Living a Montessori Homeschool Life is like following a series of rabbit trails - they are all part of the same creation, with plenty of surprises along the way! We experienced infancy, toddler, primary Montessori and adolescent Montessori together - homeschool and life. My son LIVED. Come share the journey with us!
Montessori Elementary Homeschool Blog - with documentation of our infant Montessori, toddler Montessori, and primary Montessori experiences; as well as preparation for the upcoming adolescent Montessori homeschool years.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Work Journals as Homeschool Proof
UPDATE 2:
The Real Question:
If the only requirements are "equivalent subjects to the local schools" (the state will not define the word "equivalent" - to give homeschoolers more rights) and "attendance of 180 days per school year" (the state, for the same reason above, will not define "attendance" or "school year" - each private school and homeschool can define their own school year, their own attendance, and their own equivalency to local school subjects) starting at age 7 until the child graduates (the state fully supports a parent-issued diploma based on the parent's own graduation requirements) ---- what is the best way to document those requirements while only providing the minimum. Each of these things must be shown upon request.
Solution 1: a list of numbers 1-180 - checked for each day of attendance, noting the "school year" only
(because even a marked calendar actually gives the days/dates of attendance - as the work journal idea presented below --- too much information)
It is pretty obvious if a child can have a generic conversation on the same topics the local kids would study - so that one is a verbal proof.
Solution 2: same as above, but not even noting the school year other than the child's grade level? Or is that too much too?
How can we document attendance without giving more than "attendance"?
I am seriously looking for ideas here! I appreciate the 3 private e-mails I received, but the question wasn't really addressed, which is why I post this second update ;)
UPDATE:
I am pondering my post below. But I am keeping it up - for the sake of conversation - of working out the best plan for those who Montessori homeschool - or even unschool.
Clarification --- Three families in my state that I know of have been visited by DCS in the last 2 months. Each family uses some form of Montessori - and all had a work journal of the basic type that has the date and the name of the work done (not necessarily *what* that work is - such as "bead chain 9" - no description of what it is). With lawyers in place, meetings in their homes with the DCS person, the one thing they each shared with me that they appreciated having (so they didn't have to do anything else) was having that work journal to show *that* schoolwork was done on that day. No way could the DCS person know what the work done even was (and legally couldn't even ask). Apparently one of the lawyers involved also homeschools - and they were ok with the sharing of the basic work journal.
MBT has fantastic comments below - regarding NOT giving more than requested. The trouble in our state is, "what shows what is requested?" Yes, I appreciate the lack of definition of attendance, but how do you show proof of something that has no definition? Each family has to figure out how to do that and NOT provide more than necessary. These families made a particular choice and it worked well for them. Some families just print out a calendar and write the letter "S" on each day school was done. In our family, we school every single day of the week. Pick up any calendar and those are our school days. I wonder if a DCS agent would believe me. But there's my son's attendance record. Every - single - day - of - the - year.
Maybe I am putting this out there so someone else can answer the question for me. What evidence is the bare minimum for showing attendance in a state that doesn't define attendance, but requires 180 days of it - and no other legislation on homeschooling? Is a basic work journal too much? Certainly can be questioned less. How much does this depend on the definition of attendance? A calendar marking school days isn't in the definition either. And that is where the real conundrum lies - for me.
The original post:
Let's pretend you live in a state that only requires attendance in school for 180 days - but the state won't define attendance for private school (and considers homeschools to be private schools).
Portfolios are great; community testimonial that your child is brilliant is great.
But you know what makes life SO MUCH EASIER when someone knocks on the door to question your child's absence from school (presence at home during school hours) ?
Hand them the child's DATED work journal. The contents (style, lay-out) don't matter, but the dates do.
Let me say - it is SO much easier to SAVE those, keep them in ONE place (not hidden somewhere in the piles of papers and boxes of papers that a certain Lego-loving Fiend likes to collect) - then it is to go back and use a calendar to note that school was done on enough days to count for 180.
Do you realize how questionable that looks!? But a work journal, obviously written in different handwriting styles on different days with different writing utensils - so much more believable.
Reality-check: 180 days is half the calendar year. We have school on some level or another every, single, day. 365 days a year. Even Sundays are music (Traditional Latin Mass choir or Novus Ordo chants); Latin with a bit of Greek thrown in; community service (altar serving); history (personal Bible study looking at the historical development); logic (the games we play together later in the day) and literature (Once Upon a Time lovers in this household - and we are always going back and discussing the original tales included in the series as well as the Disney versions - and many times other versions - compare/contrast, discuss the moral implications, changes through time according to culture, what components are the same in all versions because of universal truths, etc.).
Yeah, even Sundays count as school ;) And that's just what we do every Sunday - let alone what we do on only some Sundays (cooking to take food to others in need; art projects of a wide variety).
So, we have 180 days covered in less than the first 6 months of each year.
Of late, I have NOT been as adamant about the work journal as I should be; he does keep a notebook with study ideas, project ideas, he does have his work plan (his organization of the ideas in his head, the requirements he has to meet to attain the goals he has set for himself, and our family projects) and he works from that to move forward with his own work. He does not track dates these days. He should.
So there you have it. Bad idea on my part to not track anything (I don't even have a calendar printed out with "s" on it for every day). We'd need credible proof of 180 days of schooling this school year and last - and a not-quite-10-year-old reading and holding intellectual conversations on high school level literature, doing typical middle school math, pseudo-expert on Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Ancient Israel, running his own small business on Etsy ---- not proof enough of adequate homeschooling.
Not when it is only attendance that counts.
Sigh.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Upper Elementary in AMI
Upper Elementary in AMI
Every once in a while I hear that AMI does not "seem to have much for the 9-12 year old." I have to admit I am perplexed by that statement. As a mother of an almost 10 year old boy who is in the middle of upper elementary right now and "started" elementary a bit "early"... well, he's still pretty busy. On the one hand, I am entirely amazed at what we have accomplished, but we also started elementary at 5 1/2 (giving us more time) and he's an only child of a single mom who runs two businesses from her home and off/on has part-time work outside the home (read that as: lots of free time to avoid school work and play with Legos instead). On the other hand, now the DEEP work is part and parcel of our everyday lives, I can't imagine adding anything MORE to what we do ;)
Here is what I see when I look at AMI albums compared to other albums, in no particular order:
If a child has done ALL of the suggested work for the lower elementary child, here is a generic (not near as detailed as it could be) run-down of the work for an upper elementary child:
(please keep in mind that most children will not get to all suggested topics in lower elementary, because their interests and needs are elsewhere; some will delve into upper elementary topics earlier, but will need to get the other topics later)
(music is not included here - follow the child entirely on this one)
Geography
Biology
Language
Mathematics
Geometry
History
Every once in a while I hear that AMI does not "seem to have much for the 9-12 year old." I have to admit I am perplexed by that statement. As a mother of an almost 10 year old boy who is in the middle of upper elementary right now and "started" elementary a bit "early"... well, he's still pretty busy. On the one hand, I am entirely amazed at what we have accomplished, but we also started elementary at 5 1/2 (giving us more time) and he's an only child of a single mom who runs two businesses from her home and off/on has part-time work outside the home (read that as: lots of free time to avoid school work and play with Legos instead). On the other hand, now the DEEP work is part and parcel of our everyday lives, I can't imagine adding anything MORE to what we do ;)
Here is what I see when I look at AMI albums compared to other albums, in no particular order:
- AMI albums have a general presumption that a child has done all or most of the work in the primary albums.
- A child not coming primary IS given remediation sections in
mathematics and language to "bridge" into elementary without that
previous background. These DO NOT repeat the primary albums, nor do they
take as long. A normally developing 6 year old starting elementary
Montessori can anticipate being less than a "year behind" his peers by
the 3rd year of elementary, and likely not even that much. I say
"behind" in quotes, because no child is truly behind - he is where he is
and we work with the child in that place (this is what following the
child means - following his NEEDS).
- I personally strongly encourage use of the sensorial album with new elementary children; utilizing the presentations as "challenges" rather than presented work. It generally takes less than a month of daily sensorial activities to lay a strong foundation (while doing other subject areas of interest/need). But that is just my personal experience speaking.
- In general, AMI has fewer materials, with more use of the same
material in a variety of ways, going deeper with the one material rather
than spreading out to more materials.
- AMI lays the foundation and expectation for a child to go deeper
with his work, ask his own questions, seek out answers and collaborate
with others. There are cues along the way, begun in primary and
continued throughout elementary - we do not provide all the child's math
problems for example, but provide prompts of the sort of math problems
to create on his own - we can monitor his work and prompt areas that
need attention.
- Upper elementary (ages 9-12) does not entirely repeat 6-9 - but
all concepts are reviewed. Since personal research is encouraged from
the get-go, by the time a child is in upper elementary, he should really
be going much deeper with his work. Review concepts in history, for
example, and most if not all upper elementary students should be delving
into their own personal study of local national history, state/province
history, and another area of choice (generally children have an area of
history they flourish in - GO with it).
- AMI does NOT bog a child down or remove his imagination,
creativity, or passion for learning by dictating every single study he
does. AMI provides keys - a foundation and a framework - then provides
guides for following particular interests (Goings Outs, history question
charts, reading great literature and delving into the language used,
music experiences with the tone bars, economic geography, etc.). If a
particular child or family has a particular interest or value, there is
now time to follow that particular pursuit because you do not have 6
hours of schoolwork dictated to you for every day of upper elementary.
- AMI does not utilize some materials in lower elementary that WERE used in primary, that some other albums say are still necessary at lower elementary (some of these items, such as the small bead frame, are not even used in AMI remedial mathematics at the elementary level - yet it is a "crucial" material in other elementary albums --- all those concepts can be covered with the large bead frame and NOT slow a child down) ---- thus beginning to go deeper, sooner and freeing up time/effort at the upper end of the age spectrum, when children in the well-run AMI schools DO get into algebra in 6th grade (not ALL children do! even at the best top-notch schools - again, we follow the child --- but here is another point: many children do NOT get to all the presentations in the math album and have more to do as they enter the adolescent plane of development.... so how can there not be enough in math?)
- I can ALMOST see the concern in language - there is less
"dictated" - there are less "direct lessons". This is a benefit to the
child if they have done most or all of the official lessons in the
language album before getting to upper elementary. Now they can explore
IDEAS, delve into speech, debate, drama, writing papers in one style,
then re-writing in another style for comparison ---- hitting on all
those extensions of the early album pages that they weren't ready for in
lower elementary or didn't have time for (because of all the personal
research they were doing).
If a child has done ALL of the suggested work for the lower elementary child, here is a generic (not near as detailed as it could be) run-down of the work for an upper elementary child:
(please keep in mind that most children will not get to all suggested topics in lower elementary, because their interests and needs are elsewhere; some will delve into upper elementary topics earlier, but will need to get the other topics later)
(music is not included here - follow the child entirely on this one)
Geography
Chapter I: Creation of the Earth/Idea of the Universe
|
God with No Hands - experiments -
follow-ups
|
Additional Creation stories
|
Composition of the Earth
|
Further Details of the Composition
of the Earth (stages)
|
Formation of the Mountains
|
Chapter II: Nature of the Elements
|
Further States of Matter
|
Different Ways of Combining
|
Separation, Saturation,
Super-saturation
|
Attraction and Gravity
|
Extensions of all of the above
|
Chapter III: The Sun and the Earth
|
Time Zone Chart
|
Tilt of the Axis: Solstice, etc
|
Seasons and the Two Tropics:
terminology from tilt
|
Chapter IV: The Work of Air
|
Review entire chapter; cover
anything missed; select follow-ups to research
|
Chapter V: The Work of Water
|
The River
|
The Rains - Erosion
|
Ocean Waves
|
Ice
|
Spread of Vegetation
|
People in Different Zones
|
Chapter VI: Human Geography
|
Human Geography (Economy)
|
Overview of Local Government
|
Follow-Ups
|
Study of Natural Resources -
Introductions
|
What is Produced and Where
|
Study of Consumption
|
Study of Consumption - Follow-Up
(extensive)
|
Comparison of Production and
Consumption
|
Imports and Exports:
|
Volume of World Trade
|
World Commerce
|
FINAL NOTES:
Children should be studying in areas of interest (astronomy, physics,
geology, etc.) Topics of less interest will be covered in middle/high
school.
|
Biology
Biology – Botany and Zoology
|
Botany Experiments and Exploration
|
Story Material
|
Dissection of Animals
|
Biology: Classification
|
Kingdom Vegetalia: Classification
|
Genera
|
Familes: Continuing Classification
|
Geneaology of the Plant
|
Tree of Classification:
|
Kingdom Animalia: Classification
|
Biology: Ecology
|
Ecosystems - variety
|
Language
Chapter
I: History of Language
|
The
Story of Communication in Signs
|
The
History of Written Language
|
The
History of Spoken Language
|
|
Chapter
II: Grammar and Syntax
|
Compound
Words - Conversations
|
Additional
Grammar Symbols
|
Verbs -
Simple Tense: Present
|
Verbs -
Simple Tense: Past
|
Verbs -
Auxiliary Verbs
|
Verbs -
Simple Tense: Future
|
Verbs -
The Perfect Tenses
|
Verbs -
The Infinitive and Moods
|
Verbs -
Negative Form of the Verb
|
LA:
Simple Sent w Extensions - box 2
|
LA:
Simple Sent w Extensions - on paper
|
LA:
Verbal & Nominal Predicates (linking verbs)
|
Elliptical
Sentences
|
Order
of Sentences
|
Voice
of the Verb
|
Voice
of the Verb - Dictation
|
Transitive
and Intransitive Verbs
|
Compound
Sentences
|
Complex
Sentences - Adjective Clauses
|
Complex
Sentences - Adverbial Clauses
|
Complex
Sentences - Noun Clauses - Direct
|
Complex
Sentences - Noun Clauses - Indirect
|
Complex
Sentences - Noun Clauses - Subject
|
Complex
Sentences: Degrees of Dependence
|
|
Chapter
III: Written Language
|
Written
Language Part I & 2
|
Historical
Investigation
|
Heraldry
|
Runes
|
Calligraphy
|
Decoration
|
Illustration
|
Illumination
|
Variety
of paper
|
Exploration
of grammar books
|
The
Content of Children’s Work
|
Factual
Writing - Various forms
|
Imaginative
Writing - Various forms
|
Research
and Note-Taking
|
|
Chapter
IV: Spoken Language
|
Discussion
|
Reports
|
Speeches
|
Debates
|
Poetry
Reading
|
Dialogue
|
Dialogue
2: Interviews
|
|
Chapter
V: Literature
|
Introduction
to Literature
|
Linguistic
writing research
|
History
of English Literature - research
|
Book of
Kells
|
Chaucer
|
Etymology
|
Songs
and Verse
|
Beowulf
|
Hymn of
Caedman
|
Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle
|
American
Literature
|
include
selections in the classroom
|
studies
of authors and lives
|
Children’s
Literature
|
older
literature selections (pre 1900s)
|
1900s
literature selections
|
Children’s
Literature in the United States
|
Read
and listen to books
|
Timelines
|
Biographies
of authors
|
Goings
Out related to literature
|
Other
explorations
|
|
Chapter
VI: Style
|
Style
|
Mathematics
|
Operations
|
Group
Division
|
Group
Division & Word Problems
|
|
Decimal
Fractions
|
Relative
Size of Terms/Numbers
|
Division
of a Decimal Fraction by a Decimal Fraction
|
Leading
to Abstraction of Multiplication of Decimal Fractions
|
Division
of a Decimal Fraction on Paper
|
|
Squaring
and Cubing
|
Squaring
with a Hierarchical Value: stages
|
Pass
From One Cube to Another
|
Cubing
a Binomial
|
Cubing
a Trinomial
|
Cubing
a Quadrinomial
|
Cubing
a Trinomial having Numerical Value
|
The
Story of the Three Kings
|
Cubing
a Number with Decimal Value
|
Square
Roots
|
Square
Roots - Abstraction stages
|
Special
Cases - stages
|
Square
Roots: review process and rules
|
Cube
Roots
|
Cube
Roots: Review concept and rule
|
|
Other
Topics
|
Signed
Numbers: Negative Snake Game
|
Signed
Numbers: Operations (stages)
|
Powers
of 2
|
Powers
of 3: Full work
|
Powers
of 2 and 3: Combined
|
Powers
of 10
|
Operations
Using Exponential Notation
|
Expanded
Power Notation - Intro and Operations
|
Word
Problems
|
Distance/Velocity/Time
|
Principal/Interest/Rate/Time
|
Non-Decimal
Bases: Intro and Operations
|
Conversion
of Number Bases
|
Balancing
an Equation using operations
|
Solve
for Unknown: Operations
|
Algebra
Word Problems
|
Solve
for Two Unknowns
|
All
stages in upper elementary typically
|
Geometry
I. Introduction to Geometry
|
Various Geometry Stories from
History
|
II. Congruency, Similarity, Equivalency
I
|
Review all concepts in Upper
Elementary
|
IX. Equivalency III
|
Equivalency with Iron Material:
stages
|
Euclid’s Plate
|
X. Area
|
Concept of Area
|
Deriving Formulae with the Yellow
Material: stages
|
Deriving Formulae with the Iron
Material: stages
|
XI. Circle I
|
The Circle Nomenclature
|
Relationship Between Lines and
Circumferences
|
Relationships Between Two
Circumferences
|
XII. Circle II
|
Area of a Circle (stages)
|
Relationship Between the Apothem
and Side of a Plane Figure
|
XIII. Solid Geometry
|
Concept of Volume
|
Equivalence as Related to Solid
Figures
|
Three Important Dimensions
|
Equivalence Between Prisms with
Various Bases
|
Derivation of the Formula
|
Solids of Rotation
|
Volume of the Pyramid
|
Volume of the Cylinder and Cone
|
Polyhedrons
|
Lateral and Total Surface Area of
Solids
|
FINAL NOTES: Use 6th year to
review and consolidate all concepts
|
History
The Coming of Life Story with
Timeline
|
The Black Strip
|
Fundamental Needs of Human Beings –
Charts --- some portions start in year 4
|
History Question Charts
|
Three Phases of History
|
Second Timeline of Human Beings
|
Migration Charts
|
Four River Civilizations
|
New World Civilizations
|
Timeline of Civilizations
|
Timelines for Memorization
|
American History (National
History)
|
Clock
|
Personal Timeline
|
Calendar
|
BC-AD Timeline
|
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