Classical Homeschoolers? Questions.

[mama2mychildren]

I am about halfway through The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. What a great book! DD is only two years old but I am having a blast researching all the different homeschool approaches. So far, classical education seems like a great fit for us.

I am curious though, in the 1-4th "grade", there is such a focus on what I would call seat work. Copying, narrating, etc. Have you found that this is something your children actually enjoy? Even reading some of the historical classics seems like it would become dull for kids. I am sure that I am approaching this with my experience and bias and I know that DD is a blank slate when it comes to what is boring and what is not but I just dont want school to become tedious early on.

Second, did you find your 1-4th graders able to grasp most of the ideas presented in early chemistry and physics?

Did you find that your children seemed to follow the model in the book and were indeed ready to move on at the ages they presented? What types of changes have you made to the classical education format?

And has Latin really been succesful for you and/or something that you now see value in?

Thanks so much. I'm trying to get some real world perspective on it.

[ArmsOfLove]

What types of changes have you made to the classical education format? I use the throughline of history but take a much more relaxed approach :) I do plan on teaching Latin :)

[Mothering by Heart]

I am curious though, in the 1-4th "grade", there is such a focus on what I would call seat work. Copying, narrating, etc. Have you found that this is something your children actually enjoy?

I don't have my kids narrate every chapter. We don't actually do much "seat work" We read history on the couch and dd9 can work wherever she wants on the "workbook" type stuff like Grammar, narrations. TBH we don't do copy work. I have found that my kids, when learning to write, about 3-4, did this anyway, on their own.SO I don't do it.

Second, did you find your 1-4th graders able to grasp most of the ideas presented in early chemistry and physics?


We haven't sone any formal science yet. DD is in 3rd and ds is in 1st

And has Latin really been succesful for you and/or something that you now see value in?

We just started Latin this year and we are really enjoying it. It is so fun to be there when dd sees where a word came from and then "oh, what about this word?"
I think Latin is very valuable as aspringboard for other languages as well as learing English grammar better

[PrincessMommie]

If you like a classical approach without that rigorous seatwork look into:
www.amblesideonline.org

[blessedmomof4]

Keep in mind that you don't have to follow one method completely. You can tailor any curriculum to meet your child's needs. Make Homeschooling work for you...don't work for Homeschooling.

Have you found that this is something your children actually enjoy?
My oldest is in 2nd grade (would be 1st in PS) and we don't do all the copying, narrating, or memorization that WTM recommends. However, I am going to start doing a little bit more with her. We've slacked off with handwriting (copy work) lately and she needs more practice w/ the narration stuff. We also haven't done much of the history reading recommendations this year. Both girls really enjoy what we do with SOTW so that's enough for them right now. Every now and then I will get some library books to supplement (i.e. today we read a book about Alexander the Great...even tho it was a few wks ago we read about him).

did you find your 1-4th graders able to grasp most of the ideas presented in early chemistry and physics?
We haven't gotten to that part of science yet. This year we went back thru the Ancients for a refresher and b/c my 5yo dd joined us for History and Science. So next year we'll be going on to Earth Science and Astronomy.

Did you find that your children seemed to follow the model in the book and were indeed ready to move on at the ages they presented? What types of changes have you made to the classical education format?
So far. I say my dd is in 2nd grade b/c in most subjects, that's where she is. Like I mentioned above we are going back thru SOTW so with that and science, she is on "grade level". We school year round so I'm not trying to get her done with Volume 1 by the end of May or early June. When we're done with Volume 1 we'll move on to Volume 2.

I also mentioned a few things above about what we've changed. Some of them I want to do more of..I just need to get better organized! As for memorization, instead of memorizing history facts/dates/people (boooooooring...lol..but that's just me) I want to focus more on Scripture right now.

And has Latin really been succesful for you and/or something that you now see value in?
We'll probably start this in the Fall or sometime next year. It seems as tho it can be valuable and I know my friend who also does CE, her dd enjoys it! I'd also like to hear from other HS moms who are doing Latin to see their response to this. :)

[Gailmegan]

Nothing of value to add, my older ds is 3, but I want to watch this thread since I love the idea of the classical approach, but probably combined with some Charlotte Mason too. I have the Veritas Press catalog and I can't wait to get started, but I had the same questions about Latin. Part of me also really wants to teach Spanish b/c of how it's growing in the US.

[Gretchen]

I am not a homeschooler, but my daughter is now finishing 1st grade in a classical charter school, so I'll offer that perspective.

Seat work - my daughter loves this sort of thing. I think generally that girls enjoy this and boys don't as much at this age. I have been surprised at how well she's understood all the science concepts that have been presented thus far. They haven't started Latin yet (I can't remember whether they introduce it in 4th grade or 5th grade at her school) but I have talked with parents of older kids and they all rave about the Latin program. The kids seem to enjoy it and it helps a ton with understanding words that are Latin-based, spelling, etc.

Hope that helps!
Gretchen

[Moon]

I am curious though, in the 1-4th "grade", there is such a focus on what I would call seat work. Copying, narrating, etc. Have you found that this is something your children actually enjoy? We're very relaxed classical. Our "seatwork" doesn't take nearly as long as WTM describes, yet we usually cover the subjects they reccomend. We don't do much copywork, ds copies one sentence from good literature maybe 3-4 times a week for handwriting, that's it. Narrating I wouldn't call seatwork, I don't think ds ever does sit for it. He's usually standing/jumping/twirling/dancing as he plays out the stories orally for me :) Math, grammar, handwriting and spelling are the only things I would call seatwork... rarely takes more than an hour a day here, and often he does his math on www.teachrkids.com anyway. He types out lengthy assignments in grammar. History is more fun than "schoolish" here... science is nearly always hands on stuff right now. Reading happens throughout every day.

Second, did you find your 1-4th graders able to grasp most of the ideas presented in early chemistry and physics? We're not there yet, we're deep into plants right now, planning on moving into the solar system after we do some more plants and insects.

Did you find that your children seemed to follow the model in the book and were indeed ready to move on at the ages they presented? We're only into 2nd grade right now.

What types of changes have you made to the classical education format? We're more relaxed and don't spend even close to the time suggested on each subject, except maybe in science and history... we tend to get wrapped up in those :)

And has Latin really been succesful for you and/or something that you now see value in?We haven't started it, I plan to wait abit longer than they suggest so my soon to start K can do it with us.

[Booklover]

We also follow it in a relaxed fashion. My pencil allergic ds would not do all the seatwork required, and my next ds is even more of a kinesthetic learner who thinks coloring is "a boring activity". :giggle He reads out loud to me, does some handwriting, uses a gentle grammar program and does Singapore Math. We use the history program (we are up to the Revolution; a little behind). The first year I did have him narrate every section, but the narrations got shorter and shorter as the novelty wore off, so now we just do it once in a while. I am planning on starting Latin this year. Ds had Chemistry in the fall at our co-op (a friend of mine using the program also teaches his class). I'm not concerned how much he remembers. We will probably go over a little this summer. Next year is 4th grade physics, which IMO will be easier than Chem, since it's mostly Magnets and electricity, Sounds and light, forces and motion. Lots more interesting experiments than making a solution or changing the state of water.

I'm not sure what you mean by ready to move on. We haven't finished the grammar stage yet, so I guess I will see how things are different in a little over a year.

[kris10s]

I am not a classical homeschooler (maybe someday...) but DH is a latin teacher at a classical school.

Latin IS helpful if you have a good curriculum that is reading based instead of just memorizing roots and conjugations. The 3rd-6th graders at his school use Ecce Romani, a Prentice Hall text. A parent who knows no Latin could easily teach the first two years (IA and IB books). After that, you'd need some advanced training (there are Latin in a Week programs that are really popular across the country for homeschooling moms) or a tutor. DH has tutored several homeschoolers once a week with that curriculum and it works well that way.

The 7th - 9th graders use Lingua Latina, which is ENTIRELY in Latin and very popular in Europe and is catching on among homeschoolers. They are coming out with a homeschooling guide soon.

Eventually, the 3-6th will be doing Ecce, the 7-8th LL and the 9-12 will be reading real Latin.

Before, the school used Prima Latina-->Latina Christiana with 3-5, and the Latin Road to English Grammar and the students themselves have said (many times!) that they never "got" Latin until they switched to a reading based curriculum. They say things like, "I memorized roots, but I didn't pick them out in context as well as I do know that I read them." and "Now that I have read that word and know what it really means, it makes it easier to figure out what words with that root mean". Plus, the discipline of reading Latin is much better for exercising the mind than rote memorization (which they are doing across the curriculum anyway.) They also feel like they are doing something productive. He had students who had 5 years of Latin and couldn't read it, because all they had done was memorize things out of context. What a downer! So many parents come up to us everywhere we go and tell us that their children never loved Latin until they started reading it.

There are other good reading based curricula (Oxford and Cambridge spring to mind) but Ecce is most suited to late Elementary schoolers.

HTH someone!

[This Busy Mom]

3rd-6th graders at his school use Ecce Romani, a Prentice Hall text.

What about for the younger crowd? We have prima latin... haven't dug into it yet, though. I was saving it for next year.

As for seat work... we do narrating... copy work and dictation but how it looks in a given week is pretty tame. Nothing hard, just building on each other. We narrate only history and science. My son has a lot of writing to do with his english (r&s) but the history only requires a few sentences a week... he's gone from having me write it down and dictate it back to him to him now using a tape recorder and the computer and he compiles the sentences himself. He's 9 and doing 3rd grade work.

Our spelling/phonics is a cool program that teaches phonograms and handwriting, too.

My 7 yo dictates to me... and I help her a lot... we get about 3 good sentences written down, and that's what she copies. I'm really impressed about how far along she's come just by doing history. She wasn't read well at all the beginning of the school year, so I just wrote down her narrations and that was the end of it. We have a lot more history to get done, but it's going smoothly now. We don't do a lot of the extra stuff but the narration is important.

Susan Wise Bauer has a pretty good tape on teaching writing on the peacehillpress.com site. I don't think the amount you have them write is important, it's the process of teaching them how to do it that is. She doesn't want you to burn them out, just learn to write so it's not painful (I know it is for me... it was the thing I dreaded the most in school... I could get a's on everything but writing and I don't ever remember being taught HOW to write... hooray for homeschooling... I now have some writing programs to work through when I have time :grin ).

[kris10s]

What about for the younger crowd?

They learn some songs in Latin in K-2 but that's about it. With a reading approach, they need to have a strong background in phonics and know how to read English relatively well before jumping in with Latin.

[This Busy Mom]

With a reading approach, they need to have a strong background in phonics and know how to read English relatively well before jumping in with Latin.

That's what we're focusing on this year :grin The Writing Road to Reading along with Reading Works is an awesome program (or I hear Spell to Read and Write is good which is based off The Writing Road to Reading, I think).

[mama2mychildren]

Thank you. It seems the consensus is a more relaxed approach.

I never realized it before but when I was teaching PS, I was a "classical" teacher. I taught social studies and focused on the mapwork, timelines, outlines. The kids hated it, other teachers thought I wasnt teaching to multiple modalities and parents asked why I didnt do as many projects as the other teachers. It burned me out trying to switch and have everything be a project or kinesthetic type activity. Now I feel like I wasnt that far off base and the kids werent interested in doing it because they had been "taught" that anything other than a project was boring. I just had to laugh about it. Who knew I was teaching "classically". :mrgreen

Do many of you use the texts that the Wises have authored?

[Moon]

We do, one of the things I really like about the stuff they reccomend is most of them are non-consumable. Especially when I'm buying for my oldest who has 2 (nearly 3) siblings behind him. We have our own way of doing math rather than using a set curriculum. We use A Reason For Spelling rather than what they reccomend, we've been using it for awhile and ds loves it, it's not broke so I'm not fixing it ;) Our history, science, and grammar are mostly what they reccomend. We have nature journaling and ASL thrown into the mix abit too (they don't discuss either).