Sheila.
I ran across this recently. I've heard good things about Khan Academy. If I remember correctly, he is now partnered with Bill Gates to further the free access to learning. Could be an interesting venue of discovery. www.khanacademy.org/science/healthcare-and-medicine
Wendy
I went to Louise House's program on homeschooling through high school. She gave us sheets defining according to her, which curriculum was in which stream. (Not sure if I have the right word. But when I was at school it was advanced, general and basic). Send me an email and I will reply with the scanned copies of these notes. She did cover science. Two things I remember were Apologia and get a microscope. Our daughter is in gr 7 doing General Science from apologia. It is a heavy load. Definitely not unschooling.
In our homeschool we tend toward Charlotte Mason's principles. For me, I found her philosophy to sit in a lovely way between classical and unschooling. The child being intelligent and responsible for their learning and connections. My role as facilitator of their learning and habits. My constant reminder is her phrase "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life."
Our 'lessons' take place in the morning. The kids have independent work which I have organized as a perpetual weekly chart - meaning that it is unchanged from week to week. I do update it as needed but this takes the work out of it for me and allows them to anticipate their days. We also have a together lesson time that involves me reading or doing learning experiences with them. This too is a perpetual weekly calendar with broad areas of learning. We are often finished our learning time by 9:30 or 10am (the kids often begin their independent work before breakfast - 6:30ish. I don't ask them to but they are often motivated and ready to embark on their day by then). The rest of the day is essentially unstructured aside from meals, chores and quiet time.
Our mathematics lessons are two fold - Life of Fred and Japanese Soroban.
We really like Life of Fred. My oldest 3 kids complete two chapters a week. I SO love his spiral way of learning. It is quirky but wholesome. I like that the kids are introduced to higher level math concepts from the beginning as well as mathematicians. I like how it isn't divided and teased apart but all concepts remain connected. I think it makes mathematics accessible, relevant and real. Can you tell I'm sold!? We plan to continue with Life of Fred through the very end as our primary source.
Japanese Soroban is a tool and an age-old method of manipulating numbers. It is both right brain and left brain. We do Soroban 'drills' 2 or 3 times a week. Once the kids understood how to represent the numbers on the soroban then we moved into addition using sheets I downloaded from math-drills.com (to make it simple for me). We'll add in subtraction, multiplication and division as time goes by. That's it for us for when it comes to explicit math learning.
You asked about science. I have discovered a publisher that puts out what I think to be fabulous series of resources. It is slotted for the 8-12 age range but can be taken as far as a child wants. I find it well laid out and interesting. Not babyish or overly simplified. Introduces scientists, concepts and vocabulary from the field. It really could be a great launch pad to more discovery. It is set up to be an independent learning resource. The library has a few of the books. I have purchased most of the science books and one of the social science books that has to do with archeology if you'd like to have a look at one or two. www.nomadpress.net/series/build
I recently talked to a neighbour who is a Family Physician and she wished that she could have apprenticed more. She thinks she would be a much better physician by having had time to focus her energies (schooling for medicine is very broad spectrum) and spend more time in the field observing. I'm wondering if front-ending our kids with 'apprentice-type' experiences will enable a better understanding of a field of interest. I think if we understand what we're getting into then the content learning will come.
Hello everyone. I have a few questions regarding curriculum. since this is only my 2nd year homeschooling I am still trying to figure things out. Several of you have mentioned life of fred which I have longed to purchase. I'm wondering if you could tell me your thought on it and whether it is your primary source for math or an addition.
Also wondering what are good sources for higher grade serious science (for future in medicine etc....).
I also have a third (but probably not my last ;)) question. Are any of you unschooling and how does that work/look like for your family? We are kind of ecclectic in that we don't follow any one particular format because I like the girls to have time to follow their passion and to interact with subjects that bring out their natural gifts as well as encourage them to keep learning even when not 'on the clock'.
thanks in advance for taking the time to answer I really appreciate it!
