"Cheating" in order to learn

God's Holy Commandments

There is a type of cheating that breaks God's law; it is stealing, lying, and coveting. This is done when we look at someone else's answers during a test, or reproduce someone else's work and hand it in as if it were our own, or when we plagiarize a writing assignment.

But there is another kind of "cheating" that isn't cheating at all; it's just an alternative way to learn, or to beat the "system."

For instance, I have often been stuck without a clue while working on a math problem, and peeking at the answers at the back of the book helped put me on the right track. This is not only allowable, this is expected, which is why textbook publishers have the even (or odd) answers included in the back. Most teachers expect students to show their work anyway, so it is really impossible to do anything unethical.

Working on a math problem

Since we enjoy using the Ray's Arithmetics on the discs from Dollar Homeschool, I've printed out the answers into helpful booklets and handed them out to my children--then they are free to look lessons up in order to to see if they understand what is being asked of them, or precisely how a problem should be solved, just as long as they know that they must show all of their own work.

There is another way to "cheat" that is often very beneficial; this is when one is supposed to read through a chapter of information and afterwards answer a series of questions in order to confirm comprehension of the material. The content of the reading assignment is usually the most important in the chapter, and the type that would most certainly be on a test. Now, if a person is extremely interested in the course of study, then he or she would probably want to read the chapter very carefully, and even follow up with a bit of additional research, but, unfortunately, most texts theses days are pretty dry, and the information they contain may be either irrelevant, slanted, or obvious propaganda. In such cases as these, a person just wants to grab the most pertinent data without clouding his or her mind with a lot of nonsense.

This is when the index becomes a student's best friend! By taking a key-word from the question and using it to look up the specific page, often the specific paragraph, in which it is contained, an accurate answer can be formulated. This is a great time-saver, and, especially when the class is required but is also full of a lot of hogwash, this saves brain-space for more important things!

Discovering the proper solution to a problem

Now, I have never used the "regurgitation" method of learning in my homeschool (reading a section and then answering several "canned" questions, or some fill-in-the-blanks, etc.) for about 20 years. In certain ways, this may leave my precious children more vulnerable, since they have never undertaken a subject that, for them, was not either vital or interesting to them, and so they have a tendency to take everything put before them very seriously. But they will need to learn specifically how to use this strategy whenever they are forced to take one of these courses, so I teach them how to perform well while hardly being influenced.

Regurgitation, as I call it, is one of the worst ways to really learn anything. It actually does very little for real retention at all, and is more about memorizing mere facts than in communicating important ideas that a student can then internalize so as to make a lasting impression on his or her reservoir of true and beneficial knowledge.

For instance, I might be able to rattle off the exact dates of the beginning of the Revolutionary War and some of the names of the major persons involved, but I might miss the actual reasons for the war, or the larger implications for mankind, or how the attitudes and ideals of the Founding Fathers could or should affect me in my thinking today. And even if I was made to memorize a statement or two concerning the reasons and effects, it would make very little difference if I was not able to think them through for myself and connect them with other lessons of history or the way I look at my life.

Besides, there are so many angles from which to view any event in history. There are often many different ways to answer even the most basic question of why something happened. Was the Civil War fought exclusively over the issue of slavery?--not hardly! 

A few of our own notebooking pages

Students need to have the opportunity to interpret and analyze the facts in their own way, from their own perspective. This is why the Charlotte Mason method of narration is so much superior to that of simply getting the answers to some "canned" questions. Of course, there are quite a number of different styles of "narration" for any lesson, chapter, book or subject. With my creative and resourceful children, we like not only to write, but to illustrate, act-out, or in some manner display what we are learning. Notebooking is one of the terrific vehicles for this, but there are many others.

What are some of the alternatives that you have found?

Things we're about

A basket of hard-bound school books

I don't know what's happened, but I actually have a few minutes to plan each week. It must be this season of my life or something! I know that it has to do with finally landing on a system that works for us. The last few weekends I've spent a few hours sitting at the table on the deck with my planning pages on one side and a stack of readers and other books on the other. What bliss!

This last week was good, with a few hitches. We spent most of Thursday at the dentist. How many dentists do you know that will risk blocking out a whole morning for eight children? Mine is a dear, sweet peach! Only four cavities out of the bunch--that's a lot to praise God about!

Old books I have printed and bound myself

Other than that, the week was full of learning. The McGuffey readers gave us all food for thought.

As for math (we use Ray's Arithmetics), I found out that one child is about to go into cancelling but is really, really rusty on multiplication--or maybe it was just a fuzzy day. Oh well, we are again reviewing until the basics are mastered...

Another child that has always had trouble mastering math has decided to learn it by teaching it--I can't think of a better way!

A library book sorter--I think it was originally a
business file-sorter, but it's perfect to keep library
 books both accessible and neat at the same time. 

I've so enjoyed taking my little girls through D'Aulaire's history books. We've read about George Washington, Leif the Lucky, Abraham Lincoln, Christopher Columbus, and Benjamin Franklin. These books are old favorites in homeschooling circles, and with good reason. They're well written and engaging, even for the smallest children, with pictures that are colorful and just busy enough for inquisitive little minds. Best of all, God and faith are not excused from the narrative, but are an integral part. I tried lapbooking afterwards, but the ones we did were a bit too schoolish, so we abandoned them for some good old-fashioned notebooking, so the girls could enjoy creating for themselves. I also had the girls take turns narrating as I went along. The younger ones are still getting the hang of it, but Olivia, now ten, does very well and is a good example to the others. At first I was having her do her notebooking lessons alone with the older children, but she was so lonely. I finally realized that she needed to be with us, and with me, so I included her in our daily readings. She has blossomed and smiles more now. She is so sweet, and I'm so glad that I've included her. Of course, Patience, three, doesn't always sit still the whole time. I allow her to wander off and play close by. She comes back periodically just to look at the pictures, and then she loves to color when we go to the table.

This is Patience' "school box"

I have created some very special "boxes" for the two tiny girls to keep their colors, some scraps of paper, a pencil, some chalk, and a small clipboard in. They're the size of a lunch box and are plastic. These have solved a whole host of problems for me. For one thing, it keeps the mess of coloring and drawing in one very manageable place. For another thing, I don't have to drop everything to try and help them hunt up their colors and paper! Besides, they feel very special, as all little girls should! I suppose there must be thousands of used lunchboxes at thrift stores and the like that would be perfect for such an application.

Ryan has been engrossed in the creation of an "art nouveau"-style dollhouse for their woodzeez. I really must share some pictures of it when he is done. He is so creative and gifted and is painstakingly going over every detail. He has already created stained-glass windows and a grandfather clock with shelves underneath, among other things.

Sarah and I are working on creating leg-warmers to wear under dresses this winter (she is giving me a refresher on knitting). Eliana is still working on her novel about an imaginary land, complete with a map and a character list. She wants Ryan and Nicole to illustrate it for her. Sometimes Ellie works with Ryan on his dollhouse project as well. Joshua nurses our poor water-thirsty yard, always trimming and coaxing green things out of the ground despite the drought. Many of the girls have pen pals, and they love to spend time creating letters and pictures they want to send. With postage being the way it is, we tried tonight to scan a hand-written letter in and send it as an image. Way cheaper than snail-mail, but more personal than email.

As for notebooking, there have been pages and booklets about carnivorous plants, medieval dress, coral reefs, Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, Art Nouveau, Christopher Columbus, Benjamin Franklin and Colin Powell.

The reading lists have included Howard Pyle's The Story of King Arthur, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Jester, Freckles, by Gene Stratton Porter,The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Speare, and The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson.

I hope to get started back into reading novels aloud to the children, I was taking time in the morning just as they woke up this past summer, I just need to find a good time for everyone.

(for more about our curriculum and schedule, see this post on my other blog, Large Family Mothering)

That's it for here, what's up at your house?

Art study and timelines

A reader asked me some good questions, and I thought my answers would benefit others.

Q. I've been reading lots of your stuff and really enjoying it! What book do you recommend for using for showing classic works of art? I'd love to have a big one that I can rotate through that shows various artists, genres, etc.

Also, any recommendations for a timeline? As we read various books either written in other time periods or about other time periods, I'd love to be able to place that on a timeline for my kids. Google overwhelmed me.....

A. Because we are a very artistic family, we have numerous books filled with classic art all over our home--all collected at various discount bookstores, garage sales, thrift stores and the like. I am not sure I could recommend one specific book--I even did a little research in this line and did not come up with one single volume that would cover just about everything! Amazon has a number of books by Usborne that reportedly contain vivid reproductions of famous artists. Here is a Squidoo page that contains numerous references.

Harmony Art Mom has a number of resources available, many for free.

As for the timeline...it just depends on you and your situation. I have seen them done all sorts of ways. I've begun many, never completed them, though. Some families swear by them and it is an integral part of what they do daily, which sounds like fun. My kids have an uncanny way of keeping everything straight in their own minds--they seem to hang things on special events in history that they find significant, and then reference everything around them--I often find them thinking out loud and putting things in place, "So that was after the Revolutionary War, but before the War of 1812," which is what most of us do, I believe. I tried feeling guilty that I did not keep up with a timeline, but then I realized that I was always the one doing the work, and the children have to think more when they don't have a timeline on the wall, so I have decided to just relax!

Having said all this, Homeschool Bits offers a number of timeline resources that are either free, or nearly free, on Currclick that might keep a mother from searching all over for images, etc.

Creating a course of study--"Art and Anatomy"

Patience pondering

Folks are always asking me--"If I am only concentrating on the basics, then how will I ever cover all of the other subjects, such as history and science?"

There are a number of ways to cover such things, none of which need curriculum (especially in the younger years), or even a "scope and sequence", and most of which can be done by a child independently through the reading of good books.

Just think about any topic of study; while modern textbooks can give a person a good overview, they can also kill a person's natural inquisitiveness, since only the facts the writers and publishers deem necessary are published, and are presented in an often dry, matter-of-fact way that makes anything seem dull.

Learning with real books is a totally different approach. Charlotte Mason was very much in favor of such a method, and this is the most natural way to explore the universe of knowledge and understanding. Modern homeschoolers such as Dr. Robinson (of the Robinson Curriculum), and Marilyn Howshall are also in great favor of such an approach.

Just reading aloud a good book over lunchtime, such as a historical biography, or even a nature book such as The Handbook of Nature Study, and discussing it, with a dictionary and encyclopedia (or the Internet) at hand is one of the most natural ways of covering many of the things that will spark the interest and light the fires of a child's imagination.

While waiting for the repairman the other day, I made good use of the time and read to my tiny girls from The Story Book of Knowledge, to be found in the Dollar Homeschool discs. We were covering the grandfather's explanation about clouds and snow. In discussing what we had read, I went over the point about snow being a natural insulator against the cold, which caused us to think of Igloos. We immediately went over to the computer and looked for videos on Igloo building, and found quite a few. We were all fascinated by the traditional way these snow huts were created, and it was such a profitable time for us all!

My eldest daughter (at home) is naturally inclined to take a subject and study until she has almost exhausted it. She has a drawer in her room that is full of notebooks, sketchbooks, and other collections of her notes, outlines, drawings, etc. in her various areas of interest. It hasn't been necessary for me to assign or keep track of what she was learning, other than to look over her findings and listen to her when she described her discoveries. She has known intuitively how to gather the best books, and we all know where to look if one of our favorite tomes is missing!

But there are times and circumstances that create for us the need to have a plan in place. One such instance may be when one is under the oversight of government officials who require something written in the form of a "plan", or when we have a child that, despite all the best intentions, is just a little bit too addled and needs to learn to be more studious.

This is why I have developed the idea of creating a "course of study". It is akin to a unit study, but does not rely on extensive pre-work by the parent/teacher. It uses notebooking techniques, but is not dependent on loads of research from all sorts of sources that would be beyond most early readers. It uses real books, but gives just a bit more structure and delves a bit deeper into a subject.

A course of study is basically using the contents page of a real book on any worthy subject adding in other books related to the subject, and then assigning notebooking projects after intervals of reading. All of this is listed on a sheet, with space for assigned times for completion (we don't assign grades for completed work around here--if someone's work is sub-par, they do the whole thing over, besides, why would someone do something that was not their best, anyway--isn't learning have enough merit of its own without attaching any carrot on the end of the stick?). 

It is very important to pick subjects that are interesting to each prospective child. I am not convinced that my artistically gifted son needs to do research on truck engines, nor do I believe my other history-buff son needs to study oil painting techniques. I am not going to try and cover every subject ever conceived during their time with me. Instead, I am going to train them in ways to study the subjects that will be of real worth to them throughout their lives, so that they will be able to teach themselves what they need to know as the need arises. We already spend a great amount of time touching on general and pertinent knowledge during our family discussions, which can last for hours at a time!

For an instance, my very gifted and talented son would do well to further study human anatomy for his artwork. I thought it would also be a good idea for him to have a greater understanding of how his body works, and how to better take care of himself.

I have chosen to use the book, Guide to Health from the Dollar Homeschool science collection for the main framework of his study. I am also including the book, Cyclopedia Anatomicae, which gives instruction in the art of sketching human and animal forms,  and the Dorling Kindersley book, The Visual Dictionary of Human Anatomy (please note; I did not go out and purchase these books just for this study. We have owned most of these books for a long time--and bought them from various sources, including from thrift stores and garage sales. What we often term as "coffee table books" are wonderful resources for these types of studies). 

For each chapter in the main book, I have made assignments; some in the form of keeping sketches, and also writing assignments and copy work. I have put my plan in a form that is color-coded, so that he knows what is expected with each chapter. Here is what it looks like:

 

This is only the first page, of course

I have left myself room to embellish the assignments, since I plan on using the writing assignments to teach things such as outlining, essay writing, etc. We are using notebooking pages in various forms as the need arises. Of course, if we find any other resources that are interesting to us, we also add those as we go along.  He is keeping his finished work in a three-ring binder.

This system could also be implemented by filling in only the main chapter headings, and filling in the other reading/studying materials as the child progresses. This is great for keeping track of high school credits for a transcript, etc.

I have also created courses of study in other areas, with more well-defined notebooking pages for the younger ones, which I plan on sharing in the future, perhaps with a PDF download of our study based on the McGuffey book, "Familiar Animals".

Pictures of new books, notebooking pages, and fun ABC craft {Brag Thursday}

Here are some things I would like to brag about:

Here are some novels I printed and bound from the Internet. The first is from Google Books, the other two are from Gutenburg, after I reformatted them to fit better for space, etc. I tried a little different technique with the covers, printing them out on card stock, then using duct tape as a stabilizer after I used the hot glue gun on the spines to hold the groups of pages together--see my tutorial for more information.

Two McGuffey readers I printed and bound from the Dollar Homeschool reading collection--I am trying some colored file folders this time--so much fun to create these books that will last! I also cut the folders a little bit bigger so I could round the corners (I have a notebooking tool for this).

The other day Faith had the idea of cutting out all of the letters of the alphabet and placing them along the table--I was all for it! She got all the way to "w" before lunchtime!

This is Lorilee's work--she is a few years behind Faith, but just as eager--I loved watching her letters unfold. 

 

Here is a notebooking page I assigned to my dear Olivia. She is doing a study on animals based on the McGuffey book, "Familiar Animals" found in the Dollar Homeschool McGuffey Readers collection. I am so impressed with her creativity and thoroughness (She has since filled in all of the captions below the pictures she drew). 

Have anything you're proud of? Want to share something that will lend sanity to someone else? Put a link below:

<center><a href="http://mcguffeysworld.blogspot.com/search/label/Homeschool%20Sanity%20Brag%20Thursday"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaze5iX3MjLta-qXoj1zhsCyiNsbqqmVxrWL1Lcq3uHMd6BGV02VxpaHtkENR6l8gdOvmxVSqK3EKYsTJI6ZWlbTn1wIHJ0He0Re6yMvAwtHSN6kJLZ14EbCQO7uX8WP7SZP2Gpcm08ow/s1600/img122u.jpg"/></a></center>

Titanic notebooking pages--Homeschool Sanity Brag Thursday Link-Up

Did you know that this year is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic?

Did you also know there are much better movies about the sinking than the most modern one, which is flaky, to say the least! Our favorite is Titanic--which stars Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck, and Robert Wagner. The end of the film is the best--with sacrificial love and the turning of all hearts to the Lord as the ship was sinking through the singing of hymns.

We found two really nifty books at the thrift store and gave them to the children for Christmas; Titanic: The Ship of Dreams, and The Titanic: The Extraordinary Story of the "Unsinkable" Ship. Sarah (13) was so interested that she decided that she and her sister, Olivia (10), should do a notebooking project on the subject. Here is the result:

Sarah cut each piece from regular construction paper, and then she and her brother, Ryan, embellished the pieces with acrylic paints.

One of Sarah's pages--the photo is of the captain of the ship.

One of Olivia's pages.

Have you been having a lot of fun with some good, old books, or have a notebooking page to share?  Just fill out the form below and let us share in your joy!

*Please be kind and either link in the body of your post or place this blog button somewhere on the post:

<center><a href="http://mcguffeysworld.blogspot.com/search/label/Homeschool%20Sanity%20Brag%20Thursday"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ3HI60X9zVag6RHNqujDPGsxDUFAbInrgBOmmaBnmSx5Y-A9Kc5tFI4dzfKXAgaH0s99t3sFgxbyQ_XlzwQUALOuMWediy43g_ex3fEcVc5CIy1vLAyE8BLEG82dTyOgRu_DHqzKI2ks/s1600/jessie-willcox-smith-good-june-1925.jpg"/></a></center>