Reflecting on 3rd, 6th, and 8th grades in our Charlotte Mason Homeschool
Nell specifically asked me to write up our past school year, and who am I to deny my delightful 14-year-old? So, as we're already on the cusp of beginning another school year (including --gasp-- high school!), here's a look back at the past school year for our oldest three girls.
Our homeschool co-op was in its third year, and with only five families, a year that had at first felt daunting (how can we make it all happen with fewer moms involved?!) ended up being one of my favorites so far. We embraced the term "cozy co-op" and it truly was that in the best sense! I continue to be so grateful for community and try not to take a moment of it for granted.
{Speaking of community, in the coming year we'll have 11 families participating in our co-op, which is quite a jump in size! I'm looking forward to many good things. Nell will also be doing a full day of lessons with other ninth grade homeschoolers, for which I'm grateful beyond words. At the same time, our family is experiencing some major shifts in life and community which we anticipate will be full of challenges and feelings. Ups and downs, so it always goes, right?}
Well, back to the review of the past year -- a lot of this past year's school subjects ended up being largely combined between Nell and Marie, which I've reflected below. I'm incredibly grateful for our co-op and cognizant that the girls learned so much from other people that are not me! Other homeschool moms will understand the lightness that comes with knowing you're not single-handedly responsible for teaching your children every.single.thing after all.
Nell, Grade 8, and Marie, Grade 6
 |
| "because school is a lot to juggle" |
Writing: Nell and Marie are both becoming wonderful writers, and wrote delightful essays, narrations, and poetry. Writing assignments this year included works of poetry, character comparison essays, and much more.
Literature: A few of their favorite books from the past year include Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan, The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White, Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson, The Boys in the Boat (Young Readers Adaptation) by Daniel James Brown, and The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (which made them, and all the other girls in their age cohort at co-op, cry).
They also read As You Like It and Comedy of Errors by Shakespeare this year in our co-op, with students taking on different parts as they read together.
Social Studies/History: We studied the Middle Ages using A Castle with Many Rooms by Lorene Lambert, covering the fall of the Roman Empire through Giotto and the dawn of the Renaissance.
Following Charlotte Mason's educational approach, we study two to three "streams" of history at a given time, so concurrent with our study of the Middle Ages, in US History we covered the years from 1900-1950-ish, using books including Land of Hope: Young Reader’s Edition by McClay and A History of US: War, Peace, and All That Jazz by Hakim.
As a class in co-op, we spent a good deal of time on WWII, as one does: the rise of Mussolini in Italy, the Japanese dictatorship of Emperor Hirohito, and Adolf Hitler in Germany; the Holocaust; Pearl Harbor; D-Day and the landings at Normandy; the Allies’ liberation of France followed by the liberation of concentration camps throughout Germany and Poland; the atomic bomb and its use in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Allies’ subsequent victory in Japan; peace after the end of WWII.
Geography: Nell and Marie studied regional U.S. geography using Our Country and its People by Monroe & Buckabee and Picture Map Geography of the United States by Vernon Quinn. They covered chapters on the New England Uplands, the Allegheny Plateau, and the Coastal Plains. They drew freehand maps of the states and territories being studied, and also participated in weekly map drills for both U.S. and world maps.
At co-op, they also engaged in activities drawn from Mapmaking with Children by David Sobel, including drawing literature-based maps inspired by The Sword in the Stone, The Yearling, Hattie Big Sky, maps of the Central and Allied Powers in WWII, and a plot development map of The Boys in the Boat.
Plutarch: In co-op, my Plutarch class read Plutarch’s Life of Alexander the Great. We observed artwork and other illustrations featuring the life and times of Alexander, and each student wrote a Shakespearian-styled monologue inspired by Alexander’s pondering of a toppled statue of the Persian king Xerxes, as well as other writing assignments. We engaged in weekly class discussions about the rise of Alexander’s Empire and his life and character qualities. I for one found him a fascinating character study, and I consider it a joy that the students all seemed to agree.
Science: Nell and Marie’s science studies were broad, including:
- One term of Physics (Secrets of the Universe by Fleisher), covering topics such as density and buoyancy, Kepler’s laws, gravity, Galileo’s discoveries, Newton’s laws of motion, the Law of Universal Gravitation, conservation of momentum, conservation of matter, Pascal’s Law, Boyle’s Law, Charles’s Law, the ideal gas law, Bernoulli’s Law, and the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics.
- One term of Biology (Men, Microscopes, and Living Things by Katherine B. Shippen), covering topics including Aristotle’s early scientific writings; the discoveries of early herbologists; early anatomical studies; the composition of blood; the invention of the microscope and the discovery of cells and microscopic organisms; Linnaeus and the importance of scientific classification.
- One term of Electronics (Electronics for Kids by Øyvind Nydal Dahl), including topics like electricity, voltage, current, and resistance; circuits; the relationship between magnetism and electricity; how batteries, electromagnets, and motors work; how to generate electricity; transistors, capacitors, resistors, and relays; Ohm’s Law; and the basics of the binary system.
Molly, Grade 3
Math: Molly enjoys math! We continued to utilize Caleb Gattegno’s methodology, working with Cuisenaire rods, using the second textbook. We then transitioned into the third grade The Good and the Beautiful workbook, which Molly completed over the course of the year.
Writing/Literature: Molly gives delightful narrations with a vocabulary beyond her grade level. Through daily copywork, her handwriting (both print and cursive) and her spelling continue to improve, although this is definitely a "growth area" for the coming year, too!
A few of Molly’s favorite books from the past year included The Princess and the Goblin by MacDonald, Just So Stories by Kipling, The Door in the Wall by de Angeli, The Indian in the Cupboard by Reid, and A Little Princess by Burnett.
Using children’s adaptations by Jeanie Lang and E. Nesbit, we read works of Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, and The Winter’s Tale. This was a co-op class I led, and it seemed to be a big hit. We're forward to continuing to enjoy Shakespeare together in the coming year.
Social Studies/History: Like the older girls, Molly studied the period of U.S. History from 1900 to the present. She enjoyed selections from a variety of books covering events and figures including: Roosevelt, the Wright Brothers, Carnegie, Ellis Island, Henry Ford, the Titanic, WW1, the Roaring 20s, the Great Depression, WWII, the Cold War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King, the moon landing, the fall of the Soviet Union/Berlin Wall, and September 11th, 2001.
Molly also read biographies including a biography of Amelia Earhart and The Ocean of Truth, a biography of Isaac Newton.
Along with our study of U.S. history, we studied the history of England from her early mythological stories up through the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest using Marshall's delightful An Island Story.
Geography: Using Elementary Geography by Charlotte Mason, Molly looked at globes, maps, a compass, and a model sundial. She studied concepts including planets’ rotation around the sun, Earth’s rotation around the sun to make a year, Earth’s rotation on its axis to make day and night, Earth’s tilt and its creation of seasons, the magnetic poles of the Earth, proximity to the equator and its affect on climate, and latitude and longitude.
Molly also read The Adventures of Marco Polo by Russell Freedman, following a map of Marco Polo’s journey starting in Venice, traveling through the Middle East, and reaching China before returning to Venice. She also read the first half of Minn of the Mississippi by Holling C. Holling, tracking Minn’s journey down the Mississippi River from its headwaters down through south of Minneapolis. Along with mapping the river’s path, Molly also learned about snapping turtle anatomy and habits.
Molly had weekly mapping class at co-op as well, creating maps of real and imaginary places. Using Peter Rabbit, she created a plot development story map reflecting the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. She also drew a detailed map of The Wizard of Oz with instructions for exploring it using a compass rose and quadrants.
Science: Molly’s co-op science class covered a variety of topics:
Using the book Famous Experiments and How to Repeat Them by Filson, they learned about ten discoveries that altered scientific thought, from Archimedes to Faraday to Doppler. They replicated experiments when possible or did related experiments.
Using The Junior Book of Magnets by Feravolo, Molly and her peers studied magnetism and did experiments testing the magnetism of different metals, testing magnetism through barriers, experimenting with poles, testing attracting and repelling, transferring and removing magnetism, making a compass, making an electromagnet, and more.
In an elementary study of chemistry, they learned about molecules, atoms, and compounds, and compared the states of matter reading Matter All Around You: Solids, Liquids, and Gases by Lefkowitz. They also studied acids and bases using The Chemistry of a Lemon by Stone.
Together
Assorted: Over breakfast I periodically read from A Little History of the World by Gombrich, read from a variety of nature study books, and we continued our journey through Richard Halliburton's Book of Marvels, which has become a high point not only of geography but of homeschooling as a whole, I think. There's not a chapter we finish that the girls aren't all exclaiming, "I WANT TO GO THERE!"
Music: I continue to try (and frequently fail) to teach the oldest four girls violin and piano. The phrase "the cobbler's children have no shoes" has perhaps never been more true than it often feels in our family -- both Nathan and I are professional musicians, and yet I so often fail to find the time to really give them dedicated lessons! Definitely an area I want to try to improve in the coming year.
Nell recently performed the first movement of the Bach double violin concerto (with me! I was a happy mom!), and is working on La Folia by Corelli. She auditioned for the local youth orchestra and will participate in the upper level ensemble this coming year. She also learned the very fun Rumba Toccata by Harvey on the piano this year as well as a few other pieces.
Marie learned and performed Concertino in G by Huber in the spring, and is beginning Suzuki Violin School Volume 4. She made substantial progress with the violin in recent months, and auditioned for the local youth orchestra as well, where she will participate in the intermediate orchestra in the coming year.
Molly is finishing up Suzuki Violin School Volume 1, and will participate in the local youth orchestra's beginning level in the coming year.
All four oldest girls participated in choirs in varying ways, Nell and Marie in a combined adult and treble choir and Molly and Sylvie in a children's choir. Nell and Marie were selected as soloists for a variety of pieces over the past year, including two performances of I Waited for the Lord by Felix Mendelssohn, a duet they sang together beautifully.
All the girls enjoy singing folk songs together, making up vocal harmonies while Nell strums the ukulele sometimes. They also learn folk songs and folk dances through our homeschool co-op, where music was a class they really enjoyed over the past year.
In my music history class at co-op, we studied a variety of composers from the 20th century, including Debussy and Ravel; Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky; and a wide variety of 20th century composers with an emphasis on American composers, including John Adams (Short Ride in a Fast Machine), George Gershwin (An American in Paris, Rhapsody in Blue), Leonard Bernstein (West Side Story), Rebecca Clarke (Piano Trio), John Williams (theme from Jaws, Raiders March, music from Star Wars, theme from E.T., theme from Schindler’s List), and others. The 20th century gave us such a wealth of amazing music. I looked forward to starting every co-op day just talking about and listening to music with the amazing group of kids we had this past year.
Poetry: The three big girls all heard poetry from poets including Rudyard Kipling, Robert Frost, and Langston Hughes, and Nell and Marie memorized The Children’s Song from Puck of Pook’s Hill by Kipling as well as other poetry selections. Molly memorized The Camel's Hump by Kipling and Walkers with the Dawn by Hughes as well as The Tiger by Blake. Nell read widely from a collection of poems by Emily Dickinson she treasures, and continues to write original poetry for her own enjoyment.
Art: Each of our school-aged girls keep a nature journal of sketches, watercolors, and observations of the natural world. In our co-op, they studied and engaged with art by Giotto, J.W. Waterhouse, and Albert Bierstadt. They created little booklets (or 'zines') for each artist and sketched each painting as a way to study and remember each work. They also enjoyed art classes with our wonderful co-op art teacher where they developed their skills in drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, and sculpting. The girls also practiced handicrafts including embroidery, clay sculpture, needle felting, crochet, and more.
Physical Education: Nell and Marie took ballet classes twice weekly. All the girls continued to learn Swedish Drill through our homeschool co-op, participated in frequent games of four-square, and enjoyed lots of time on our backyard trampoline as well as plenty of biking and scootering, jumping rope, and other outdoor activities.
* * *
It was another busy academic year, and of course, so much of the truly important stuff was just lived: a Halloween bringing to life The Sword in the Stone, a trip to the beach with good friends where the kids leapt with wild abandon amongst sea gulls, the best sledding of our lives with wonderful neighbors, Christmas joy, getting carried away with crafting together, classes at MIT replicating DNA out of LEGOs, book clubs celebrating good books with friends, tiny painting projects embarked on all together, big girls baking every chance they can get, a museum trip to see incredible glass flowers and more, a lunar eclipse that took us by delighted surprise, time with extended family, and love between sisters -- a precious reality I can all too easily forget amidst the squabbles of day-to-day life.
I could go on, but if any picture is worth a thousand words, nearly squeezing a baby sister's life breath out of her with unabashed joy on the beach at sunset surely says it all.
Comments
Post a Comment