Last minute reminder for CHESS

CHESS is on again this weekend! I went last year and purchased some helpful curriculum resources as well as enjoying the help of seminars on various home ed topics and time to catch up with other home eders I know here in Perth. Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend this year, but if you are thinking of home educating in Western Australia, CHESS will be a very useful day.

From the brochure I received in the mail:

Saturday 12 September 2009

9:00 Registration
9:30 Session 1: Providing Tools for our families
10:30 Morning Break
11:00 Session 2: Preparing for Home Education
12:00 Lunch
1:00 Session 3: Teaching Australian History
2:00 Session 4: Curriculum Summary
3:00 Session 5: LEM Phonics
4:00 Book Browse and Buy
5:00 Close

@ Bull Creek Westminster Presbyterian Church,
32 Bull Creek Drive, Bull Creek

$10 individual or $20 Family
Payment on the day, no pre-registration required

Children are welcome to attend, provided they are quiet and accountable to their parents

CHESS is run by Light Educational Ministries, and other Christian curriculum suppliers are usually there as well. (I have used the LEM Phonics materials with Joshua and Anna to great success and Abigail is now using them as well.)

Christian Home Education Seminar and Show - Perth

CHESS is on again! I went last year and purchased some helpful curriculum resources as well as enjoying the help of seminars on various home ed topics and time to catch up with other home eders I know here in Perth. If you are thinking of home educating in Western Australia, CHESS will be a very useful day.

From the brochure I received in the mail this week:

Saturday 12 September 2009

9:00 Registration
9:30 Session 1: Providing Tools for our families
10:30 Morning Break
11:00 Session 2: Preparing for Home Education
12:00 Lunch
1:00 Session 3: Teaching Australian History
2:00 Session 4: Curriculum Summary
3:00 Session 5: LEM Phonics
4:00 Book Browse and Buy
5:00 Close

@ Bull Creek Westminster Presbyterian Church,
32 Bull Creek Drive, Bull Creek

$10 individual or $20 Family
Payment on the day, no pre-registration required

Children are welcome to attend, provided they are quiet and accountable to their parents

CHESS is run by Light Educational Ministries, and other Christian curriculum suppliers are usually there as well. (I have used the LEM Phonics materials with Joshua and Anna to great success and Abigail will start using them next term as well.)

Rolling on with Readers

(I couldn't resist the alliteration for the title after yesterday's post on Stepping into Spelling.)

Anna has read through four sets of Bob Books and now she needs something that will challenge her to read longer works, without increasing the phonetic difficulty too markedly. I found the fifth box of Bob Books was quite phonetically challenging, so we have put that to one side for the moment. We'll get back to it at some stage. Or not.

Instead, I have bought an almost complete collection of Endeavour Readers very much second hand. The collection includes books with school stamps from all over the country, as these books were being used as classroom readers when I learnt to read. I have finally realised why I think that certain ways of writing letters are "correct" compared to others - it is because my idea of what certain letters really look like was formed from exposure to the Endeavour Readers' chosen typesetting font. So watching my daughter read through these books is aesthetically pleasing to me, if nothing else.

The Endeavour Reading Programme was produced in the 1970s with a very Australian ethos. The stories tell of typical Australian situations, use classic Australian literature, or present Aboriginal legends. They are written with an eye to developing not only the child's literacy skills but also their social understandings as well. Of course, having been written three decades ago, the Australia they portray is not quite equivalent to the Australia of today. They (so far, at least) have managed to heavily focus on the family of two kids/mother/father plus pet/friend, which is nice for someone like me who strongly values our own nuclear family. There are other things which have raised eyebrows in my daughter, however, such as the complete absence of seatbelts in the car on the holiday travelling scenes of Basic Reader 2, Holiday with Jim. I am sure the scenes of Pam and Sam playing with Digger with the hose spouting water randomly all over the back yard would cause consternation in the eastern states of Australia, which are on far stronger water restrictions than here in Perth. But these have mostly led to interesting conversations, rather than being a cause for confusion.

I first ran across these readers when Joshua brought some home from school for his reading homework. Having sourced and bought a set online, Anna read through the first set and is now on to the second. The entire Programme consists of a few "pre-readers", then nine levels of 1 basic reader + 2 extension readers + 2 or 3 "library" readers (the third library readers were published later than the rest of the set and are harder to acquire now). After the nine groups of readers there is a further series of "Reading for Pleasure" Books 10-21. I have borrowed the Teachers' Manual through my local library on inter-library loan, so have been reading up on how they are all meant to be taught. Originally, there were also workbooks and reading cards (with cloze reading type exercises) to accompany and support the books. Each of the first nine levels was planned to take about one term (at that stage, one third of an academic year) to get through, taking the children through grades 1-3.

The teachers' manual is very helpful in that it tells me just how the language for the readers was proscribed. The authors of the Programme didn't have the same understanding of the importance of phonetic teaching that I do, but there was a very careful structure to the decoding skills necessary in each level. The approach is not whole word, but they have been more careful about the introduction of longer, more complicated words than the Bob Books readers. So the first set introduces V+C words (eg "on") and C+V+C words (eg "dog"), then single grapheme C+C+V+C (eg "trip") and C+V+C+C (eg "went") words, then words with digraphs ("ship" and "with" and "black"). However, they introduce vowel digraphs very very slowly compared to the later levels of Bob Books readers (which were fantastic at taking things slowly in the earlier stages). A few "high interest" words with vowel digraphs are introduced in the sight words mentality early on (such as /ou/ in "out") but it isn't until the second level that the "e at the end of the word makes the vowel say it's name" rule is used regularly. I am hoping this will help Anna to consolidate her phonics knowledge steadily at the same time as she is increasing her ability to concentrate while reading more pages each containing more text.

Anna, who is technically in the pre-primary cohort, is presently doing well with the level 2 readers, and with the phonics instruction she has had already and the spelling instruction I am now introducing her to, I see no reason why she should not continue to read through about two levels each term, possibly even taking her almost to the end of the grade 3 readers before she begins school. Of course, this requires that she will continue to be able to concentrate for the length of time necessary to read the books as they gradually get longer. I don't think this will be a huge problem because at the same time as we have been working through these readers, she has already begun to ask me to listen to her read other books, such as Frog and Toad stories after her brother started reading them, her Beginner's Bible New Testament and a Leapfrog book from the library with a simplified version of The Nightingale (originally by Hans Christian Anderson). She is enjoying the poetry that is introduced in the second set of readers also. And five or six books in five weeks isn't that big an ask.Joshua is going to be getting a dose of Level 2 readers over the coming school holidays as well.

I am very impressed with the way Anna has begun to look at herself as a reader, and not simply as a listener to, or teller of, stories. Yesterday during our reading lesson she told me, "Mummy, I will read stories to my kids when I am a mummy. I will read stories to my ten kids and I will teach them to read and I will bring them to visit you and you will love it when they visit." I'm looking forward to meeting those ten kids one day!

Stepping into Spelling

Anna finished her phonics workbook at the end of last week, so now we are moving on to spelling, using Christian Liberty Press's Building Spelling Skills Book 1. I was not sure how good Anna's spelling skills already were, because she doesn't usually write anything without a model in front of her (except her own name), but she had been doing well with understanding the rules for adding "s", "ed" and "ing" appropriately in the last workbook. So I decided to test her through the spelling book until we got to a place where she can work with the right balance of challenge and confidence.

The first day we tried spelling I ran into a problem. Having not had much practise at writing without an example, Anna finds it very tiring to do so, even if she knows what letter she wants to write. So I decided, rather than exasperate her or give up on the spelling idea altogether, I would find a different way of doing spelling tests.

So I gave her an A4 sheet with the alphabet written on it. I say the word aloud and she sounds it out phonetically. Then she has to point to the letters which represent each sound in that particular word. I write down the letters she points to. Then I get her to check what I have written and tell me if she thinks it is right. if she does, we move on to the next word. If not, she tells me how to correct it and then we move on.

At the end of the word list, I go through it with her and tell her which words she spelt wrong. We use a red cross, green tick, yellow caution system. If the answer is wrong, I write a red cross, briefly explain where she got it wrong, rub out the wrong answer leaving a blank and write the correct spelling to the right. Then that word gets added to the list fro tomorrow's test. I figure once she starts missing too many, or not getting them right on the second go, we'll begin working through the curriculum properly from there. So far she has done fine on re-spelling every word the second time through.

If the word is correct, I give her a green tick "Go!" A yellow caution is issued if she got it right but had initially spelt it wrongly before her self-check caught the mistake. Yellow caution words get added to the next day's list.

Doing things this way has, in some ways, made things more teacher time intensive. But Anna isn't quite five (three weeks to go) so I don't mind helping her out any way I can! Not only that, but moving through things this way means that she is getting to know her alphabet a bit better (she is making less b/d reversals and self-correcting on these now). Also, by separating the act of spelling into the acts of identifying the phonemes and determining the graphemes for each phoneme, and not including the skill of writing the grapheme without a visual example, I am helping Anna to spell using her brain and not just her hands.

(Addition 4/4/9)
I forgot to mention that Anna does eventually write the words herself. Once we have checked them for spelling together, she traces over the list I have written from her instructions (and any of my corrections). This way, she is practising writing the words, but she is never actually writing them wrongly. Sometime soon we will probably change this from tracing the words to copying them, but not quite yet. She already does a lot of tracework - History is now up to six full lines (three extended sentences) - so an opportunity for copywork would not go astray.

Cuneiform Copywork?

The Mesopotamian people wrote using cuneiform, made of wedge-shaped marks pressed into clay.

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has a great webpage where you can find out what your initials (or any combination of three letters) looks like in cuneiform. Check it out here: www.upennmuseum.com/cuneiform.cgi.

They also have a page of information about cuneiform, which includes a fascinating sidebar on a Babylonian student's clay tablet. The "Round School Tablet" is from the Babylonian city of Nippur during the Hammurabi Dynasty.

According to the site,

This type of school tablet is called a "lentil" or "bun." The convex shaped back fits naturally into the palm of the hand.

There are 4 rows of signs on the front of the tablet. The teacher in ancient Nippur inscribed the signs in rows 1 and 2. The student then took the soft tablet and copied the text into rows 3 and 4. Our student was learning Sumerian signs that were already 1000 years old.

The signs in row 1 were pronounced gi-gur, which translates as "reed basket." Row 2 reads gi-gur-da and that means a type of large reed basket.

This lesson was both for handwriting and vocabulary.

It is fascinating to think that I am using similar ancient methods of teaching with my children in 2009!

Getting Children's Ministry materials right

I went to a committee meeting for the CCOWA Perth Children's Ministry Convention a few nights ago and one of the things we talked about was the topic for the 2011 convention. That's right, we're looking ahead to 2011 already!

Every second year the convention is aimed at Children's Ministry workers and in 2009 the topic is "Music with Meaning". In 2011 we are looking towards a convention that will train Children's ministry workers to evaluate their present curriculum materials according to biblically sound principles and then give them an opportunity to adapt the resources they currently use, or begin developing better ones.

As an aside, I just had to write my paragraph personal description for my graduation with the Certificate of Christian Studies, coming up in a few weeks. Here's my spiel:

Sharon is excited to be graduating at the same time as her husband Jeff, and at the thought of using what she has learnt from the Certificate in Christian Studies to support him in his new role as Pastor at BCC. She has already put a lot of what she has learnt to use, running seminars for the Christian mother’s support group she goes to and working together with Jeff to disciple their four young children, as they bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. In the future she dreams of being granted the opportunity to work with the Children’s Ministry team at B*** to develop a high quality, biblically sound, gospel-centred Sunday School curriculum to align with the teaching program.

Kaye (our committee president) brought this article along to our meeting: Hermeneutics and Children's Curriculum. I found it thought provoking. I am not sure I agree completely with it, though. The comments also make interesting reading. What do you think?

[Since Amy asked, and it's been a few days since I posted this, I have added an extraordinarily long comment for this post giving my opinion. If you care to read it, it will be better to open this post in another tab so you're not forever scrolling. While you're at it, open Walton's article in another tab as well, so you know what I'm responding to. I am also changing the date on this post so it appears as the most recent, so y'all notice it and get a chance to read the comments. I'd love to have some more discussion on this topic.]

Our 5yo Kindergarten Curriculum

At the end of 2007 I posted our curriculum choices for 4yo kindy. Here, before I forget them in the haze of another year of home schooling, when Anna does her 5yo kindy year (some of which will include grade 1 level curricula), I will record the curricula we used in 2008. Some of these resources were initially chosen with only Joshua (the 5yo) in mind, but Anna (4yo) joined him and achieved admirable success as well, hence her progression to some grade 1 materials for 2009. Abigail has also joined us for Bible and Belief.

Bible and Belief
Joshua, Anna and Abigail have attended weekly BSF kids' classes while I have been doing the BSF Women's Day Class. This year, we learnt a lot more about Jesus the King and promised Messiah of the Jews as we studied our way through Matthew. 2008 was Joshua's last year of pre-school BSF, having attended for the studies of Ruth, Genesis, Romans and Matthew. I do hope that one day in the future he will be able to attend BSF school-age classes along with either Jeff or I in an Evening class. For 2009, though, I will continue with Day classes and Samuel will be old enough to join the girls and I for the first time.
We have also continued with our family Circle Time, although at times this has been intermittent. Jeff has taken over the telling, explanation and application of the Bible story and also led us in prayer. The kids coloured a Gospel Light picture for each story and just before Christmas I had them bound together into their very own story Bibles. I was amazed at the evidence of just how many Bible stories we had shared with them over the year.
I have continued to help the children learn memory verses. We started strong with this in the first half of the year, but learnt less in the later half, although we did learn some longer ones. Most of our memory verses were selected as we came across them in our tour through the Bible narrative; for example we learnt When all the people were being baptised, Jesus was baptised too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love: with you I am well pleased." (Luke 3:21-22) in the week after we heard the story of Jesus' baptism. We learnt the Lord's Prayer as well. We have also learnt a few Bible verses which I have specifically chosen because they have given me a reason for the behaviours I am training my children in. Thus we learnt Philippians 2:14-16a: Do everything without complaining or arguing, so you may be blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked generation, shining like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life. This verse helped me explain my reason for the behavioural standards I was expecting and enforcing in combating Joshua's tendency to whinge and whine. We also learnt Colossians 3:23-24: Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. in order to exhort the children to a more pleasant and diligent attitude, towards their academic school work in particular, but also in many other areas of their life where they would rather make the easy choice than the godly one.
My other contribution to our family Circle Time has been teaching them a few songs that are familiar to them from church. We learnt "Away in a Manger", "Shout to the Lord", "Shine, Jesus, Shine", "In Christ Alone", "Amazing Grace" and "How Deep the Father's Love for Us". I mostly chose these simply by taking note of which songs I really liked at church, finding the words, and then singing them with the kids regularly. The exception to this was "Amazing Grace", which I began singing to Anna one night to help her calm down from a temper tantrum, which has since become the children's favourite from this half dozen. Anna and Abigail both still like to hear this song whispered in their ear when they get upset, and one precious memory from 2008 is the beautiful moment when Anna sang "Amazing Grace" to Abi. The other song we have learnt I wrote to help us learn Philippians 2:14-16a, and it's a great help to remind the kids by singing this song when they do get back into the habit of complaining.

Literacy
Having followed the instructions in Reading Reflex to teach Joshua to read according to "the basic code": words which have a one-to-one correspondence between the number of letters and number of sounds, and which use the primary sound for each letter, eg bat but not ball. I borrowed a set of Bob Books and then ended up buying a set for myself, and Joshua read his way through them for most of the year, finishing the fifth set and "graduating" to PD Eastman and Dr Seuss Beginner Books at the end of 2008. We also used six Ladybird Phonics books, each with three or four stories in them, but these were not a success as the vocabulary was uneven in it's phonetical skill development. Anna has worked through the first four sets of Bob Books and is now reading Dr Seuss books as well, although she is less fluent than Joshua.
One resource that made a big difference to the kids' understanding was the workbook Multiple Phonograms, the second workbook in a series produced by LEM Phonics. This book introduced the kids to the most common "multiple phonograms": where a single sound is represented by two or more letters, such as sh (a digraph) or oi (a dipthong). Exercises included copying the phonogram, reading words which have the phonogram in them and matching to the correct picture, finding and underlining the phonogram in words in series and in paragraphs, and review sections where the correct phonogram was selected from a list to fit the space in a word (with a picture to illustrate the word next to it), eg b__n [picture of fire] - the missing phonogram is ur. This workbook was a great help to both Joshua and Anna, but especially Joshua, in explaining to them (and helping me to reinforce) the way written English works. Anna will be continuing with the workbook series in 2009.
Another element of our literacy program was copywork and dictation, using text from a variety of sources. This went well and we kept it up for the first semester but in the later half of the year we did a lot less of this as we were using the phonics workbook, Joshua was writing more in other contexts and I didn't want to overwhelm them with our writing requirements.

Literature
We read a lot of great books during 2008, mostly selected based upon my memories of books I enjoyed in my childhood, or from books I have seen recommended numerous times and places as "children's classics". I posted our read aloud book list from 2008 here.

Mathematics
We have worked our way steadily through Singapore Earlybird Mathematics 2A and 2B, with both Joshua and Anna completing it successfully. I used or adapted many of the recommended concrete activities for each lesson, doing one or two pages each day. After we had done the concrete activity they completed the workbook page.
We also used Maths Mastermind Starter Level, which has play-based concrete activities for developing mathematical awareness in number, space & shape and probability. Colour Patterns was another play-based visual/spatial development tool which we used, and it came in useful for developing the kids' numerical understanding, particularly in examining the 100-table which comes with it, when they were learning to count by 10s and 5s. The kids enjoyed using these materials but we didn't use them nearly as much as I had planned. I want to use them (and similar resources) more regularly in 2009.

Science and Geography
We worked our way around the continents of the world reading non-fiction library books and some fiction picture books about the well known fauna and some flora of each continent as we studied a little bit about it's geography. One of my favourite resources was National Geographic's online website, especially their animal pictures to colour and their free, customizable atlas printables.

Not-at-home-schooling
Joshua took Karate lessons throughout 2008 and in the second half of the year he joined the local Boys' Brigade group for his age, Anchor Boys. We enjoyed play dates with our homeschooling friends the B family as well. And there were numerous excursions to the Perth Zoo, the Aquarium of Western Australia, Yanchep National Park as well as enjoyable and educational holidays at Granny and Gramps' hobby farm at Albany.

NCB Science advice paper comment conclusion

This is the conclusion to my submission to the National Curriculum Board regarding their initial advice paper on Science, which I emailed in last night. I already posted the rest in separate sections: part I, part II, part III, part IV, part V.

VI. In conclusion, there are significant deficiencies within this initial advice paper, which must be addressed before the final national Science curriculum is put to parliament. The most serious of these is the low priority given to the teaching of “scientific knowledge”, particularly in the primary years. Science studies should provide all students with both the skills and background understandings to make informed decisions with regard to scientific matters in their adult lives. This is true even for those who will not continue on to further academic study in this discipline. This paper proposes additions to the work load of teachers, while at the same time decreasing the rigor of what they are expected to teach. Again, it would be more worthwhile to specify a higher required contact time to teach scientific concepts, theories and processes, in age levels which are appropriate for the students’ mental capacities.

Reminder NCB submissions due soon

Public comment on the National Curriculum Board's initial advice papers in English, History, Mathematics and Science is only open for a few more days. Submissions must be received by the 5th of November (that's this Wednesday).

If you plan to submit a comment, you can email it to: feedback@ncb.org.au.

If you haven't found them already, the initial advice papers can be downloaded from this page.

You can read and comment on what will be my submission in the following posts. Sorry, they're all in reverse order. You'll have to scroll down then up again, if you want to read them in order according to the paper, but I can't be bothered editing all the post option times just to make them read better on this blog and it would have been a ridiculously long post if I did it in one hit. Feel free to comment before I email it all on Wednesday.

NCB Science advice paper comment Pt 5

V. [Appendix 1] “Teaching for scientific competencies requires: More emphasis on teams working cooperatively to investigate problems or issues.”

A. This is completely false. It is impossible to assess with any certainty the knowledge and understanding of any individual within a team based purely on the team’s final product. In team-based situations it is easy for one or more individuals to contribute minimal effort, to the detriment of other members of the team. The problems of students’ perceived needs for peer acceptance means that this is unlikely to be either identified by the teacher or reported to them. Working in teams when the team members have no particular special abilities related to their role within the team penalises the knowledgeable and hardworking team members and benefits those whose morals allow them to slack off.

B. Team tasks where individuals are arbitrarily given different portions of the topic to examine cannot solve this problem, as then the entire team membership is limited in their understanding of parts of the topic that were beyond their purview.

C. It would be of greater worth to encourage teachers to incorporate interactions between their students and people with a higher level of knowledge in the field, whether in person (using technological advances to make this possibly where necessary) or through the close study of the products of fertile, intelligent scientific minds: the actual journal articles and books written by great scientists of the past and present. The length of time necessary to study some of these materials (or even a portion thereof) in depth would be entirely rewarded by the interest inspired in the students, their greater level of understanding and the catalyst which this experience would provide to their further efforts within the discipline. This form of detailed study would be particularly rewarding and stimulating to students in the senior years of secondary study.

NCB Science advice paper comment Pt 4

IV. [pp9-10] "To improve the quality of science learning there is a need to introduce more diagnostic and formative assessment practices. These assessment tools help teachers to understand what students know and do not know and hence plan relevant learning experiences that will be beneficial."

A. The introduction of new "diagnostic assessment tools" will not make the plight of a teacher easier of more effective in any way. Rather, it will do the reverse. A science test can be easily designed to determine if a student "knows or does not know" any given concept, and tests can also be designed to determine if a student understands that same concept and its application. Furthermore, it is even easier to provide an opportunity for students to report on “all they know of a particular subject” which provides for a more individual and comprehensive assessment if required. Especially if one takes into account the common use by secondary science teachers of summative experiments, assessment in schools is done with efficiency and effectiveness at present. In my experience, differentiating between "formative assessment" and "watching and listening to the students as they work" only results in more paper work for the teacher and less time for them to interact with the students in a one-to-one fashion. "Detailed diagnostic information" never (in my experience) means "listen to the student’s explanation of a concept, and talk to them about how they are right and wrong in their understanding. Rather, it means paperwork and more paperwork.

B. The best way of enabling teachers to identify students’ needs and achievements is to provide greater opportunity for one-to-one interaction. This will not be achieved through the imposition of greater assessment and reporting requirements. Rather, it will be achieved through smaller science classes, greater time allocation for science lessons, or a combination of both of these.

NCB Science advice paper comment Pt 3

III. [p8] "To increase the relevance of science to students there is a strong case to include more contemporary (and possibly controversial) issues in the science curriculum…
The school science curriculum should provide opportunities to explore these complex issues to enable students to understand that the application of science and technology to the real world is often concerned with risk and debate."

A. I do not believe this is appropriate in the primary grades. Children of primary age are not able to grasp the idea of bias and how it affects the interpretation of statistical evidence, nor can they fully understand the idea that there may be no "right" answer.

B. This is appropriate at the secondary level where students are intellectually capable of learning and applying methods of reasoning (of which the scientific method is merely one) and also have a strong internal drive to make their own decisions and forge their own solutions. It is at this age when personal relevance of content to students’ lives is important to consider. However, it does take a skilled teacher to draw students into considering and acknowledging the breadth of their sphere of “personal value and relevance”. For this reason it is vital that secondary science teachers are provided with regular opportunities to upgrade their knowledge of scientific and technological developments, particularly if they teach in the fields of biology, biochemistry or physics.

[edit: this section was added 5 Nov]
C. It is no small matter for a curriculum to advocate the teaching of controversial issues as part of science classes. These issues are controversial because there is significant disagreement about the ethics of particular types of research or particular applications for research. Expecting a teacher to provide a fair and balanced assessment of a topic which engenders high levels of feeling and emotion within the scientific community and the general public seems akin to asking for complaints to be made about teachers’ approaches to the topic.

NCB Science advice paper comment Pt 2

II. [p7] "There is a consistent criticism that many of the problems and issues in science education arise from the structure of science curricula which tend to be knowledge-heavy and alienating to a significant number of students. ... The challenge is to identify the science concepts that are important and can be realistically understood by students in the learning time available."

A. It is my experience that the structure of science curricula is not too “knowledge-heavy”. It is not the content to be learnt which is “alienating to students”. Rather, the body of knowledge to be taught is organised in a manner that does not reflect either the experience of the students, nor their capacities and drive to learn. In my experience, young children (primary age) are inquisitive about the world around them and want answers. They do not want more questions, or to be told to work it out on their own. Children of this age want to know what things are like and how they work. This is mentioned in the paper [p10-11] however the paper does not acknowledge that at this age children’s curiosity extends beyond their own experience and it is easy for a teacher to nurture their interest beyond themselves and their local natural world. With liberal access to good books (particularly those which impart information within a storyline, addressing young children’s need to have concepts fit within a context) and judicious access to multimedia, a primary teacher is easily able to inspire children’s interest in a broad range of scientific concepts beyond their immediate experience. With careful planning a teacher can incorporate the wide range of tactile experiences and clear explanations required to help students to understand abstract concepts which otherwise would be beyond their understanding. At this age, students find learning reasons and rules fascinating and fun, and as a consequence are able to absorb more scientific concepts than they are presented with under the present system. At this age, memorisation is not difficult, but fun and rewarding. If this window of opportunity were used fully, students who at later ages are bored, frustrated or “alienated” with learning what appears to them to be dry facts would instead be able to extend and apply their previously built foundation of scientific knowledge in ways that are of interest at this age.

B. Towards this end I would suggest a greater emphasis upon the teaching of scientific concepts in the primary years when children have a thirst for knowledge but do not yet have the intellectual capacity for formal analytical reasoning as required by the structure of the scientific method. At present, primary teachers often leave science out of their curricula completely, or just give it minimal attention because they feel underprepared to teach it. It would be short-sighted to decide not to teach a sizeable amount of scientific content merely because the present system crowds the learning of virtually all scientific concepts into the junior secondary years. It is my belief that a focus on building knowledge of simple concepts, rather than the experience of elaborate experiments to “investigate questions scientifically”, would enable primary teachers to use a few intelligent and inspiring resources in ways which will satisfy their students’ desire to know as well as fueling their interest in science as a discipline. It would also ensure students enter secondary level education with a reasonable level of knowledge to draw upon as they enjoy applying the scientific method.

[edit: this section was added 3 Nov]
C. I am extremely disappointed with the attitude displayed by the developers of this paper. This section shows that they have not esteemed and valued the vast wealth of understanding that scientific endeavour has made available to people, and sought to find a way to share this wealth with Australia's students. Instead, the paper's developers seem to have given this effort up as a lost cause because it is "alienating to a significant number of students". If scientific endeavour is at all valuable to our society, as of course it is, it is worthwhile pressing onward and searching for ways to prevent this "alienation", rather than submitting to it. Nothing is gained without effort, and hard work and diligent effort reaps large rewards, in my experience. This is true for all levels of the education system. Students must apply themselves to thinking if they are to learn anything of worth. Teachers must seek ways to make the knowledge content of their discipline interesting and engaging to the students. Principals must employ teachers who display a high level of knowledge and regard for their subject matter. Curriculum designers must not seek to water down the curriculum to meet the standards of the lowest common denominator academically, but rather to set high goals and standards. These efforts will be met with the rewards of students' success and knowledge gained. The rewards of knowledge must not be given up meekly without regard for their high value.

NCB Science advice paper comment Pt 1

I am writing as an ex-teacher. I taught Science, Mathematics and Information Technology in both public and private schools at the secondary level (years 8-12) in South Australia and the Northern Territory for six years. I am also writing as a parent. I have four children (junior primary age and younger) who have been home educated for several years under my tutelage. Thus my response takes into account both my experiences as a teacher of Science and my hopes for the future educational experiences of my children.

I. [pp5-6] "... a science curriculum could be well based on three key elements:
1. Science as a way of knowing through inquiry...
2. Science as a human endeavour...
3. Scientific knowledge"

A. The purpose of scientific inquiry is to explain what is observed, using the “scientific method”. To explain is not the same as to know. As the paragraph under (1) states, scientific explanations change. Hence it is erroneous to state that science is a way of knowing. Rather, it is a way of explaining. One of the first things I learnt in my first year of university lectures in Science is that scientific experimentation cannot never tell us what is so, it can only tell us what is not so . The scientific method is a form of inductive formal logic, and as such, while it applies the laws of probablitity and possibility, it cannot prove anything for certain. There is a danger, to my mind, of referring to the academic discipline of Science as “a way of knowing”, because this can lead students to believe that the scientific method is the only way of determining the facts of a matter. In contrast, the methods of informal logic (critical thinking) and formal, deductive logic (Aristotelian use of categorical syllogisms and modern symbolic or propositional logic) provide other means of analysing and arranging evidence for or against an explanation of an observation. This misunderstanding, that scientific endeavour provides the only way to identifying the facts, is quite common and could be avoided if Science is taught as one way of formulating and justifying an explanation for observations, rather than as “a way of knowing”.

B. I find the inclusion of the second point, “science as a human endeavour” superfluous to the definition of a science curriculum. If students are taught that science is one mode of inquiry, they will certainly understand that those who make these inquiries are human beings. There is nothing else capable. Likewise, if students are taught even a small portion of the body of accepted scientific theory, they will see that the application of these theories has obvious ramifications for human society. If things change, they cannot stay the same. It is unnecessary to specify a key element of science to be the nature of it as a human endeavour, because study of the other two elements will necessitate the coverage of this factor.

C. Furthermore, I object to the placement of “scientific knowledge” at the end of this list of key elements. It is clear from this placement, and the lack of emphasis throughout the paper on building a foundation of scientific knowledge, that the writers of this paper do not feel that knowledge of the current body of scientific knowledge is of high value. Appendix 1 highlights this denigration. Given that the purpose of scientific inquiry is to build a body of reasonable explanations about our observations, it is of utmost importance to teach the results of previous scientific endeavour. Otherwise, our educational systems will merely produce students who are capable of applying a method, but who then have to use that method to re-establish the validity of the most fundamental ideas that already underpin our technological society. If students are not taught which theories held by scientists in the past have been refuted, we cannot expect to move forward in our theories; instead, we will be doomed to continually cover the same ground. At best, this system will produce students who lack the scientific understanding to embark on further academic study in this discipline, let alone become research scientists. The study of “scientific knowledge” must be of prime importance in the science curriculum if the students of the future are to graduate with a foundation of knowledge sufficient to allow them to understand further scientific developments that will have marked impacts on their lives, and to make wise decisions about their own practices as a result.

Quotes from the NCB Science advice paper

These quotes have been selected from the National Curriculum Board's Initial Advice Paper on Science (PDF, 62kB). I am not nearly so impressed with this Science advice paper as I was with the History paper. I'm quite disappointed, actually. I think I might have to write a submission in response to this one.

"... a science curriculum could be well based on three key elements:
1. Science as a way of knowing through inquiry...
2. Science as a human endeavour...
3. Scientific knowledge" [So far, so good, except why didn't they put point (3) first? As I read further I realised it was because they thought this was the least important part of any science curriculum.]

"Australia is a scientifically and technologically advanced nation. It is imperative that its future citizens have an understanding of science so that personal and societal decisions can be made on the basis of evidence and reason."

"The purpose of school science is to develop science competencies by which students can:
• understand more about science and its processes
• recognise its place in our culture and society
• use it in their daily lives.
It could be argued that developing these science competencies is a basic need for effective citizenship. ... school science not only prepares students for citizenship, but provides a solid platform for more specific science pathways."

"By the end of the compulsory years of science study it is expected that students would be able to demonstrate the following attributes of scientifically knowledgeable people:
• they are interested in and understand the natural world around them
• they engage in discussions of and about science
• they are sceptical and questioning of the claims made by others
• they can identify and investigate questions and draw evidence-based conclusions
• they can make informed decisions about the environment and their own health and well being.
Essentially the focus is on what one could describe as ‘science for life’."

"Science education should acknowledge the interaction between science and social values in the many debates about the applications of science."

"There is a consistent criticism that many of the problems and issues in science education arise from the structure of science curricula which tend to be knowledge-heavy and alienating to a significant number of students. ... The challenge is to identify the science concepts that are important and can be realistically understood by students in the learning time available."

"... scientific knowledge is rapidly increasing... add[ing] to the pressure on the science curriculum. There is a reluctance to replace the old with the new. Rather, there is a tendency to simply add the new science ideas to the traditional ones. ... Obviously such a situation is not sustainable."

"This paper argues that developing science competencies is important, understanding the big ideas of science is important, exposure to a range of science experiences relevant to everyday life is important and understanding of the major concepts from the different sciences is important. It is also acknowledged that there is a core body of knowledge and understanding that is fundamental to the understanding of major ideas."

"... it is possible to provide flexibility and choice about the content of local science curriculum. ... In managing this choice, there is a need to be conscious of the potential danger of repetition of knowledge through a student’s school life and ensure repetition is minimised and that a balanced science curriculum is provided for every student." [I am assuming (and hoping) by this the authors are referring to repetition of the same task or localised issue to the level of boredom, rather than repetition of the same concept to the level of mastery.]

"Instead of simply emphasising what has been described as ‘canonical science concepts’, there is a need to provide a meaningful context to which students can relate ... students will be better placed to understand the concepts if they can be applied to everyday experiences." [Hmm...]

"To increase the relevance of science to students there is a strong case to include more contemporary (and possibly controversial) issues in the science curriculum." [Well, not necessarily. We could just increase the amount of exploration and play-based science activities we do with students in the primary grades, and make experiments more relevant to everyday life in the secondary grades.]

"The school science curriculum should provide opportunities to explore these complex issues to enable students to understand that the application of science and technology to the real world is often concerned with risk and debate." [Not at the primary level they shouldn't, IMO. Kids of this age are not able to grasp the idea of bias and how it affects the interpretation of statistical evidence, nor can they fully understand the idea that there may be no "right" answer.]

"When a curriculum document is prepared there is an expectation that what is written will be what is taught and what is assessed. Unfortunately, there is sometimes a considerable gap between intended curriculum, the taught curriculum and the assessed curriculum; what can be assessed often determines what is taught."

"It is unfortunate that the summative end-of-topic tests seem to dominate as the main tool of assessment. ... To improve the quality of science learning there is a need to introduce more diagnostic and formative assessment practices. These assessment tools help teachers to understand what students know and do not know and hence plan relevant learning experiences that will be beneficial." [I do not agree with this at all. The introduction of new "diagnostic assessment tools" will not make the plight of a teacher easier of more effective in any way. Rather, it will do the reverse. A science test can be easily designed to determine if a student "knows or does not know" any given fact, and tests can also be designed to determine if a student understands that same concept and its application. Especially if one takes into account the common use by teachers of summative experiments (that is, experiments done to test the student's knowledge and skill), assessment in schools is done with efficiency and effectiveness at present.]

"...formative assessment is more useful in promoting learning." [For those who are not familiar with the term, formative assessment is assessment done purely to give feedback to the teacher and student about their progress, not to give a final assessment of their achievement at the end of a course/topic. In other words, they are saying the teacher should be aware of how well each of the students is dealing with the material at hand, so they can direct students to further study or interaction with the material as required to achieve mastery and seeing them pass or fail the final test should come as no surprise. Well, whoop-de-doo! In my experience, differentiating between "formative assessment" and "watching and listening to the students as they work" only results in more paper work for the teacher and less time for them to interact with the students in a one-to-one fashion - as is evidenced by the next quote. "Detailed diagnostic information" never (in my experience) means "listen to their explanation of a concept, and talk to them about how they are right and wrong in their understanding. Rather, it means paperwork and more paperwork.]

"Assessment should enable the provision of detailed diagnostic information to students. It should show what they know, understand and can demonstrate. It should also show what they need to do to improve."

"[E]arly science experiences should relate to self awareness and the natural world. During the primary years, the science curriculum should develop the skills of investigation, using experiences which provide opportunities to practice language literacy and numeracy. In secondary school, some differentiation of the sub-disciplines of science may be appropriate, but as local and community issues are interdisciplinary, an integrated science may be the best approach. Senior secondary science curricula should be differentiated, to provide for students who wish to pursue career-related science specializations, as well those who prefer a more general, integrated science for citizenship."

"During the primary years ... A broad range of topics is suitable including weather, sound, light, plants, animals, the night sky, materials, soil, water and movement. Within these topics the science ideas of order, change, patterns and systems should be developed."

"In the early years of primary school, students will tend to use a trial and error approach to their science investigations." [How does one perform "trial and error" investigations upon the weather? Does one try to make it rain and find out one cannot? Does one try to guess if it is raining and find that this is a meaningless exercise? Perhaps a better model would be to use a "look, listen, feel, do and learn approach" and actually make a child's experience an important factor in their developing knowledge: Thus one looks at many different types of clouds and watches lightning, listens to thunder and the pounding of rain on a hot iron roof, feels the rain in their hair and on their hands, feels the heat of the sunlight on their bare arms and notices the way the heat dries the sprinkling of water applied thereto, uses a watering can to make "rain" over a soil and grass "habitat" in a plastic box, reads Robert Louis Stevenson's poems "Rain" and "When the sun comes after rain", waters plants in their garden and eventually gets to smell the flowers or eat the vegetables, and in all these things comes to a greater understanding of rain and sunshine and what weather really is.]

"[During the Junior Secondary years] it is important to exercise restraint and to avoid overcrowding the curriculum and providing space for the development of students’ science competencies alongside their knowledge and understanding of science content. Topics could include states of matter, substances and reactions, energy forms, forces and motion, the human body, diversity of life, ecosystems, the changing earth and our place in space. The big science ideas of energy, sustainability, equilibrium and interdependence..."

"[During the Senior Secondary years] There should be at least three common courses across the country: physics, chemistry and biology. There could also be one broader-based course..."

And just for the record, I disagree with pretty much everything in this appendix:

Quotes from the NCB History advice paper

These quotes have been selected from the National Curriculum Board's Initial Advice Paper on History (PDF, 71kB). I highly recommend reading the paper in full, it is surprisingly and pleasantly understandable!

"By teaching history systematically and sequentially across the years of schooling we will enrich educational outcomes."

"The starting-point of this paper is that the restriction of the national curriculum to Australian history is inappropriate. If only to equip students to operate in the world in which they will live, they need to understand world history. That history should have a broad and comprehensive foundation from which its implications for Australia can be grasped. ... Australian history will retain an important place in a national curriculum."

"We fail them also if we do not foster the skills of historical thinking that equip them, by the end of their studies, to take
an active part in the debates over the legacy of the past, to understand and make use of new sources of information, to sift the wheat from the chaff, to find truth and meaning in history and contribute to democratic discussion of national issues."

"One reason for teaching history is to ... develop a critical perspective on received versions of the past, and learn how to compare conflicting accounts so that the conflicts and ambiguities are appreciated."

"Introducing students to historical thinking involves teaching methods of historical inquiry. Students need both to know history and practise it. Factual knowledge is essential to historical thinking."

"In broad terms, students should be introduced to world history from the time of the earliest human communities... Students should have an appreciation of the major civilizations of Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Australia. They should understand Australian history within a comparative framework..."

"No-one possesses an exhaustive historical knowledge, but an historical education should furnish both the capacity to acquire new knowledge and a continuing desire to do so."

The explanation of the "Benchmarks of Historical Thinking" on page 8 is clear and helpful.

"... substantive knowledge incorporates knowledge of events, historical actors and other information; procedural knowledge refers to the concepts and vocabulary that are used to make sense of the substance of the past. ... both forms of knowledge are mutually dependent."

"[A successful model] combine[s] a historical survey with studies in depth. ... [This] calls for careful curriculum design. The curriculum needs to incorporate overview, bridging and depth components. Overview components will use an expansive chronology and assist students to understand broad patterns of historical change. Bridging components will provide a context for closer studies in depth. Depth studies will provide students with the opportunity to bring the skills of historical thinking to bear on well-defined events of particular significance."

"The curriculum should provide for a sequence of learning, building on and consolidating earlier studies, but avoid excessive repetition..."

"The primary school curriculum should introduce students to the traditions, stories, myths and legends that connect them with the values, beliefs and the socio-cultural elements of past societies. It should also lead to an appreciation of the legacy of that past on present society."

"In the lower primary school years the curriculum should enable students to make connections between their direct experiences and those that result from their exposure to artefacts, images, simple primary sources and oral histories that relate to their own past and those of significant others. ... The middle and upper primary school curriculum for Australian history should introduce students to key topics for inquiry in history that will be pursued in greater depth and breadth in the junior secondary years."

"It would make use of local and community history, with strong links to national, regional and global perspectives. Students would use local and community history, as well as stories about well-known and ‘ordinary’ people, as they acquire an initial understanding of some key events..."

"It is proposed tentatively that the history curriculum should follow a sequence:
(1) History from the time of the earliest human communities to the end of the Ancient period (c. 60,000BC — c. 500AD)
(2) History from the end of Ancient period to the beginning of the Modern period (c.500 — 1750)
(3) Modern history (c. 1750 — present)
(4) Australian history (c.1901 — present)"

"The first unit will explore the ways of life and global migrations of the earliest communities..."

"The second unit ... will highlight the consolidation of complex urban states and associated social, political, economic and religious activities in Europe, for the settler society of Australia derived many of its core institutions and values from Western Europe and its expansion into the rest of the world from the sixteenth century had decisive consequences."

"The third unit ... deals with the industrial revolution and industrialisation, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, the French and American Revolutions, the principles of human rights and democracy, the rise of the nation-state and associated ideas of national identity, the era of mass warfare and the ideological conflicts it engendered, and the emergence of supra-national organisations."

"The fourth unit on Australian history ... will include Federation, World War I, the Depression, World War II, immigration, women’s rights, the Vietnam War, Indigenous rights and contemporary political history."

"The curriculum will make particular use of narrative, applying the skills of historical thinking to the depth studies, and working to a comparative overview by the completion of each unit."

"It is proposed that there should be units in Years 11 and 12 in Ancient and Modern History, and Australian History... [with optional] extension studies in history at Year 12 which allow students to explore traditions of historical research and writing, including debates among historians, and engage in the production of an extended research project."

"From Edward Gibbon to Geoffrey Blainey, writers of history provide models of literary distinction that engage students and enhance their appreciation of prose. Students should be exposed to secondary sources that exemplify these qualities..."

"Historical understanding ... can be enhanced by drawing on a wide range of artistic works..."

"The approach set out in this paper is premised on schools making a substantial commitment to teaching history. This will require making space in the timetable for a sustained and sequential program. At present there is little guidance for the allocation of time to history. It should occupy at least ten percent of teaching time in the primary school years, and in years 7 to 10 it should occupy an average of 100 classes a year, and a total of 400 classes."

National Curriculum Board advice papers

Over the last week or so the National Curriculum Board has released four "initial advice papers on the curriculum proposed for English, mathematics, the sciences and history." I have been reading a lot of comment in newspapers on what is being called "draft curriculum" in the media. So I decided to find the primary documents. If you're interested as well, you can download them from links on this page.

According to the NCB site the public can comment on these advice papers through email to: feedback@ncb.org.au or by mail to: National Curriculum Board Feedback, PO Box 177, Carlton South, Victoria 3053. Feedback on the initial advice papers needs to be in by November 5, and they expect to make their final recommendations in Term 1 next year.

Wisdom and Eloquence

On Friday I babysat for the T family and borrowed Wisdom and Eloquence from Mrs T's bookshelf. Since she borrowed it from another classically homeschooling friend, I have to return it by Wednesday, when we have Bible Study together. So I've read through this 200-page book in three days, taking copious notes. This book is pretty heavy on the vocabulary. It helps to have a working knowledge of classical educational theory before tackling it, otherwise, prepare for some heavy going. Even given this, I would thoroughly recommend this book, especially chapters 1, 6 and 8 and appendix B. (It helped that we are all sick at home with sinus infections and tonsilitis, diagnosed on Saturday morning when we all trouped in to the doctor's office together. You might think that would make it harder to read, but the kids are more subdued than usual and have been happy watching The Wind in the Willows and The Willows in Winter on DVD, in between playing with Duplo, Lego and long afternoon naps.)

Wisdom and Eloquence, like Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning by Douglas Wilson, takes a look at classical education from an institutional school's point of view. It was written by Robert Littlejohn and Charles T Evans, who are both heads of Christian schools which follow the classical tradition. Despite this point of view, I found more than enough ideas suitable for homeschooling that I kept my pen out, hovering over my note paper. In particular I appreciated the chapters which showed how to develop a curriculum plan top-down: starting with the end goals in mind and planning backwards from grade 12 to kindergarten. This approach makes sense. The authors showed what this might look like in general, across the trivium of liberal arts and the quadrivium of liberal sciences, and with a deeper look at a curriculum for teaching rhetorical skills through the use of the progymnasmata. (More on the progymnasmata later.)

I have found it to be a good co-read with Teaching the Trivium. While the Bluedorn's book promotes the value of studies of logic in the development of wisdom for individual action, Wisdom and Eloquence argues for the central need to teach students skills in oral rhetoric so they may influence their culture. Littlejohn and Evans present an effective case for the need to teach today's students not merely to convince (given the post-modern skepticism of the existence of ultimate truth) but also to persuade. They also argue that it is not enough to develop wisdom in out students - an ability to discern the most godly path and the self-discipline to follow it - but we must also seek to develop eloquence - the ability to persuade and inspire others to follow that godly path. The one thing largely missing from this book is the desire to develop in students compassion and a heart for service to others, so that they might influence their community through their deeds as well as their words.

The Bluedorns distinguish between the applied trivium (knowledge, understanding, wisdom; aka Dorothy Sayers' Poll-parrot, Pert, Poetic stages and the Well-Trained Mind stages of grammar, logic and rhetoric) and the formal trivium (language arts subjects of grammar, logic, rhetoric). Littlejohn and Evans reject the applied trivium, or at least reject the idea that the trivium is only to be understood as a description of teaching levels, and explain clearly the academic necessity of the classical academic subjects of the liberal arts (the trivium of grammar, dialectic and rhetoric) and mathematical sciences (the quadrivium). However, in the last chapter Littlejohn and Evans deal with what they call "modes of learning", and here they reference the three ways of learning that Mortimer J Adler described: acquiring new knowledge, critical interaction and meaningful expression. It is fairly obvious to me, as it was when I first read of them in Adler's How to Read a Book, that these three ways of learning are equivalent to the applied trivium of Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom described by the Bluedorns. While Sayers and Bauer and Wise placed the use of these learning methods in sequence, Adler, the Bluedorns and Littlejohn and Evans all contend that all three are necessary to varying degrees all the time, at all ages. I tend to agree with them.

The two books also take opposing views on appropriate education in the lower grades, although they agree on the value of memorisation. The Bluedorns recommend a more informal education before the age of ten with constant exposure to great literature and extensive memorisation of Bible passages in both English and the original languages and mathematics taught via familiar experiences. This seems somewhat reminiscent of Charlotte Mason's ideas. Littlejohn and Evans advocate a thorough grounding in the facts and rules of language/s and sciences early on. For the first time I read a cognizant and convincing argument for the early teaching of the rules of grammar. Consider the following two quotes:

"Mechanics and meaning do not have to be simultaneously grasped." (p43) This was written in the context of reading instruction, explaining that when teaching children to read (decode) via intensive phonics instruction, it does not matter that they cannot read in the full sense (comprehend) all that they can decode. As their vocabulary develops, so too will their comprehension of the passages they decode, and they will be "real" readers. (When we use tracework, copywork and previewed dictation with students, we allow them to write what they do not yet necessarily know how to spell; this is another application of the same principle but in reverse.)

"An interesting dilemma attends our theory of liberal arts learning: the earlier this instruction begins in a student's career, the longer it takes to teach; but the later we wait to begin the instruction, the less time the student has to incorporate each skill as an intellectual habit... Still, the value is self-evident, and a disciplined effort always pays off in the student's favour." (p110) This was written in a discussion of when to teach the rules of grammar, but likewise applies to teaching reading. It is true that a 4 or 5 year old will usually take one to two years to master the relationships of phonemes to graphemes that allow them to decode English writing fluently. It is also true that a 9 or 10 year old, or an adult, may be able to master these skills in one or two months. However, this quote exposes the price which late readers pay for their delay: they are often unable to internalise these skills sufficiently to ever become a reader who enjoys and flourishes in their reading.

When these previous two quotes are considered with regard to the value of early teaching of the rules of English grammar (through rote memorisation) versus late, we can see the value of teaching such things early. Early grammar instruction allows a student to habituate grammar skills, before they are required to use these skills in the critical analysis of the writing of others and in their own original writing, in such exercises such as those of the progymnasmata. At last! This is a rationale that I can accept for teaching the rules of grammar in the primary years, rather than waiting until the middle years of schooling.

One last comment on Wisdom and Eloquence: there are copious references throughout the book to the ancient authors who laid the foundation for the educational methods described in it. The more I read on educational theory and curriculum development, the more I appreciate knowing where the ideas originally came from. Littlejohn and Evans have, in the midst of their treatise on classical education, at last inspired me to tackle one of the first treatises on specifically Christian education: Augustine of Hippo's On Christian Doctrine. Wish me luck!

Circle Time plan for S2

I have organised my home-made Circle Time "curriculum" into four terms, but they don't go with the school terms except in a very rough way. From Christmas to Easter we study stories from the gospels; from Easter to mid-year we study stories from Acts (and in later years we will incorporate the letters and Revelation). Then the second half of the year is broken in two sections studying the stories from Genesis to Joshua and then from Judges to the Exile (including a few lessons on specific psalms and proverbs where they fit chronologically).

While we were on holidays, Jeff helped me to plan out our topics for these last two "terms" of Circle Time. In the following list, each line refers to a week's worth of lessons (4). It will take us up to the weeks of Advent when we'll begin reading the pre-Christmas stories again.

God's chosen people
Creation, Adam & Eve
Noah & the flood, Babel
Abraham & Sarah
Isaac
Jacob
Judah & Joseph
Moses & Aaron - Exodus from Egypt
Moses & Joshua - Wandering in the Desert
Joshua & Caleb - Into the Promised Land

God's promised land
Judges
Judges, Ruth
King Saul
King David
Psalms 1, 3, 8, 51
King Solomon
selections from Proverbs
Elijah & King Ahab, King Hezekiah & Isaiah, King Josiah, King Jehoahaz
Daniel, Lamentations, Esther - Exile!
Ezra, Nehemiah - The Return

Memory verses will be taken from these texts as we go along. For example, as the kids already know Gen 1:1, their first memory verse will be Gen 1:27. I also like to add in a few non-verse memory tasks through the year. Last semester the kids learnt the Lord's Prayer (in the version we say at our church). This semester, I'll be teaching them the Apostle's Creed. They love joining in with the congregation in the parts of the liturgy which are familiar.

I'm not sure yet which church songs we'll be learning, but we are loving singing Amazing Grace together at the moment, and occasionally we'll sing kids songs which relate to the stories we're reading.

Writing task ideas

A list of ideas for writing tasks - I'll be choosing from this list and planning ahead a week at a time:
trace model letters, words or sentences
making words with alphabet blocks
collage spelling using foam letters
collage spelling using magazine title letters which they will select and cut out
writing on the Megasketcher
writing in trays of damp sand
transcribe model words or sentences
write a sentence from slow dictation, getting all help necessary to make it correct (eg spelling out words, reminders for punctuation)
writing a sentence (previously used for copywork) from dictation given at normal pace and expression; compare to model; re-write

A list of things to write in any of the above ways:
titles for narrations
captions for illustrations
labels for pictures
letters to family and friends
sentences from readers
sentences based on everyday situations
selections from read aloud literature
selections from read aloud poetry
Bible verses which have Dolsch list words
Memory verses
sentences based on Circle Time Bible stories
full name
our address
date of birth and of present day
General Knowledge lists eg days of week & months of year, names of continents & states

On alternate weeks, I will be using the same text (with Joshua) for the entire week and doing the following four lessons:
1. read the passage aloud and talk about any new words, then he will read the passage aloud
2. re-read passage; copy passage from model; mum to point out errors as he goes, for immediate correction
3. re-read passage; lesson on phonics/ grammar/ mechanics related to the passage (discussion)
4. re-read passage; copy passage from model; when finished, he will check with original and make corrections
These weeks, Anna will either not have any writing task or it will be assigned from a handwriting workbook I have. In the other weeks, I think Anna will do the same words/ sentence as Joshua, although she will do tracework while he does copywork.