Dr. Marie-Claire Moreau

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Jun 08 2011

Curriculum round-up!

If you’re new to the site or need a list of resources to start curriculum shopping, you’ve come to the right place!  Here, you’ll find pages with some of the most popular, widely used, or well-known curriculum products on the homeschool market today.  We’ve included some secular, some not, and some religion-neutral products, so you’re sure to find something worth checking out.

Many of these resources have been featured elsewhere on QSH, too — so please dig deeper into the archives to learn more about the different topics if you’d like to know more.   

Click on a subject area to get started:

ART          DRIVER’S ED          HISTORY          LANGUAGE ARTS          MATH

 

MONEY (also see MATH)          MUSIC          PHYSICAL EDUCATION

 

READING (also see LANGUAGE ARTS)          SCIENCE         

 

By the way, these pages are periodically updated.  Subscribe to the feed or check often to see what’s new!

[Photo: Free Digital]

Written by Marie-Claire · Categorized: Homeschool · Tagged: art, history, language arts, math, music, physical education, reading, science

Mar 28 2011

History timelines

Most homeschoolers know the benefits of using timelines in the classroom.  Having a visual representation of great scientific discoveries, lives of major historical figures, and events that shaped world history is an awesome way for students to see the progression and connection between events.

But designing and creating a timeline has confounded many a homeschooling parent.  Sometimes, it’s because they just don’t know where to begin.  Other times, it’s about figuring out how to space the dates apart, or what intervals to use.   And for some, the problem is more about worrying how large the thing might get and where it might possibly fit in the house!   

Browse through some of these ideas to see if any of them appeal to you.  Perhaps there is a technique or household supply you hadn’t thought of that will make creating the timeline less confusing and more practical than what you have been trying to do in the past. 

1. Use purchased sentence strips that are taped together to create the timeline.  Hang it all around the ceiling or walls of a room where students can see and touch it.

2. Try long rolls of gift-wrapping paper, finger-painting paper, butcher paper or brown paper, cutting to desired lengths and displaying it as desired.  You can even roll it back around the tubes if you want to stow it away and take it out every day when you need it.

3. Take letter or legal-sized paper, one sheet for each block of time (e.g., the 1800’s).  Then, store each sheet chronologically in a notebook, folding them up to fit inside, color-coding, or tabbing them by decade, century or any other way you like.  A purchased spiral notebook can work, too, but does not allow the flexibility of adding and removing pages — so be sure to leave blank pages throughout the notebook if using this technique.

4.  Use index cards, one card per event, per decade or per century, punching holes in the corners and storing in sequence on a binder ring.  Cards can be added, moved, or taken away as needed by opening up the ring. Cards may also be color coded if desired, by time intervals, by part of the world, or any other system you have devised.  Cards may also be filed neatly in a box, but you’ll need to number lightly in pencil the backs of the cards in case the box spills over.

5.  Purchase inexpensive window roller-shades and attach to a window, wall or door in your home, either vertically or horizontally.  Dates/events can be added and moved around using clear tape or sticky-tac and shade will roll up when not in use.

6. String thin cable or other inexpensive wire across wall or ceiling, attaching timeline events on the wire using bulldog clips, clothes pins, drapery hooks or any other type of fastener.

7. Install an actual pulley system and clothesline somewhere in the home, using clothespins to hang significant events.  If you worry about the unsightliness of this solution, consider peppering the timeline with student artwork or other decorative objects in between entries, until the timeline is fuller and more attractive.

 

8. Computer types may like the feel of an online timeline, using any type of graphics or flowcharting software to connect events digitally.  Make sure to print copies from time to time to satisfy the need to see it all together.

See what kinds of fun and connections you create with your students by making a timeline. For added effectiveness, think about color-coding events according to a scheme (American versus World History, for instance, or by country, time period, or subject matter) or adding photos and drawings, too.

Written by Marie-Claire · Categorized: Homeschool · Tagged: classroom resources, history

Mar 16 2011

Classical Education

Classical Education, or the “Classical Method” of homeschooling, is a way of allowing students to use their minds in ways that come most naturally to them.  The method, often called the Trivium because of its 3 phases of learning, is thought to mirror the cognitive development of a child’s mind, thus allowing them to learn commensurate with their abilities at every stage.

The Trivium

In the early years, when children are able and eager to soak up facts and information, parents introduce all kinds of facts and information to their students.  Because children at this age (roughly the equivalent of grades 1-4) enjoy memorization and learning many new things, classical educators introduce many of the facts (for instance, math facts) upon which later learning will be based.  This stage is called the Grammar Phase.

By the time a child matures toward the middle school years (approximately grades 5-8), he is able to ask questions and to see the relationship between ideas.  Asking, “why?” and looking at the correlation between events and their resulting effects is characteristic of students at this stage anyhow.   Therefore, the classical method takes advantage of this developmental stage by introducing academic subjects requiring this kind of abstract thinking.  This is called the Logic Phase.

The last stage of the Trivium, the Rhetoric Phase, is taught during the high school years, when students are finally able to pull together all of the facts and questions they have gathered thus far.  Students are encouraged and able to express their own original thoughts by this time and are eager to debate any topic.  Classical thinkers capitalize upon this stage of development by encouraging high schoolers to formulate their own ideas and opinions, both orally and in writing.  This is possible, trainers believe, in large part because students have been given the right foundation in the earlier years. 

Much has been written about the classical method so homeschoolers have a great variety of tools available to help them get started.  Start with these, and find others on your own:

The Lost Tools of Learning – seminal writing by Dorothy Sayers

The Well-Trained Mind – books and writings from author and historian Susan Wise Bauer

Classical Conversations – Christian community and training materials

Memoria Press – Christian classical materials and online academy

Classical Homeschooling (old website) with links to new site

Interview with Christine Miller – from TOS Magazine

Written by Marie-Claire · Categorized: Homeschool · Tagged: books, classical, curriculum, history

Feb 21 2011

History the right way

Homeschoolers take many different approaches to teaching history. Some use traditional texts and some homeschool curriculum books. Others choose a unit study approach, honing in on a particular person, a series of events or a specific part of the world. 

There is the matter of world-view to consider when buying history resources, too, since authors each impart their own understanding and bias into their writing.  It isn’t always easy to select  materials, leaving homeschooling moms and dads to preview and select those that offer history in the way they think it should be taught.

Often, the way we teach history is the way we learned it ourselves.

Looking back, I now think that perhaps most important thing when teaching history is being sure that our students understand that history does not happen in a bubble.  In fact, historical events do not take place all by themselves.  They happen simultaneously all around the world.  Plus, events influence one another, too.  

The number one goal of any history course must be to make sure that students understand that history did not only happen in one place while the rest of the world stood still.

Though young children aren’t ready yet, students from approximately 5th/6th grade on are able to understand that historical events are sometimes linked together.  Kids at that age can find cause and effect relationships.  Questioning what they read, this is the age when children can begin developing the logic and thinking skills needed to see history as something that evolves over time – rather than random, independent events that have nothing to do with one another.

A problem with traditional history texts is that they tend to provide both an explanation of events as well as their outcomes.  This leaves little to a child’s imagination, and nothing for them to think about afterwards, as the effects (again, seen from the author’s perspective) already appear in the text.  That is, the critical thinking is already done for the student, so that the child has nothing left to question or deduce on his own.

Further compounding the problem, traditional texts tend to be written for “American” history courses, “World” history courses, or some other subset of history deemed convenient for traditional classrooms full of many students to study at once.  These boundaries draw imaginary lines for students which seem to convey that the events in the text stand alone, while nothing else in history takes place anywhere else in time. 

Classical educators have compensated for this problem by studying time periods in history, in all parts of the world, instead of specific historical figures and events.  For this reason, these folks tend to avoid traditional history texts altogether.  Instead, these clever teachers opt for creating timelines, using good history encyclopedias, and assigning an ever-changing supply of library books and online resources for each new time period and topic being studied. 

Knowing that historical events may be depicted slightly differently in each resource, children who learn this way are taught to study multiple sources of information and pull all of the pieces together on their own.  This is really the only way that a student can understand all of the variables that may have contributed to events in history and to be able to intelligently discuss the relationships between them all, sometime later on in high school and college.  Plus, instead of focusing only on topics within the imaginary boundary, students will learn to see the inter-relationships between them and understand that events in time took place simultaneously in different parts of the world.

It took me a while to understand the importance of learning history in this way.  So obvious to me now, I never thought about it much until I began teaching my own children in homeschool.  Having studied history in public schools using traditional texts, I grew up looking at history as many of you probably did – as a series of unrelated bits of information that have nothing to do with each another.   I learned dates and facts, but never saw the relationship between any of them.  I have never fully recovered from the effects of this approach and wanted to make sure that my children were better able to understand history than I was.

To read more about the classical approach to education and teaching history, you should read The Well-Trained Mind, Classical Conversations, this article by Dorothy Sayers, and read any other books and web sites you find on your own.  Then, think about your own approach to teaching history at home and whether you feel that your students will graduate with an understanding of the correlation between world events or the limited, cookie-cutter level of mastery as I did.

As with everything homeschooling, do what is right for your and your family. I just wanted you to know my thoughts on this subject.

[Photo: Free Digital]

Written by Marie-Claire · Categorized: Homeschool · Tagged: books, classical, curriculum, history, products

Feb 09 2011

Every school needs a globe

 

Sometimes, the simplest things can make the most impact.   An ordinary globe, no matter how mundane or insignificant it may seem at first, is one of those things.

Globes are amazing.

They’re beautiful to look at.

They’re magical to touch and watch and spin.

They’re old and sturdy and proud.

They silently speak the timeless wisdom of the ages.  But at the same time, they instill a giddy new sense of curiousity and a spirit of exploration to anyone who spends time with them.

What can you do with a globe? If you don’t have one in your home, it may be hard to understand the value and power of this simple, revolving orb. 

Get one.  Then, come back and leave a comment about the impact it has had in your home and school.  I predict it will be some of the best money you have ever spent on school supplies.

Written by Marie-Claire · Categorized: Homeschool · Tagged: blog, classroom resources, geography, history

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