Running Totals

I'm keeping this just to have one central place I'm tracking all my expenses. I list links and/or vendors and prices for the stuff I get in the posts that mention them. This is just a summary and I'll be editing this post each time I add new stuff.

Summary:
__26.00 How-To/Encouragement
_115.00 Mathematics
_181.00 Social Studies (2-year curriculum)
__48.00 Study Skills
__45.00 Science
__52.00 Arts & Crafts
__17.00 Music
_______ Health and Safety
__37.00 Personal Skills
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$521.00 RUNNING TOTAL (not counting $975 for 1yr karate)


How-to/Encouragement
_11.53 } . . . First Year of Homeschooling...
_13.60 } . . . Teenage Liberation...
__8.00 } . . . ~shipping/handling (used items)
-------
~26.00 for Initial How-To and Encouragement

Mathematics
_63.00 } . . . Grade 7 Complete Set, Singapore Math...
_10.20 } . . . Math Doesn't Suck: How to...
_10.39 } . . . Mixed Skills in Math Grade 7-8...
__2.99 } . . . Word Problems Grade 7-8...
__2.99 } . . . Math Step by Step Grade 6...
__2.99 } . . . Math Step by Step Grade 8...
_22.00 } . . . ~shipping/handling (Singapore + Used items)
-------
~115.00 for Math

Social Studies (History & Geography)
110.00 } . . . A History of US: 11 Volume Set...
___.99 } . . . YR Companion to American History...
__4.71 } . . . A History of US: Book 1 Teacher's Guide
_18.95 } . . . A History of US: Book 2 Teacher's Guide
_18.95 } . . . A History of US: Book 3 Teacher's Guide
__9.10 } . . . The World and Its People: Eastern Hemisphere...
__5.12 } . . . TW&IP: Activity Workbook...
_11.99 } . . . Discovering...Geography Grades 7-8...
__1.22 } . . . World Amanac for Kids: WGH Grades 6-7...
_16.00 } . . . ~shipping/handling (used items)
-------
~181.00 for Social Studies

Study Skills
__6.99 } . . . Note Taking & Outlining, Grades 6-8
__5.45 } . . . Learning to Use the Library (and Dewey Decimal System)
_16.95 } . . . Write Now: The Complete Program for Better Handwriting
_11.04 } . . . The 100+ Series Proofreading & Editing, Grade 7
__8.00 } . . . ~shipping/handling (used items)
-------
~48.00 for Study Skills

Science
__4.98 } . . . Science by the Grade, Grade 7: Essentials and Exploration (workbook)
__9.95 } . . . Spectrum Science, Grade 7 (workbook)
_16.95 } . . . Experiments You Can Do in Your Kitchen (book)
__4.95 } . . . (DVD) 30 Years of National Geographic Specials
__8.00 } . . . ~shipping/handling (used items)
...............Planning a lot of video/audio/online additions for this topic
-------
~45.00 for Science

Arts and Crafts
__8.50 } . . . Kid's Book of Creative Lettering
__8.50 } . . . LMNOP More Creative Lettering
__8.50 } . . . 123's of Creative Doodling
_13.57 } . . . Doodling for Papercrafters
_13.57 } . . . Hair: A Book of Braiding and Styles
...............Planning a bunch of online "tutorials" with Photoshop & Bryce for this as well
...............Planning a lot of video/audio/online additions for this topic (classical art edu)
-------
~52.00 for Arts & Crafts

Music
__8.31 } . . . The Ultimate Recorder Collection (Audio CD - from classical to modern)
__7.95 } . . . Recorder Fun! Teach Yourself the Easy Way!
...............I will have her join me to listen to my classical collection, mostly baroque, some chorale
...............Violin: -- we will be getting her a rental violin and violin lessons
...............Planning a lot of video/audio/online additions for this topic (classical music edu)
-------
~17.00 for Music

Health and Safety
~975.00 } . . . Martial arts: Gojo Ryu Karate (1hr/wk + belts/meets), $69/mo, + ~150 misc, next 12 months
...............Considering getting the intro pilates for her
...............Planning, hopefully, mostly online or local resources for this subject
-------
~975.00 for Health and Safety

Personal Skills (Home Ec & More)
__1.03 } . . . Roasting-A Simple Art
_16.29 } . . . Sew Fast Sew Easy: All You Need to Know When You Start to Sew
_15.61 } . . . Miss Vickie's Big Book of Pressure Cooker Recipes
__4.00 } . . . ~shipping/handling
-------
~37.00 for Personal Skills

The First (Real) Week's Assignments

I thought I would give a copy of this week's assignment schedule. We did some work last week already. Intro reading in several books, initial easy assignments in a few, etc. That was an 'intro' week... this is the real thing. :-)

It's important to know this doesn't represent our whole curriculum. There are things we are doing later in the semester or next semester, and there are things I don't have the curriculum for yet (particularly english, but also a variety of other add-in workbooks to various topics). Plus most the audio, video, field trip, experiential stuff is one-off things, so they just appear in a given week and aren't constant so aren't seen here.

Some special notes:

For arts: We're starting simple on this with 'fun kid stuff' because she does 3D graphic design (!) and I feel like she missed a chunk of childhood, somewhere between nearly stick-men with severely oversized heads, and half-naked faeries graphically modified in World-of-Warcraft style...! I'll get to other things later in the year.

For music: She wants violin but I can't afford it right now, so we're doing voice and recorder now and hopefully drums eventually, and then hopefully for next semester I can work out violin lessons and rental.

For foreign: Still looking for a decent book on greek/latin roots of english. She insists on learning Japanese (been a japanophile since she was 5) and her sensei speaks it, so... we got her stuff for Japanese. Which means I need to learn it too or how can I help her and talk to her? Aurgh! She couldn't have wanted something EASY like spanish, right??

For home-ec: Waiting on a paycheck so I can buy some stuff to start her with in a variety of forms of cooking. We have sewing stuff already.

For study skills: She has a heavy load in that until end of the semester and then she is done and IMO doesn't need to do much of that again till much older. We're getting it out of the way up front.

This week school starts, officially at 8/11/08 Monday. Ry has this week to get all the following done, at her own schedule:

Week of 8/11 - 8/15/08

Curriculum Materials for this week:

MATH:
Word Problems Homework Booklet Grade 7-8
Singapore New Elementary Mathematics (text exercises)
Mathematics, A Step-By-Step Approach Grade 8 (workbook)
The 100+ Series Mixed Skills in Math, Grades 7-8 (workbook)

SOCIAL STUDIES:
A History of US: The First Americans

SCIENCE:
Spectrum Science, Grade 7

ENGLISH:
Unjournaling: Daily Writing Exercises

HEALTH:
Weekly Karate and practice
Pilates DVDs
Documentary collection

FOREIGN:
Japanese for Dummies (book+CD)
Japanese (Tell Me More software)
Japanese (Rosetta Stone software)

STUDY SKILLS:
Learning to Use the Library (DDS)
Write Now: Print/Cursive Italic Penmanship
Proofreading & Editing, Grade 7

HOME EC:
Sew Fast Sew Easy
Hair: A Book of Braiding

ARTS:
Kid's Book of Creative Lettering
123's of Creative Doodling
Doodling for Papercrafters

MUSIC:
Voice Lessons on CD
Recorder and Intro Book
Classical Recorder Music CD


Assignments for this week:

MATH:
NEM: Chapters 1&2 to be fully done by 9/5
Word Probs: p.5-8, 2 problems per page
StepByStep: p.6-10, 2 problems per page
Mixed Skills: p.6,11,20, 1 problem per section (3 sections per page)

SOCIAL STUDIES:
TFA: Read p.1-51

SCIENCE:
Spectrum: #1.1 - 1.2

ENGLISH:
Unjournaling: 1 exercise from #11-20

HEALTH:
Gojo Ryu Karate (Tuesday nights)
Black Tar Heroin: HBO Documentary

FOREIGN:
Install JfD CD software
Install TMM CD software
Install RS software

STUDY SKILLS:
WriteNow: 2cc ea p.14-19
Proofing: p.5-6
Library: p.2 + Case Study

HOME EC:
Hair: basic braid & french twist
Sew: Read&Measure p.6-10
Kitchen: Using bar blender & magic-bullet
Kitchen leftover from last week: SliceDiceShredZestPeel
Cooking: probably not this week, waiting on $, makeup next week

ARTS:
Lettering: p.6 tricks, style, embellish
Doodling: p.7-8
Papercrafters: p.11,19,25

MUSIC:
Voice: practice with CD
Recorder: #s 1-4
Audio: Classical Recorder


That's it for this week. The NEM math is actually a lot of work, so I assigned 2 chapters in 5 weeks as doing that consistently would get us to the end of it by the end of the school year. It is fairly complex and has a ton of work in the textbook, then in a homework-like book. History she has to read 50-80 pages a week to get through that series this year. (Fortunately she reads rapidly!) And some of the 'little stuff' like study skills and art actually take significant time to just "do". So she has a good week of work there.

When we get the other science book, the geography book, and the English curriculum in, there will be a little more.

PJ

Prep and Planning: Intro week 8/1, School 8/11

One of the primary issues I face as a homeschooling mom is that I work during the time my kid is in school.

I can stop to help her briefly with something... and there's several things we do in the evening when I'm off... but for the most part, she has to work through it on her own. This isn't so easy even for an older kid, let alone one who is turning 12 in two days.

It means that on one hand, I need to be sure she is doing the work I feel is required for academic learning (which I personally consider important), yet I am not babysitting her with it, nor am I supervising more than "from the other room which is my home office".

As a result, my idea (eventually, because I thought long and hard about this) has been to mix pre-assigned work with casual, flexible scheduling. Like so:

Make up assignments for the whole week, rather than by day. She has the whole week to do them. Once something is finished it is crossed off and there is that much more free time she'll have. If she worked long and hard each day and finished all the week's work by Wednesday at 10am, then she'd be "off" until the next Monday. But if Friday arrived and she had a bunch of work unfinished, she'd be working nights and weekend to get it done.

This way if she has to stop on something because she needs my help later, it's really no big deal. That way if she "feels like" doing art but not math at any given moment, that's fine. That way she has a lot of control over her own schedule. She is responsible for getting it all done by the end of the week and asking for help where she is stuck and the textbooks and workbooks aren't clear. But I'm letting her flex.

So if she wants to work from 10-2 on Monday and then play World of Warcraft for the rest of the day, as long as she gets all the assigned work done--and well--by the end of the week, I really don't care. Should she end up not getting stuff done then I'd start caring, but we're beginning with some trust, and me looking over her list of assignments done/remaining every couple days.

I'm a project manager by trade at the moment and the job is somewhat similar. Deadlines are as absolute as possible; sometimes you only work a little and sometimes you work every waking hour, because the job is to get done what needs doing by the time it is due. Your butt in a chair 9-5 is not the point. Until the last few years, I've always worked in entrepreneurial start-up companies where you have too few people, too much work, wear a dozen 'hats' in terms of duties, and do what needs doing just because it needs doing. I'm a big fan of competence-based anything.

Over at Western Governor's University, sponsored by industry leaders and many Governors, it's an online college with the same philosophy. You have to learn the material and prove you know it. But how long it takes you is up to you. You can do it faster and get done sooner and it's cheaper that way. You can adjust your schedule as needed (within reason). You are expected to put at least 15 hours a week into it (the main reason I am not doing it... I haven't got that), but how you arrange everything is up to you. They don't care about your hours, or your butt in a chair for four years, or whatever. They care that you know the material.

That's what education should be about. Some people (like me) can read a book at light speed and understand something very well and be fluent at using that knowledge. Other people can do rote work for three years to 'get it'. It takes what it takes. The point is supposed to be education, not wasting all your time for 12 of the most formative years of your life. I think the whole Carnegie system of measuring schooling by hours rather than education is one of the fundamental flaws in American schooling.

Here's what I did to prepare the lessons:

1. In a simple spreadsheet (OpenOffice is free & for all platforms) I made a tab for a study topic.

2. I made some 'sections' in the left column for different kinds of curriculum materials.

3. I made a column for weekly dates, with holiday notes, and on each row, put the dates for that week.

That's a 'template', and I save that for use on all the topics. Here's a screenshot of the simple template:



4. I made a tab for every topic and copied the template (click corner edge between '1' and 'A' to copy whole sheet) into every topic page.

5. Right-click on the tabs at bottom and rename each to the topics.



6. Then I put in the curriculum we have (so far) for each subject, on the left column. If I was planning something but didn't have it yet, I just wrote: planning: before it... so I won't forget. :-)

7. To the right, I made a column for each curriculum-item we had, such as each different book, and then a column for 'other' (like audio, video, field trips, hands-on, etc.).

Then I went through each book (or curriculum source) in detail. I considered how much seemed reasonable to get through per-week given all the other subjects. I considered how much of the book I felt we should get done by the end of the school year. I considered how much of each page/exercise/etc. really "needed" to be done in my opinion to demonstrate that she knew the material. I considered how it might mesh (or not) with what else was going on that week in that subject. If there was more than one major book she was working on, and some week had a big test or what seemed like a lot of work, I made that week easier for the other books. That sort of thing.

8. Then on each weekly row, on the column for that book, I typed in an assignment. I did this for each major curriculum item we had.

9. Then at right, in the column for 'other' stuff, I wrote in those too. As I get more of these (Bittorrent piratebay.org is my friend!) I'll write them in.

Everything is subject to change if convenient or needed. I'm not trying to set this stone -- I'm just trying to make a very clear outline that we can follow for convenience.

At the end of the year, adding in stuff we do on the fly as time goes on, I'll have a complete list of our days in school, our detailed curriculum, her assignments and projects, etc.

Here's a couple example subject pages:





Do you want a copy of this template? You can right-click, save-link-as to your hard drive.
Template for MS Excel here. Template for Open Office here.

Each Monday morning she comes in and I pull up the spreadsheet and write down the weekly assignments for each topic. As she goes along, she crosses out what she has finished. She shows it to me if she wants, or saves it to show me at night or end of the week. When everything's crossed out, she's "free". ;-)

We found these two nifty white-board-like things at Walmart. They are squares, one is pink and one blue (neat-o). They have two strong 'magnets' so you can attach a note or paper if you need to, is that groovy or what.

Here's a terrible web-cam pic of the assignment board, unreadable here alas. Basically I have each topic at left and then the various assignment(s) down the board. A small column at right lists daily chores and any weekly projects.