace
• Generation J Camp

One thing he was REALLY looking forward to and we were starting to case out a few options: 

Speech. Read: DEBATE. He wanted to master the fine points of debate. ;) 

I wish he had lost the final debate of his life. 

Final Upper Elementary Work Plan

Legoboy is coming to an end of his elementary years and is already showing signs of the Adolescent mind... sleeping a lot more; moody-moody-moody; more expression through hand-work; and needing more guidance with his work plans, where he was really independent for quite a while there.

This last bit threw me for a loop, but also entirely makes perfect sense. For all of us who have spent a few years avoiding the checklist mentality with the work plans???? Guess what the adolescent actually NEEDS! A checklist!

A checklist developed together - not something pre-determined - and the child still has control over his day and week and month and year and interests and studies, but the child right now *craves* more connection with the adults around him, seeks that guidance so much more when the previous second plane of development was worked through properly with a strong relationship built and all internal needs met ---- so this new child just wants to know what the expectations are so he can get on with things. He IS working toward a goal now - whether that be to finish middle school or high school, earn specific credits, learn a specific skill in order to do a particular activity, etc. There really needs to be more of an "end in sight" mentality.


We are still in the transitioning phase. And I have already noticed something as I type this up - unbeknownst to me and just following our natural Montessori paths, we are totally moving into a classical direction. Bess at Grace & Green Pastures has already identified this connection and has some plans in mind - I always saw the connections, and know that others have combined the two, but I never really made a plan - I had a few specific goals for our household as a family, otherwise the plan is to meet the needs of each individual and the family as a whole. And here we are - classical! ;)


So here goes - final semester of upper elementary Montessori homeschooling for my precious baby, Legoboy!



Finishing up the elementary albums

Legoboy has slowed down *quite* a bit on the final presentations - partly his own readiness and interest, partly to help me create videos. He figures he will get those presentations with the videos and he mostly enjoys helping me (he earns Dairy Queen blizzards as well as a percentage of each KotU sale that includes video access).

Also, the albums are not the be-all-end-all of your homeschool curriculum. They are a foundation and a structure on which the individual child and the individual family has time to explore areas of personal interest and family importance. So many resources can be plugged in as the child reaches out into the world and deeply explore their areas of interest at the time of their interest. For example, I could sit here and complain about not finding just the right match of a study resource for my son to care about American History, but really? He has been exploring the Highlights series on the states, reads lots of books (ahem, historical fiction) of various time periods and locations, we watch a lot of movies, we discuss all of those movies and books and references that he isn't clear on - and it all ends up interconnecting. Oh yes - and games. Board games, card games, dice games, you name it, we play it; and the more educational or strategic, the more we play it. And there are geography games too!

• Mathematics - I have been eyeing some of the adolescent algebra presentations - the early ones - for Legoboy. He seems ready and the author (Mike Waski) says that some of the work can be done in upper elementary. I recently attended a workshop and tried to engage in a conversation about which could be where, but time was so limited, we didn't get back to it. Follow the child!
• Art - at this point, art works into everything. I do want to do a history of art timeline this year yet. And he has plans to work through Art-Pac 6 for basic simple fun. 
• Music - we still need to work on the tone bars, but will do those as we get to them in the videos. Otherwise, he has history of many composers and styles down pat, piano lessons (see below) and a wide variety of musical interests under his belt. 
• Biology - we have thoroughly covered this album, but he will help with the videos for some built-in review. 
• Geometry - A few spots left to fill in, but he wants to just do them with the videos - it will be good to show audiences a genuine "first lesson" ;) 
• History - we have this covered ;) 
• Language Arts - also covered; he will do review with the related videos and he is doing literature studies as noted below. 

1/23/2016 --- OOPS! I posted this before Legoboy looked it over. He said I made some mistakes - I added in some things he wants to work towards doing in the autumn, when he is fully in adolescent mode. So I have struck some things out! Sorry!


Literature Studies - stemming from the elementary Language Arts album
Legoboy chose some pre-written literature studies from Memoria Press to go through of his own accord. This year the focus is on Adam of the Road, Door in the Wall, King Arthur, and Robin Hood. He likes these guides himself; as for my preference, I would like to see related art and science suggestions, etc - you know, more of the cosmic education components. When I let up my own expectations though, and let Legoboy lead - he always pulls in these outside studies himself. When I start to do something he backs off. You'd think I'd've learned my lesson by now! Someday. ;)

Poetry: He is also working through the Poetry selections in Poetry for the Grammar Stage.


Geography Studies - stemming from the elementary Geography album
The Keys of the Universe albums do not at this particular moment have a "functional geography" chapter. The geography album almost had this in it ---- then the jumpdrive was lost right before a back-up was going to be made. Yeah. Not a good day (now a month...).

Legoboy's chosen paths have been the inspiration for what *will* be in that geography album in regards to functional geography. He chose these resources based on a wide variety of options (including not using any particular resource at all). And as the soon-to-be-adolescent he is becoming, he is really eating up the idea of following the lessons point by point, stopping to add in his own; discussing with me when he hits a point he already knows (verify his knowledge so he can move on) or is bored with (verify he knows enough to move on, or how much to work through anyway to move on to the next lesson).

• Trail Guide to World Geography - Includes a study of 80 Days Around the World - Legoboy is just now starting to get into Jules Verne's books. 
• Geography Through Art (these two items will be later in the year - not this semester
• Children's Atlas of God's World
• Passport to the World
• Lesson Planner for the last two items on this list

All of these really get into specific cultures, music, art, as well as the physical geography of the local area.
Why so much? Because he wants to!


Ancient Greek - stemming from love of all things ancient History as well as Biblical
Online course through Homeschool Connections.


Cover Story
He took a long break from this as he shifted focus to other areas. Next month he plans to pick it up again, probably from the beginning. Here is the post where he first started Cover Story.
Although he HAS started going through it again, he asks me to note that he probably won't delve into it until we have the Keys of the Universe Montessori homeschooling videos finished. Why this connection? Beats me, other than the amount of time involved.


Christian Studies
Legoboy has been working through Memoria Press's Christian Studies 1, 2 and 3 at a rather fast clip. He has studied so much of this within the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd atrium already as well as his own studies and other homeschool studies, so this is just putting it into another framework. He uses this as a review and it is going FAST.


US History - finally finishing !? 

• America: The Story of Us movies on Netflix
• US History study book

The post where he started US History studies - way back! We still have those resources; but they are not meeting our particular needs anymore. The book mentioned there is good; I think it will be more meaningful now we have gone through the videos. With that video overview, Legoboy is moving along more smoothly through his study book; then we will get back to the book in the other post, with its even greater detail on the eras it covers.

Key Montessori principle for the elementary age: whole to the parts. Overview, then delve into the details of interest. As we delve into these various details (of which he is creating a notebook of questions and ideas to explore that he does not want to research until he has had the entire overview (videos) and finished the study book), we will explore various viewpoints and use a variety of sources.


Atrium
Legoboy continues to participate in the local parish's level 3 atrium. This has been a mixed bag experience. The current catechist is brand-new to being in level 3 full-time, only recently finished her training, and has a great deal of other responsibilities on her shoulders. It is a lot for her. An adult male friend of the family and his daughter have recently returned to the atrium, so Legoboy is much more amenable to attending as long as they are present. Previously, he would ask ME to give him a presentation at home and suggest some work options - now he knows there will at least be some good exploration of some aspect of the faith. So - he goes. And texts me during class to ask what he should work on... Not because he isn't capable but because the structure of the class is no longer amenable to children identifying their personal interests and following through on it - that and he can't find half the materials. Pray for this catechist! Her heart is normally one of gold and there have been some difficult situations of late!



Piano Lessons
Last week, Legoboy started on his first official piano lessons. To date, I have taught him, he has self-taught using The Music Tree books, and he has had random music lessons from various individuals. It has been a while and he needs something more consistent. So there goes any extra money I thought we would have from being debt-free! He really does enjoy playing the piano, though - so the cost is totally worth it.


Strengthening and Conditioning
The local YMCA has a class that we've not seen listed in the program before, but apparently has been offered for a while. This class meets twice a week for an hour (plus 5 laps around the building before or after) for children about 4th through 8th grade. The idea seems to be a "something to do in between other sports". Since Legoboy doesn't play any seasonal sports, this has been a great ongoing class for him - they do a lot of what looks like military drills, use a variety of workout equipment - and his favorite part: use some of the workout machines and big equipment (the stuff that the Y says you have to be older than he is AND receive a demo on how to use!).


Taekwondo
Legoboy continues with taekwondo - the instructors are teasing he is making career of the school black belt! Normally you test for the school black belt, than take (and pass) the association test about a month later. The association only has tests every 6 months. We are coming up on the 3rd one since Legoboy got the school black belt, and we're still not sure if he is going to test or not! He just needs SNAP in his forms; instead he looks bored (he IS bored - so he does them sloppy - this is an internal attitude that needs work).

In the meantime, he LOVES tournaments!

My handsome :)
Last Saturday's tournament:
1st in breaking
3rd in weapons forms
no place in regular forms (bored look on his face)

Swim lessons
He is also on his umpteenth session of the swim lessons for the lowest level. He IS making improvement in every area, but just hasn't moved out of the lowest level class since he started lessons in summer 2014. He started with a 3 week summer session, twice a week; then did one session on then one session off (a session is typically 7 weeks) for a while, but he just started his 3rd session in a row to just get past the basic skills. Then he can re-evaluate to continue on or take a break.


Other - more informal:

We still have other studies going, but not on any official basis:

• Life of Fred - we'll pick up more next year. Legoboy has read all of the stories already ;) 
• Key To workbooks - again, we'll pick up the rest next year. 
• Khan Academy - totally informal. He works on it when he likes, on whatever topics he likes. Most recently he has been focusing on some coding classes they have. 
• Minecraft Mod Coding class online 

As you can see, we are really kind of coming together, consolidating. The coming adolescent (middle school) years will continue academic growth, but at a slower pace. More in another post! 

What about the 6th grade local educational standards? With all the flux with common core, not common core, but still have to revamp our standards (which were already *better* than common core) to be in line with common core, without being common core..... 

I'll be blunt: 

I. Don't. Care. 

Our local schools don't finish a textbook anyway; when we do a course of study, we meet all goals. 

Our local schools have children all over the place regarding mastery; when we do a course of study, we master the material. 

Our local schools are good schools and meet the needs of most of the local children; my son's homeschool meets the needs of 100% of its students.

I am all for checking in with local standards, ensuring we have the same terminology, that all concepts are covered. 

But when local school districts can't get it together, it is time to move on with my child's education. 

Ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ----- the Montessorian in me can't just set it aside and not LOOK. 

Everything I see in our current state standards for math, social studies, science, language arts, health & wellness ---- is covered by the Montessori experiences as I have them in the KotU or in a child's natural follow-up studies - OR will be succinctly covered in the upcoming adolescent math album. 

When do you become a "writer"?

Just some musings as a variety of fragments come together over a short period of time.

14 months ago, Legoboy started a Cover Story program (writing his own magazine - middle school experience). We LOVE it, but last year wasn't a year for accomplishing much. Honestly, looking back, we were both really, really, really, REALLY burned out living in that apartment. It was hard to get through a day just fighting to be able to spiritually LIVE, let alone focus on much routine. At the time, in the thick of it, we didn't realize how bad that was. But now, looking back, the amount of time we simply spent ELSEwhere, or looking for "stuff", or getting out essential oils and herbs to deal with respiratory issues (smoking neighbors; strong perfumes on the neighbors; after a while even the laundry detergent and fabric softener smells from the laundry room below us were setting off strange reactions). Those memories are permeated with a sense of *searching* - always searching: for an item, for a remedy, for a moment of peace at 2am listening to the neighbors... do what they do at 2am (which most of the time was drinking and singing in the living room, but you know - walls are paper-thin). I suspect we were searching for peace.

That description makes it all sound so horrible. And it didn't feel like that in the moment; all 6 years of moments living there. It was a temporary place that became the longest time I have ever lived in one place, ever. Waiting and searching for a house to move into (and yes, I know MBT is waiting to hear that story).

All that to say - Cover Story took a back burner.

But now we are moved and unpacked, catching up on SO MUCH and looking forward to starting it up again next month. Legoboy wanted to start it sooner, but we have some other areas to address first.


I am totally rambling - and that is just going to be the nature of this post ;)


We follow Cover Story and One Year Adventure Novel (warning: the home page on that site opens up a video almost immediately - cute video, but auto-play annoys me) on their blog as well as on Facebook. Interesting blog topics are the norm, with highly thoughtful responses.

Recently there was a post on When Can You Call Yourself a Writer?


The general gist of how I would personally respond and what the author was getting at: you are a writer when you write your own ideas.

Copying someone else does not make you a writer.

Writing someone else's ideas does not you a writer make.

You are a writer because you write your own ideas.



Rambling on....

So often in the realm of Montessori teaching as well as homeschooling, we have some foundational groundwork experiences that seem straight-forward, but are then interpreted several different ways, and end up with different outcomes. I am thinking particularly in this moment of the learning to write and read experiences offered to Montessori children around the world. Some use something more similar to what Maria Montessori actually did (AMI comes rather close; probably not identical; Muriel Dwyer summarizes it); some use a pink/blue/green reading scheme for the complicated English language (which makes me wonder how the AMI/Dwyer-taught children learn to read/write English with such ease, exploding into reading with joy between 4 and 5 years of age, if English is too complicated to use Montessori's method; compared to those using pbg whose children read first then write, but later - many times not until unto lower elementary... but I digress - both systems WORK, just that one feels more authentically Montessori and the other feels more adult-controlled --- if the Montessori goal is to present the keys and let the child decide when he can write and when he can read, that is all that matters for this post).

My question though is - do the children in a Montessori setting become writers from the get-go? Or do they have to be eased into it?

I make a strong case for the children are writers when they write their own ideas - when they are communicating via a written language their OWN ideas.

The AMI/Dwyer experiences allow the children to know all the 40-44 key sounds in the English language prior to starting the movable alphabet; the children can write words the first time they pull out the movable alphabet. The adult/guide/parent/teacher orients the child to the box, how to carry the box, where it goes on the shelf, how to straighten the letters. the placement of the letters within the box, how to place the letters on the mat, reviews a few sounds and invites the child to think of a word (ANY WORD! What did you eat for breakfast this morning?). Let's listen for the sounds in that word. What sounds do we hear? Say the word the child chose - he selects the sounds, and places them in order on the mat.

If the word can be (silently!) read phonetically by the adult, we do not correct spelling. We will get to the phonograms very soon. Right now, the child is WRITING. His own ideas.

The child creates a list of self-chosen words. He may ask the adult for inspiration and the adult provides some questions to generate the child's ideas.

Actual samples of my then-3-year-old son's movable alphabet work
Self-chosen topics
note the rules he has picked up on and those he has not yet -
yet all are phonetically spelled according to the rules he received to that point

The list is cleared away when the child's work is done; we do not have the child record his work (the adult may copy some words down, the child does not about this, as a record of work to show mom/dad at conference time - or other parent if a homeschooling family - but the child is not yet writing with pencil on paper the words, because we do not want to reinforce improper spelling, nor do we want to reinforce that everything has to be written down - sometimes the child just wants to WORK --- so these early times, we stick to the basics; let the child request to write it down on paper, or just do it on his/her own).

When the child is ready - that day, the next day? Short phrases. That orange you ate this morning? Describe it to me! "the juicy orange"
Introduce a puzzle word (the) - or wait until another day. it is ok since we are not writing this stuff on paper.
thu joosy ornj (or: thu joosy orinj - depending on dialect)
(the juicy orange --- it's phonetic, it's legitimate --- as the child has more phonograms, this will naturally correct itself)

it wuz joosy
it wuz sweet


The children are writing!


I do have strong feelings about providing the children crutches - idea cards (pictures or objects for example) for what to write, because their knowledge of the symbols of sounds is so limited that the adult feels the need to give the child success through a series of cards or pictures or books keyed to the sounds the adult has provided the child. I DO feel strongly that we should give the key sounds in quick succession so that the child doesn't NEED these crutches to have success. When a baby learns to walk, he generally has a running-like gait. Let the children have this experience with writing too! Let him run before he walks with crutches!

Not only does it give them confidence from the beginning, it provides the keys they need to write anything, thereby freeing up their creativity to GO places! Rather than writing someone else's ideas and waiting on that person to give them permission to write on their own, then having to figure out how to think for themselves.


You are a writer when you write your own ideas. Describe your own real life experiences. You need real life experiences and sometimes guiding questions.

Copying someone else does not make you a writer. Copying words that are meaningless - you have not chosen the words. You have not chosen the topic. These are not your ideas or your interests. Choose your own words of interest from the various topics presented in an authentically Montessori real-life environment! 

Writing someone else's ideas does not you a writer make. Spelling out the words of pictures on cards is not writing your own ideas, your own thoughts, your own interests, YOUR writing. Draw your own pictures to write about! 

You are a writer because you write your own ideas. Describe your own real life experiences. What do YOU love? What do you loathe? What brings you passion? 


I once worked with a young man, age 4, going through a PBG "program" modified with G-O - giving him lists of words that met the criteria for what he already knew. He was accepting of the work, but only asked for it because he knew he "had to." It didn't seem to fill him with joy or peace - simply "ok, I did that work, now can I go play?" This wasn't my environment, I didn't control this part about the adult giving the words; I was there to fill in for the main teacher and I am happy to respect her authority, despite the drudgery of 3-4 letter "phonetic" words. For my own personal kicks one day though, I said, "What word would YOU like to write?" He said, "Really!? I want to write the word skeleton - I have been wanting to learn to write so I can write the word skeleton!"

I said, "Let's do it."

skelitun is what he wrote on the mat.

That boy could NOT BE MORE PROUD of HIS OWN WORK. He went on to write a LOT the rest of that week - all of it was phonetically correct, he did need some sounds given to him (he didn't know some of the key individual letters yet, but his teacher already had him writing with the movable alphabet - so he would ask me, "what is the letter for the sound (fill in the blank)?")

That day, he became a writer.

The lead teacher didn't seem too enthused. I felt like saying (but didn't) a slightly different rendition from the Frozen movie, "Why are you holding back such a man!?" Such a writer! This kid was creative!

I wish I had permission to publish his adorable SO PROUD smile.



Click here for a link to the Montessori Trails page correlating Dwyer with AMI with Pink/Blue/Green - aligned next to each other according to stages.

"School Days" postings....

MBT keeps catching me ;)

I'm always sad that you don't do "school days" posts from your house. 

Why don't I? I've been asking myself a similar questions for a couple of years now. I'll post on projects, I'll post on studies, and I did do something of a sample day a while back (wow! Just pulled it up - it's from 2 years ago this month! and it was nothing 'special' but it was typical).


But really, looking at the previous post..... that's our days. We're pretty relaxed about specifics, but rigid about expectations - I expect the concepts to be mastered while balancing the reality of my son's needs. I run two businesses out of my home, teach in the atrium 5 days a week, tutor ever-changing groups of children; he has tae-kwon-do, his Lego projects and his books and games that he wants to get to, so he gets his chores done, works on his school projects mixed in with his other personal projects - and it all just sort of happens. Not always on MY time table (how many times it is 11 at night and I wanted to give a new presentation that day and need to hold off another day? Yeah, that has happened many more times than I care to admit), but when the presentation happens, it is always the "right" time.


Summary??? We just don't have "school time" - it is all mixed into our entire day. If I give a new presentation at 9 in the morning or 9 at night, is just based on our very-similar-to-unschooling approach. I have the responsibility to give him the keys; he has the responsibility to learn those keys, assure his "local educational requirements" (for this year: MY requirements) are covered; then he has the freedom to follow his interests along with the corresponding responsibility TO follow his interests, go deeper - and not just "slack off".

We have a routine, rather than a schedule.


There is one major difference between now and 3 years ago: at upper elementary, it is almost ALL projects now. Or studies of some sort. Less "new presentation on a specific skill" and more "develop the use of this skill previously learned". 

From 1st year of lower elementary -
life and school are "one"
Interestingly enough - without the Montessori materials
becoming "toys", they are part of our every-moment lives

For example in math: doing more difficult and/or more practical life mathematics problems, creating notebooks of the Primary Challenge Math (review post coming soon), working on his Pet Store math project (took a LONG hiatus when the computer holding that file fried - just pulled it off the hard drive last week).... We do have math presentations yet to do - in several chapters, but I know the reality is, I present the keys, we find a real life application for it and we review the concepts as needed. If we finish before adolescence, great (I think we will....); if we don't, there IS some wiggle room. Even if we continue to review concepts and go deeper, I fully anticipate we will have begun every topic/presentation before adolescence.

In language, he is "done" with the album, but needs some review with the sentence analysis work (mostly so I can check materials I am developing, but also for his own review), he reads and studies literature to no end, and he is increasing his depth of writing skills, he is practicing calligraphy --- but the official lessons are "done". He does need to get into a book discussion group of some sort (think "Junior Great Books" style would be perfect!). We'll continue to review the Great Lesson there. He is also doing Cover Story and writing some of his own creations.

In history, he is still going deeper and deeper with ancient history (LOVES IT!) and slowly plugging his way through US History (a huge bore for him - this has been a LONG process). He has also been going deeper with the history work in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd atrium, getting more into typological studies, History of Israel and more. At least this work is pulling him more and more into closer-to-modern times. We'll get there... right? ;)  He is technically "done" with this album as well - but review presentations and going deeper with particular topics are always a necessary thing, even in the classroom. Now is the time for his own personal studies and interests.

In music, we are definitely "behind" --- too much else going on. NEED to get those tone bars set up at home! But he continues with the piano (slowly - he is mostly self-taught, so it's taking time), loves to sing, we analyze music, he loves classical music, and all things Lord of the Rings/Hobbit movies.

Biology - we're still going strong on the herbs. We're in need of doing the more complex scientific classification material; otherwise we've done the album a couple of times and will cycle through it again, going into deeper studies - with full-on animal dissections, using the microscope, and....

finishing up remaining suggested experiments/demonstrations in the biology and geography albums. We could probably work on some more memorization of things like state capitals, but we play a lot of geography games. And we do have some economic geography and a few presentations remaining in each of the chapters (except the first 2?) but honestly - not just very much "new" here - what is left is review and going deeper.

Geometry - we DO need to finish up the last couple of chapters. We just kind of stopped at one point. Interest is there - my own time is not. Area and volume concepts need to be thoroughly reviewed and solidified - all else is there.


Wow. Did I just say all that? He'd be in 1st year upper elementary at a Montessori school right now. With 2 more years to go after this one.



We are right now living exactly what I've been saying in all sorts of places: the AMI albums have allowed us to learn the keys, explore personal interests, have time for real life and relationships with other people, without having to worry about "getting it all in". Sure, there are areas I feel behind in - but I know the depth we've gone to, the amount of time Legoboy has spent in productive personal pursuits - and I'm not worried about it. I thought I was, but now I write all of this out - I'm not.

Non-AMI albums tend to have so much "more", but I'm not convinced they encourage the depth, the personal interest or the true follow-up work --- and I've seen so many families who could benefit from continued Montessori go elsewhere because they were either 1) overwhelmed with the number of presentations/materials or 2) underwhelmed at the response of the children.
And a recent survey of sections such as "human geography" (which includes economic geography) demonstrates that what is truly meaningful to the children to build up cosmic education and "peace education" - just isn't there in other albums. No wonder people keep asking me about the peace education components - I don't have them, because they are all deeply integrated into all of the albums I have.

The math album is HUGE and goes so much deeper than any other Montessori album - the concern there always seems to be on "fitting it all in". There is wiggle room, but again, if we are focusing on the keys, encouraging the children to go deep, create their own problems (with structured guidance from the adult), then they are truly mastering the concepts and CAN move forward at their own pace. If they finish before adolescence, great; otherwise, there is some time.

My son has had time for so many academic personal studies outside the Montessori albums, because he was given the keys, expected to master them, then set free to just BE himself.

To reiterate a point from above, because it is so often missed: I expect mastery of skills presented - and I expect that Legoboy will follow his interests and go deep with this studies. It is an inherent expectation, that when not present, does allow the children to fall into shallow work and never really reaching their own potentials. I expect it (in my words AND my actions), I assure the tools are available to make it happen and get out of the way when needed. :)


You know - part of this unschooling-feel is our school space. We don't have a school room or a school space. We have a home. We have an 850 square foot apartment with a library in my bedroom, sewing, tons of felt, wood-storage (the wood-cutting happens elsewhere), garden in the living room, school materials throughout every --- single -- room (Sh!! Our dissection specimens are in one of our kitchen cupboards - NOT anywhere near food, I promise), Legos (oh dear! do we HAVE Legos), art supplies, books everywhere. And yet, only the bedrooms are "cluttered" - the other rooms are just "full". My living room floor I keep clear. I need space somewhere to just breathe! I will post a "school-home" tour soon ;)

I WANT a dedicated room for school materials, even if we use it for other stuff too - just one place to display all things school. I sometimes wonder if I were ever granted such a gift, would I even utilize it as such - because we DO see all things we do as life-education. Maybe I don't want to change. I say I do. I think I do. But maybe... I don't?


Hm. ;)

Writing Experiences - Upper Elementary

Reading The Remarkable Journal of Professor Gunther von Steuben

Legoboy was finally able to start his Cover Story program we ordered a few weeks back. Through Homeschool Buyers Co-Op, we got it for a significant discount and we were one of the first people to receive it. He has long had his eye on their high school "One Year Adventure Novel" (he kind of prefers their follow-up program on Science Fiction and Fantasy, but he knew he would do the Adventure version first) - and was SO excited when they created the middle school level "Cover Story." At the time we learned this, he was in an online middle school literature course on Lord of the Rings with my favorite college professor - so he already had an inkling he might be able to do this middle school writing course sooner than "6th grade".

Well, it took a few weeks for our lives to settle into the current school year (our school year still adjusts at Advent, but we have school-year-based activities and programs we join or I lead) - and he had a few requirements of my own before I was entirely certain of his readiness: I wanted him to review the lower elementary grammar boxes material (ostensibly to help me with some errors I had in the files, but also for his own review since we're not in a classroom where built-in review just happens), he also had some more language analysis work to work through - we will finish that up concurrently with his writing program. Otherwise, his "language arts" for the 'year' is in this box: 

I say 'year' in quotes not just because of our Advent school year change - but also because, well, it's Legoboy. He's creating a magazine about (guess!). I just have a strong feeling things won't take a typical school year. Although - they might. We shall see. I do anticipate by Easter, he will have produced his own magazine, but I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a Christmas thing is all ;) 

What is in the box?

Teacher guide; student text; Journal (reading/writing); DVD set

The DVD does most of the teaching, with a lesson watched each of three days a week. There is a bonus DVD on grammar in case the child needs some additional work there; otherwise the program assumes the child has a good foundation there. Each of the core lessons are followed with a tiny number of pages done in the...

student book: focuses on exercises which clarify their topic, get them thinking about their topics, looking at different styles of writing, reading some short story selections and analyzing.

Write in the journal 5 days a week - instructions are given on the DVD. It alternates between the "Professor" and sets of blank pages to be filled in by the student. In the beginning days, the student writes sets of questions that come to mind - could be unrelated to one another - just to get started on "thinking": just asking the questions. Later they start to look at how to find the answers to those questions. Hm. Sounds a bit like "research" ;) The journal assignments build from asking questions, to describing interesting details, to a 5-sentence paragraph, to dialogue, to a paragraph describing a person, to a paragraph "mini-story" - and that's just the beginning!

If you follow the program to a T, it comes out to 3 days a week of DVD and workbook; 5 days a week of writing in the journal. Not very much time spent at all, which is great for someone with a full schedule. I really like this simplicity, because it means we have so much more flexibility with it when it comes to possible sickness, scheduling, and focusing on developing relationships with other people.

This first week is picking a theme - Legoboy is doing all the exercises in this section even though he has his theme already so that he gains experience for the future, when perhaps he won't have a topic already picked out that is acceptable to the current authority - i.e. college.


This is where I am (again!) so in love with the Montessori method of education and living. We keep things to the essential keys - and then we can flesh out interests, pull in other resources at will, and enjoy the learning process. Yes, I'm gushing. ;) I enjoy these moments as they come!