Homeschooling the Late Bloomer

 

When I first started homeschooling I used BJUP Kindergarten. When it asked me if I wanted to plan for a 3 hour kindergarten or a 6 hour kindergarten, I chose the 3 hour, because I did have a toddler and a baby on the way. I am not a trained teacher, so I loved the Teacher’s Manual that told me what crafts to prepare for, what songs to sing, and how high to jump. I did EVERY activity it suggested, and with my kinesthetic first born, we were done with everything in about half an hour. My first born soaked it up, and by the end of Kindergarten he was reading proficiently.

When I started with the second one, I started to learn about learning styles, and she was a visual learner. She didn’t want to do all the activities, she just wanted to move on to the next lesson. She was reading the Bible by Christmas, as a 5 year old.

Number 3 was pretty much the same story. A visual learner, who wanted to teach himself. Again, by the end of Kindergarten he was reading proficiently.

I would hear mothers from the public school saying, “My child can’t read, so they are holding them back in Kindergarten.” I would think, smugly, “Well, if only you taught your children phonics, and not sight words, they would learn!”

And, then I had number 4. By the time he was school age, I had a 6^th grader, a 4^th grader, a 2^nd grader, and a toddler. He was my loudest child (I was always reminding him to use his inside voice) and he was my “drama king”. Not only would he cry for himself, but he’d cry for others if he sensed they were hurting. I started the tried and true Kindergarten curriculum at the age of 5 and a half. He didn’t get it at all! He just wasn’t ready. His times outside with his older siblings were his favorite, and he was super observant in all that they did. He formed his letters on a cookie sheet in either salt, sand or shaving cream. He climbed trees, had lots of PE and got to explore his outside world. (Such a blessing we are in California and our kids have opportunities to be outside a LOT!)

We finished the Kindergarten curriculum and he wasn’t reading anything. I wondered if I should start the First grade curriculum, but I didn’t want to repeat the Kindergarten curriculum as he was coming close to 7, so I went ahead and did the first grade curriculum.  I read everything to him. I would have him dictate sentences to me, I’d write them on the white board, and have him copy them. But he had no idea what he was copying.

At the end of first grade, when he still wasn’t reading, I was full of self-doubt. Was he dyslexic? Did he need a specialist? Was I not equipped to handle whatever his “learning disability” was? Should I seek professional help? I spoke to another veteran homeschool mom who told me not to worry about it and to just keep on reading out loud to him.

Second grade was a repeat of what happened in first grade, except that the self-doubt was stronger. Fortunately, reading every single lesson to a second grader still only takes about an hour, so I’d school the others in the morning, and then after lunch my second grader would get my undivided attention.

Now we are at third grade. I’m frankly starting to panic. I take him to get his eyes checked and to have some tests done to make sure he didn’t have some weird vision things going on. And now I’m noticing that when I read out loud to him, he can seem to be distracted with Legos or lining up Match Box cars, but as I notice the tears rolling down his face when Charlotte of Charlotte’s Web dies, I know he has been paying attention the whole time. I also notice that he also likes to be cuddled right next to me while he is doing Math problems.

I’m praying about what other kind of help I can get him to start fourth grade. As the summer is nearing the end, and I’m doing lesson planning, I hear him reading Hop On Pop to his younger brother. Every week through the curriculum, he is making great strides. Now he is reading instructions on his own. Now he is reading picture books with a plot. Next he is reading chapter books. By the end of fourth grade, he is reading the Bible with proficiency and understanding. He had TOTALLY caught up in reading in one school year.

And that was just about the time fractions were introduced in the Math book. And that became a struggle. The others were all ready for Algebra 1 in 7^th or 8^th grade. He wasn’t ready for Algebra 1 until 10^th grade. He and I worked to find a curriculum that worked for him. He attended a CHEA convention with me and he picked Math U See. I figured he needed skin in the game. (I had BJU, Chalkdust, and Teaching Textbooks at home, but those didn’t suit him!)

He decided that he wanted to go to a four year University, so we worked to that goal. I was a little concerned about him only finishing Algebra 2 in high school, but when he took the Math placement test during College Orientation, he placed into Calculus 1.

But these are things we learned about him along the way. He is a kinesthetic learner, with auditory learning as his second learning style. His love language is physical touch. When he went to college he knew he needed to not miss any classes so he could listen to each lecture. And that he needed to play hard. So, he took a PE class every semester and he played Ultimate Frisbee every Sunday night.

And that late bloomer now? He is a 20 something year old, sought-after, software engineer, who is leading worship at his church, and  loving his little family.

With time, patience, and lots of learning activities, your child can be "caught up".  If your child is read to, and you have a math book, you can likely catch your student up when they are ready and they can exceed their grade level. Mine just wasn't ready at the ages of 5, 6, 7, or 8!

Teaching Literature to High School Boys

 You'd think that since I've been homeschooling for 21 years, I'd be an expert at most things.  You'd think that having taught four high school boys Literature for a total of 11 years, with 4 years more to go, that I'd have it down.  You'd think.

British Lit has been one of those hair-pulling experiences for my boys.  Of course, my daughter loved it.  She reads faster than I do, and by fourth grade I couldn't pre-read her anymore!  (Pre-read:  the act of reading a book so that you could determine whether or not the content was worthy of sticking into her brain!)  By the time we got to Brit Lit, she was raring to go and I couldn't assign her enough books to keep her happy.

I do remember one agonizing time of reading Wuthering Heights and I was trying to get my son to love it as much as I did. I was at a loss, as he complained, and rightly so, that there were too many characters with the same name.  My daughter and I ended up drawing a map of the two houses, and putting the appropriate characters in the right house.

Number 2 son, just wanted to read.  If there were murders and war, he'd happily soak it in.

So, now I'm on sons 3 and 4.  One of them loves to read, but doesn't want to write about it.  The other one only wants to read sports stories.  So, how do I tackle Brit Lit?

Thanks to son number 1, Wuthering Heights is off of the list!  It was determined that if it was a female author, they would watch the movie, but they didn't want to read it.  We enjoyed Jane Eyre via Netflix last week.

I had asked last Spring if anyone wanted to join in, as I lesson planned for 5 Brit Lit novels.  I figured I'd have to do the gory novels, the war-fraught novels, and novels with murder and intrigue.  No one bit last Spring, so this summer I picked my 5 books:  Henry VIII, Pilgrim's Progress, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and some Dickens' novel.  A friend emailed in July and said she might be interested, and that they were going to read Romeo and Juliet.  OK, I can switch out Henry VIII with Romeo and Juliet.  And I began lesson planning for Pilgrim's Progress and Frankenstein.  I really wish there were stand alone Teacher's Manuals, but alas, that wasn't to be, so I started reading and plotting and planning.

Fortunately, there was just enough killing in Romeo and Juliet to capture the imagination of the guys.  They read it without complaining.  We talked about world views, morals of the story, history of the story and all of the literary components in between.  They were ready for the book club meeting.  They really did get a lot more out of it than I thought!

For Pilgrim's Progress, they are drawing a map of Christian's journey through the land.  I'll post pictures when they are done.

When the youngest was in fourth grade, my friend Amber Healy introduced me to a "lap book".  I had heard of them, but had never done one with my kids.  It was really a fun way to walk through California History.  And it was very elaborate.  Every year since then, I have looked for "lap books" for certain topics.  I wished there were kits that you could buy everything already cut out.  I wished there could be lap book ideas for the topics I was teaching.  I wished there could be lap books for high school level.  I wished.  I wished.  And I wished.  So, finally, as I've been struggling to find innovative ideas to teach my kinesthetic learner Brit Lit, I decided last year that I'd create my own lap books.  The one below is for Frankenstein.  And I'm going to publish it on the web, so that if anyone else wants to do a lap book on Frankenstein (am I truly the only one with a kinesthetic high schooler?), they will have access to my ideas.  And I'm certain that anyone can improve upon them, because my ideas are very simple.

Here is my instruction sheet:

Instructions for Mary Shelley’s

Frankenstein

Hands-on book

Put the title of the book, backed with scrapbook paper, on the top front of the folder, with the folder lying sideways.

Attach the Tree, the Cottage, and the School House to the front of the folder. On the tree, attach green leaves, with the names of the Frankenstein Family members.  On the Cottage, pink, write the names of the occupants of the cottage, plus their visitors.  On the School House, red, write the names of Victor’s professors.

  Open up the folder and attach the timeline to the right side bottom.  After you’ve read a few chapters, start jotting down on the timeline when certain events happened.

In the open folder, attach the gray frame to the left side top.  Trim the frame to fit inside the folder.  Cut out pictures from magazines, or from images from the internet, and organize Victor’s workshop.  OR be totally creative, and draw your own vision of Victor’s workshop.

   Using clear packing tape or duct tape, create a book using the composition notebook (representing a journal), stationery (representing the letters), and the notebook paper, with one sentence on each page summarizing the chapter.  After it is completed, attach the “binding” of the book to the open folder, above the timeline.

 On the back of the folder, attach the picture of Mary Shelley to a piece of scrapbook paper.  Type on a piece of paper that will fit on the scrapbook paper, 3 interesting items about Mary Shelley.  Attach the whole thing to the back of the folder.  You may need to use clear packing tape.

Attach the World View questions to the inside of the folder, right below your rendition of Victor’s workshop.  You may attach them to a piece of scrapbook paper.

World View

1.     What modern day activities could equate with Victor’s workshop?

2.   How does advanced technology help or hurt us today?

3.   How did technology invade nature in the story?  How does technology invade nature now?

4.   What is Mary Shelley’s commentary on the poor?

5.   What is Mary Shelley’s commentary on Natural Law?

6.   What is Mary Shelley’s view of religious freedom as mentioned in Chapter 14 in regards to Safie?

Type the themes that you found, and attach them to the back of the folder, right below Mary Shelley’s picture and facts.  You may back them with scrapbook paper.

  Fold up the 3 pieces of scrapbook paper.  Two of them are 5”x4” (fold to make them 2.5”) and one is 12” x 2” (fold to make it 6”).  Attach the 3 pieces of scrapbook paper along the side of the notebook/journal and in between the time line and the notebook/journal.  Attach the name of the characters you wish to analyze.  You have four to choose from.  On the inside of each character write either one each of the physical, emotional, and psychological traits.  OR, write 3 traits of one of those subjects. 

We have 3 students that will be joining us in two months, after they have read Frankenstein.  So, each of the five will create their own lap book prior to our meeting.  I instructed them to create their folder with whatever theme they wanted.  Gothic?  Romantic?  Or just create the book by meeting the bare elements of the assignment.  We'll see what they do and I'll post pictures of each of their creations.

UPDATE:  I am posting their creations!  This worked out great for everyone!

The boys did a far more simple job.  They met the basic requirements.  Still it was a lot of fun.

 The gal with the yellow folder added an additional pocket for the diary entries.  She even burned the edges of the paper to give it an aged look.  She also took pictures off of the internet of the characters for her timeline and her character analyses.

Next, we have the second red folder.  This gal chose to use her imagination and drew her rendition of Victor's workshop.  She had everything neatly labeled.



The themes that stuck out to her were:  Secrecy, Knowledge and Revenge.





The next red folder was done by a very creative gal:

She had very neat and artistic letterings, notes and paper backings!  Her themes included:  Seeking knowledge can lead to ruin; and Loneliness can have devastating effects on human lives.

When we all met together to discuss the book Frankenstein, I made some special snacks.

Our Veggies

Our sweets

Our salty (Chips and guacamole)

Our Fruit

The kids humored me by trying everything!

Here is my lesson plan:

Frankenstein Lesson Plan

7:00 - Open in prayer

7:05 - share lap books

7:15 - Read a louds:

Chapter 5 - 2nd paragraph - Victor proud of himself
Chapter 15 - 12th paragraph - half way down to start “...Their happiness was not decreased...” - Monster - to Victor Frankenstein
Chapter 20 - 10th paragraph - The Monster to Victor Frankenstein
Chapter 24 - 14th paragraph - Victor’s resolve toward The MonsterChapter 24 - second to the last paragraph - The Monster to Mr. Wallton

7:30 - The plot - 3 separate plot lines:  Robert Walton, Victor Frankenstein, The Monster.  Give a brief synopsis of each plot.

7:45 - Answer the following questions:

Are the characters of Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein similar or dissimilar?
Discuss what is meant by the Romantic patterns found in the novel?
Describe the personality of Victor Frankenstein and the monster he creates
How does the monster learn about the world in which he lives?
Is the ending inevitable?  Do the monster and Victor have to be destroyed in order for there to be order restored among men?
The genre - How is Frankenstein both a Romantic novel and a Gothic horror novel?
Discuss the role that nature plays in this novel.
What is the significance of Milton’s Paradise Lost, Plutarch’s Lives, and The Sorrows of Werter?

8:00 - go over world view questions

8:15 - Discuss themes - technology, treatment of the poor

8:30 - Character Analysis
Victor Frankenstein - family, education, job - did things to excess
The Monster - Physical appearance, adopted family, personality
Elizabeth Lavenza - family, personality
Justine Moritz - family, why she was a martyr, how she fits in Mary Shelley’s world view