Tuesday, 19 March 2013

Homeschool Daily Schedules

Personally I have a love hate relationship with home school daily schedules.  On one had I know how valuable they are and on the other they annoy me endlessly.  I love flexibility to the annoyance of my family, who do not cope with sudden and unexpected change. I have spent the last year without a formal written schedule and the fruit of this decision shows my time has not been as productive as when I have used a written formal schedule. At the moment I have the skeleton of a schedule brewing in my thinking. I have baulked at creating a schedule partly because of Sir N's make up.  He thrives on schedule but if anything changes even by one minute the world comes to an end and I end up spending hours trying to calm him down and get back on track.

Today at our home school mom's meeting we discussed the chapter Inconstant Kitty in A Charlotte Mason Companion it could not have come at a better time. It always amazes me how these sorts of things 'happen' across my path when I need them the most.

"Every lesson must have its own time, and no other time in this world is there for it. The sense of the preciousness of time, of the irreparable loss when a ten minutes' lesson is thrown away must be brought home." - Charlotte Mason Companion page 93

Dangers
There are many hidden dangers to having a formal schedule. I have found often times we purchase a curriculum and feel driven to check every box in order to say we have achieved X,Y of Z. Or we say I have paid good money for that I will use it. Often times this is much to the determent of our home atmosphere. I have learned that a home atmosphere determines the length of a home school journey.

However the counter balance is "What you are allowed to meander through all day, you will; what must be done, is done." - Charlotte Mason Companion page 92.

Another danger is becoming a slave to the schedule and loosing all sense of flexibility.  A Schedule can be your ruling tyrant or active servant. Over the years I have found that it is important to keep it in the appropriate place of servitude. Sally Clarkson says: "There are many varieties of personalities and possibilities of home organization, Each of us simply has to find the combination of routines that suits our lifestyle and desires." -  The Mission of Motherhood.

Home school groups / friends can be another source of danger. At times there can be a sub culture of comparison within many home school groups. Over time I have come to understand that this happens because as home school mothers we feel inadequate. So we constantly compare ourselves and what we are doing with what others are doing.

For many years I did this (and sometimes still do) and the result was constantly changing my home school to look like someone else's. The fruit of this is adding in many excellent ideas that were working for other families and in the end I had so many things I was doing I couldn't possibly do them well. There just were not enough hours in my day to do so. I constantly have to prune in order to do a few things really well rather than a myriad of things at 25% capacity.

Consider
When setting up your individual schedule keep in mind your own families needs and character.  Trying to adhere to someone else's schedule is a recipe for an unhappy home. Remember your children are being tutored therefore they do not need to have a six hour school day.  Typically a 7 year old can learn a full day of school in 2-3 hours. In the high school years an average of four hours is all that is needed. Here are a few things to consider when formulating a schedule should you choose to have one:
  • Your personality and those of your spouse and children.
  • You spouses schedule and needs
  • Learning Styles
  • Family needs
  • Break times
  • Deadlines
  • Extra curricular classes (children's, yours and your spouse)
  • Ages and stages of your children
  • Your personal style.
  • Why ? What's your motive for that choice? 
  • Know your purpose. 
  • Consider all or your priorities.
  • What are your goals ?
  • Limit and cut back on all fronts because everything takes longer than you will expect.
Remember a schedule needs to grow and change with your family.  Your children are growing, changing and maturing. What is working well today might not work so well in six months time. Take regular time to reevaluate your schedule and tweak it to suit your family.

Methods
There are many methods of structuring your day out there.  Here are some ideas for you to consider when developing your schedule

On the WWW
Last thoughts

Once you have structured your plan and have embarked upon your new adventure be aware that you will need to make regular small course corrections to stay on track.  The winds of time, health, seasons, understanding and interruptions will blow. On occasion the storms of life may blow you off track so it is imperative to take some regular time to course correct and refocus and move forward.

Blessings
Chareen

This week
  • Bernadette shares I've got Rhythm and wonders if you could ask for anything more?
  • Julie has a Highhill Education Daily Schedule and uses spreadsheets to keep organized and help her children become more independent.
  • Hwee shares about their Daily Schedule or Lack thereof and talks about their journey from being formally structured home schoolers to find their loosely structured approach.
  • Savannah shares Our Daily Schedule including daily life, meal planning, school and all the extras
 ---ooOoo---

Linking with
Hip Homeschool Hop Button The Homeschool Village

Title Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles
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TT - Katie and the Waterlily Pond

This week ...
James Mayhew


  • Format: Paperback
  • Number of Pages: 32
  • Vendor: Orchardbooks Publishers
  • Publication Date: 2011
  • ISBN: 978-1-40830-464-8
  • Author  James Mayhew
  • Illustrator: James Mayhew
I love this series of books about Katie and her grandmother who visit the people in famous paintings and go on amazing adventures. In this book Katie goes on a voyage of discovery through five Monet Masterpieces as Katie takes art lessons with the master. The books ends with details about all the paintings shared in the book. This book lives up to the reputation of the others in the series.

  1. Katie and the Sunflowers
  2. Katie's picture Show
  3. Katie Meets the Impressionists
  4. Katie and the British Artists
  5. Katie and the Mona Lisa
Blessings

 Welcome to Tuesdays Treasures.  I started these posts as a way of sharing great books in honour of my friend in New Zealand who would arrive with the treasures she had unearthed at her weekly trip to the library!

There are so many wonderful books out there hiding on shelves so I invite you to blog about a book on your shelf, one you're reading or one you found at the library and add your post to Tuesday's Treasures Resource Link Up below.
Please link to this post. 

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Pop on over and see what others are sharing.
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Every bed of Roses

--oOo--
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Friday, 15 March 2013

A Touch Math Adventure {TouchMath Review}

TouchMath has been designed to use as a stand alone math program or as a supplement to what you are already doing. It's system reinforces maths principles and builds a solid foundation by helping your student firmly understand the concrete concept and transition via a hands on method progressing your student towards abstract maths. Sir N recently started using the Second Grade Homeschool Program.

Touch Math is designed to help children master math skills as they "see, say, hear and touch"


"TouchMath is the only program that uses the actual numeral as a manipulative by having TouchPoints (concrete level) and uses visual cues (pictorial/representative level) throughout the program to eventually remove visual cues and TouchPoints so the student can demonstrate a symbolic/abstract comprehension of the skill" - Research
 
Second Grade Homeschool
  • Four Units.
  • A comprehensive index (topics, module contents, all activities)
  • A full overview of vocabulary and resources
  • Page by page instructions and answer key
  • Content reviews and post test instructions
  • 6 Module instructions.
  • Progress Monitoring records 
  • A full implementation guide which provides a full program overview, tips and all the resources you need. 
  • 90 Student Activity Sheets
  • 6 Assessments
  • Answer Keys
  • Download Samples for each Unit
About the Worksheets
  • They are designed to take you from concrete to the abstract
  • From simple to complex processes
  • Build mathematical language (technical jargon)
  • Some worksheets are for individual practice and others are teacher guided. Each one is coded for you to see at a glance what your student is doing.
  • The activity sheets are uncluttered and clearly laid out.
  • Each sheet contains a footer bar with a description of the skill / topic covered on the page.
  • Pre and Post test modules to help you assess a students placement and their personal level of competence.
Record Keeping
  • A record sheet is provided to help provide overview of your students progress
  • Contains the topics for each module
  • Enough space to record multiple student information.
  • Each unit contains a full list of State Common Core standards worked on. This makes it easy to record your units.
Grade 2 Optional Extra's
Our Journey
With great excitement Sir N and I looked at samples of the Grade two year and decided yes we would like to try out some hands on Math learning. Sir N is a hands on learner who loves trying new things and this year I am trying to work more on allowing delight directed learning.

It was with great anticipation that we downloaded our PDF lessons. I felt a little overwhelmed when I opened Unit A and discovered it contained 239 pages! My curiosity got the better of me and I checked the other three: Unit B had 233 pages, Unit C had 235 pages and Unit D had 231 pages.  Wow I've never had a math program that came with the wealth of information supplied by TouchMath. No there are not  200+ pages per unit for your child to fill in.  Each unit contains 90 Student Activity Sheets the balance of each unit contains instructions for you the parent. It sounds like a lot of work but it is not.

Each unit contained a full implementation guide containing everything I needed to obtain the maximum benefit of the entire home school program. 

As we worked through the program I realized that it builds precept upon precept. I was surprised to learn that the program has been around since 1972 and as a result they have a lot of experience in teaching math. Since commencing my home school journey one of the things I have learned is that we push our children past the manipulative's learning stage too quickly much to the determent of their math learning.


Touch Math is unique in that it uses the physical number as the manipulative. This in turn means that you do not need to purchase any additional resources to teach maths. Having said this we have really enjoyed using the manipulatives supplied with the program. (Flip Cards, Student Number Cards, Second Grade Software, Touch Numerals with Base 10) It was like having Christmas when our math manipulative box arrived. I have not seen Sir N as excited about Math as when this 14 pound box arrived.

To make using the program easier I downloaded the pdf documents to my Galaxy Tab and had that close at hand to help me with each lesson.


 We spent the first part of Unit A learning the numeral touch points and becoming familiar with the program.  The software was especially helpful in this.

Each day we used the Flip Cards for math fact drill followed with a 15 minute lesson. There is no set number of lessons to do each day.  The pace of the lessons is set by the child and their individual grasp of the concept. The recommended time spent on a lesson is twice your students age. Sir N is seven which meant our lessons were 15 min a day.

Each set of flash cards correlates to the unit you are working through.  There are three boxes of flash cards per unit. The quality of the cards is excellent and they are big and easy to read. We did not use all the cards at each lesson we used up to 20 cards at a time depending on the skill level attained or the facts memorized.  We added in new facts as other facts were mastered. The back of each box has suggestions for usage. The spine of the box contains the name of the unit along with a description this makes for easy recognition if storing them standing up or in a box.

I really enjoyed using the base ten system with Sir N.  It reinforced the number 10 concept with him and helped him grasp borrowing in subtraction.

I was impressed with how math strategies are taught with each lesson. I also enjoyed the natural introduction of the technical jargon for maths. Each term is simply explained and with appropriate repetition the student becomes familiar with the math concept with ease. 

Sir N can become distracted with graphics so the clean uncluttered presentation of each page benefited his pace of learning.


**Cost {TouchMath Second Grade Homeshool}
  • Unit A $ 59.95
  • Unit B $ 59.95
  • Unit C $ 59.95
  • Unit D $ 59.95
  • Purchase all four units for $ 199.95 and save $39-85
  • The manipulatives are optional extra's. I would highly recommend you investing in these as they make for a much richer sensory program. There is a list of suggested resources at the bottom of the Unit purchase page.
** All prices quoted are correct at time of posting.  It is the responsibility of the purchaser to check the cost before purchasing. Prices are subject to change without notice. All prices are in US $.

Social Media
Touch Math uses social media to bring you their latest offers and free downloads as well as teacher support by providing a platform to ask your questions and have them answered quickly.
What others are saying Online
Overall we are enjoying this program. It does not contain busy work. Each page has a purpose and keeps the student engaged and moving forward. The manipulatives add a positive dimension to the daily math experience.

Blessings
Chareen

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This post is part of and linking with the Schoolhouse Review so don't forget to pop on over and read what others are saying about Touch Math.

This post contains NO affiliate links.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product through the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.
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