Review: HomeSchoolPiano

“Mom, can I do a piano lesson?”  As far as rarely heard sentences are concerned, this might rank up there with “Mom, can I have seconds on spinach?” and yet I heard it nearly every day during our review of HomeSchoolPiano.  Even more amazing, because of our satellite internet package, my Schnickelfritz would have to get up to watch some of these online lessons before 7 AM.   I don’t know which amazed me more—that my adolescent son would get up early or that he was actually learning to play the piano over the internet, but both were absolutely true with our subscription access to the HomeSchoolPiano - Complete Set of Books.

WHAT WE RECEIVED:

Lifetime access to the online lessons and downloadable PDF books.  There are three progressively difficult books, each book broken into six units and each unit broken into seven lessons – that’s 126 lessons right there.  There are also 33 “Core Piano” lessons for the absolute beginner that cover things like how to sit at the piano or terms like “legato” and “staccato.”

The units in the three numbered book always follow the same lesson pattern:

• Technique
• Rhythm
• Ear Training
• Reading Music
• Song
• Improvisation
• Bonus

 

There are brief quizzes after the Rhythm, Ear Training, and Reading Music lessons. The piano teacher is  Willie Myette, a jazz musician who has been teaching kids music since 1996.  He has written original tunes for each of the units and may I say there’s just something about the swing and syncopation of jazz that makes practicing these pieces more appealing than counting the standard 4/4 time signature of the songs I had to use in my own piano lessons.  Willie even encourages using the various rhythms built into the keyboard rather than just the metronome.  (If you don’t have a keyboard with rhythms, you can download the audio files of the lesson and use the recorded version).

The screen for the video lesson is divided into several sections:

At the bottom you’ll see Willie as he talks to you, in the middle is a live overhead shot of the keyboard, above that is a virtual keyboard.  When he strikes a key it will light up and the letter associated with the key is displayed (in my screenshot, he is playing middle C). I believe just below the live keyboard  are three virtual pedals that will light up when used, but we didn’t see that in our lessons to this point.

OUR PIANO EXPERIENCE:

When Fritz was 4 we bought him one of those keyboards with the keys that lit up when you were supposed to play them and over 100 songs in its memory.  He could follow the lights to plunk out familiar tunes like Jingle Bells and Happy Birthday but he could only play the songs in the memory banks and the keyboard couldn’t provide any guidance if he didn’t know the rhythm of the song.  He couldn’t read music at all.  I had taken two years of piano lessons in grade school and could read music from my choir background.

HOW WE USED HOMESCHOOLPIANO

First I downloaded the PDF book files, printed them on both sides of the paper, and comb-bound them together with laminated covers.  It just made it so much easier to keep track of a book rather than individual papers and kept the pages from flopping over on the stand.

We currently have a Roland D-10 keyboard in our homeschool classroom/basement.  Our computer with internet access is upstairs.  I made Fritz start at the very beginning with the Core Piano lessons.  Since most of these are more theory than hands-on lessons, Fritz could watch the lesson upstairs and if needed, practice down on the keyboard afterwards.  The lessons were so short and Fritz so enthusiastic that he’d go through 2 or 3 per day.  He had the Core Piano completed in three weeks.

Moving on to Book One Unit 1, it became a little more important to view the lesson while sitting at the keyboard.  The lessons can be viewed on any internet capable device so I set up our Kindle Fire HD on a table behind the keyboard.  Although you could watch on a smartphone, I think it would be too small to see much detail.  The lessons from the numbered books are downloadable so I’d go to the library and use their Wi-Fi to download a week’s worth of lessons at a time (for some reason none of the Ear Training lessons have the download feature, nor do the Core Piano lessons). 

Fritz would have to play with one side of the headset off so he could hear the lesson (our keyboard doesn’t have speakers).  His favorite lesson was on improvisation and he’d often have me wear the headphones to listen to his latest “compositions” better yet, he’d ask his friends to listen. I was so thrilled he wanted to show off his piano lessons rather than hide them for “lack of coolness.”  This fall, we’ll continue to keep piano lessons as part of our curriculum.  I’ll be honest here and say while my son loves the lessons, he’s not crazy about the recommended 30 minutes of daily practice –I guess that goes to prove he’s normal after all. 

Although I didn’t need it, there is a Records tab for parents to track up to 5 students’ progress. You can see which lessons have been begun and completed and quiz scores to verify students are actually doing the work if you’re not sitting beside them.  This feature doesn’t work if you’re downloading the lesson to view later – everything just shows up as 10 percent complete (for accessing the lesson I presume).

HomeSchoolPiano  offers unlimited life-time access to the lessons, sheet music, jam tracks and other downloads for up to 5 students with either a one-time payment of $299 or an installment plan ($99.97/month for three months).   These lessons are for all ages (I’ve even started sitting at the keyboard myself after years of regret for dropping out). 

The cost isn’t chump change I know, but it’s also not out of line for piano lessons—especially if you’ve got several kids.  HomeSchoolPiano does offer a full cycle of free lessons, from Technique through the Bonus for you to try before purchasing.

 

Rescued Book #28 Christy

I’m having one of those “I can’t believe I’m that old” moments.  I almost didn’t include this book in my series because I figured everyone knows about Christy, it was made into a TV show a little while ago.  Imagine my shock when I saw it first aired 20 years ago!  Anyone being homeschooled today would have never seen it (unless they have the DVD’s), but even those who have—the TV version can only be said to be loosely based on the book.

Christy

Marshall, Catherine. New York:McGraw-Hill, 1967. 496 pp.

This is the first fictional novel by Catherine Marshall.  She began working on it in 1959, but set it aside to focus on her recent marriage to her second husband and his three children ages 10 and under (Catherine’s first husband, Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall had passed away over a decade earlier).

The story begins with Christy traveling alone to a mission in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee to be a teacher in a one room schoolhouse.  She is joining the American Inland Mission to work with Rev. David Grantland and Quaker laywoman Alice Henderson.  Among the interesting and endearing characters she meets are moonshiner Bird’s Eye Taylor, mischievous Little Burl, and noble mountain woman Fairlight Spencer.  In addition to her daily struggles to teach 67 children in all grades and find funding for the mission work, Christy must deal with hardships like feuding and a typhoid epidemic.  And in her “spare time” she tries to sort out her feelings for both the local minister and  doctor. 

An undercurrent to the whole story is how different characters come to terms with God—from Creed Allen wondering if dogs will be in heaven, to Christy’s wondering if she’s truly a believer to Dr. MacNeill and his agnosticism.

Christy’s story and work at an Appalachian mission is based on life of Catherine’s mother, Leonora Whitaker.  Cutter Gap in the story is based on a community near Del Rio, Tennessee and fans of the book and TV show still travel there today.  Those fans may be disappointed to learn that main character (and Christy’s love interest) Dr. Neil MacNeill is simply imaginary.

I originally “rescued” a paperback version of Christy, published with a tie-in photo on the cover of the television character.  It became on of my favorite stories and a go-to book if I had to sit in a hospital waiting room or if I was in the patient’s bed.  I could open it up anywhere and be immersed in the story for hours—it’s not Les Miserables, but it is a long story.  Later I found a hardback edition, much more sturdy, with a map of all the story locations near the front cover. 

 

You can find a list of all my Rescued Books here

L is for Lewis & Clark

Missouri not only sits in the middle of the country physically, but it’s often in the center of the country’s history.  You can’t study slavery without coming across the Missouri Compromise for example.  Studying the Western Expansion Movement, many of the trails began in Missouri as did the Pony Express.   But first the country had do be explored and that leads us to todays subjects—Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery.

After the Louisiana Purchase, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Meriwether Lewis  to lead a military expedition through the new territory.  He selected William Clark as his co-leader (Clark exercised equal authority on the journey, but he did not officially hold the title of captain).  The Corps’ goals were to look for a passage to the Pacific Ocean, establish trade with the natives, and gain a U.S. foothold in the Oregon territory.  The journey began at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers in May of 1804 and they returned to St. Louis in September of 1806.  Along the way they only lost one man, and he apparently died from acute appendicitis.

In 1813, William Clark was made governor of the Missouri Territory.  When he failed to win the election for governor of the newly formed state of Missouri in 1820 he shifted to a new post—Superintendent of Indian Affairs.  He remained in St. Louis until his death in 1838.

There are plenty of historical markers along the Missouri River dedicated to Lewis & Clark and the Corps.  Traveling upstream they set up 51 campsites within the present-day boundaries of the state (the downstream return trip only required 14).   [SKIP THE REST OF THE PARAGRAPH IF YOU’RE SQUEAMISH ABOUT BODILY FUNCTIONS]  The most accurate way to locate or verify a campsite is to test for traces of mercury.  In the Corps medicine box was were 600 capsules of Dr. Benjamin Rush’s “Thunderbolts” to be dispensed at the first “sign of an approaching disease” which could mean anything from a headache to upset stomach from unfamiliar foods.   The good doctor believed illness was the result of poor flow of bile in the body and these strong laxatives would help the men expel any excess bile.  A concentration of mercury in the soil would pinpoint the site of the camp latrine.

Here are a few places for any Lewis & Clark fan to visit when the come to visit the Show Me State.

The Museum of Western Expansion in the Gateway Arch

The museum houses the largest display of Peace Medals, tokens of friendship given to chiefs and tribal leaders by the Corps.  You can also view a movie—Lewis and Clark: Great Journey West in the underground theater.  Below the Arch on the riverfront is a giant statue of Lewis, Clark and Seaman (the dog) called The Captains’ Return.  As I write this in July of 2014, the statue has been removed for cleaning (it has spent a lot of time under water due to flooding) and it will be relocated higher on the bank.  Also, the Museum is scheduled to be closed after Labor Day and not reopened until 2016 with new exhibits and a new entrance.  All this has to do with refurbishment for the 50th anniversary of the Arch. 

Camp Dubois

Technically this site is in Illinois, just across the Mississippi River at the confluence with the Missouri, but it’s such a wonderful little museum I have to share it. Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1803-4 here preparing for their trek.  The rebuilt fort hosts a variety of reenactments and educational events and the visitor’s center is open Wednesday-Sunday.  My son loved all the interactive exhibits (you can read about our visit by clicking here).  The site is owned by the state and doesn’t charge admission, although they ask for donations (and deserve them).

Lewis & Clark Heritage Days in St. Charles, MO

The third Saturday of May, St. Charles honors the anniversary of the reuniting of Lewis and Clark (Lewis had stayed in St. Louis to finish some business while Clark to the boats and men upriver).  The Corps attended church on May 20th and set out the afternoon of the 21st.  The annual event includes fifes and drums, firing cannons of the period, a grand parade and a re-enactors’ camp.   Often they launch the boats built for the 200th anniversary trip retracing the journey.  If not, you may see the boats at the Lewis & Clark Boat Hose and Nature Center just a brief walk away.  The entrance fee is $5/adults, $2/under 17.

This same group of re-enactors holds a second camp/educational experience in Hermann, Missouri in early December.  Fridays are reserved for school groups (including homeschoolers!) and Saturday is open to the public. Daytime events are free, but you must buy a ticket to attend the banquet and ball in the evening.  You can read about our 2011 visit by clicking here.

Bellefontaine Cemetery

As I mentioned before, William Clark stayed in St. Louis until his death and he is buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery.  It may seem a strange place for a field trip, but the cemetery does offer free educational tours (I went there for a school field trip).  The monument was erected in 1904 (the centennial of of start of the expedition).  As long as you’re at the cemetery you can visit the final resting place of James Eads (who designed and built the first bridge across the Mississippi River).  Or visit “Millionaires’ Row” to see the mausoleums of Adolphus Busch (founder of the Anheuser Busch brewery) and other prominent St. Louisans –one mausoleum was designed to withstand earthquakes (more on that when we get to the letter Q.

Fort Osage

The site for the second fort to be built in the Louisiana Purchase Territory was spotted by William Clark on the outward bound leg of the Voyage of Discovery.  He returned to the spot in 1808 to build the fort after a treaty of peace had been signed with the Osage Tribe.  There is a reconstructed fort on the original site with staff and volunteers acting as living history interpreters. The Educational Center is open year round ($7/adults, $4/ages 5-13) but it’s even better if you can come on one of their big event days: Flag Day, Independence Day, or the Grand Festival of Chez les Canses.  The latter takes place in September and has re-enactors showing how early French fur trappers traded with the natives.

I’m linking up with …

 

Review: Write Shop Level D

 

Two years ago, my son and I were introduced to WriteShop.   Schnickelfritz really enjoyed the 15 minute lessons and the program sanctioned parental help so he was more than willing to step up a level and try their WriteShop Junior: Book D Set.   It is available in a physical format or an eBook format. We downloaded three PDF Files: the Teacher’s Guide, the Student Activity Pack, and the optional Time-Saver Pack.

The Junior writing program uses letters rather than grades to separate levels.  Although Set D is recommended for grades 3-4, it can also be used with reluctant writers (like my son) in grades 5-6 without them realizing they’re “behind.”  

The Teacher’s Guide ($45.95 physical copy, $35.50 eBook) is 278 pages and contains supply lists, an overview of how to teach each activity day as well as specific instructions for each lesson,ideas for setting up a writing center, etc. There two different lesson plan schedules—the standard model takes three weeks per lesson with activities three times per week for a 30 week school year.  If for some reason you want to move through the curriculum at a faster pace you can use the daily plan and finish in 20 weeks.

The Student Activity Pack ($45.95 physical copy, $35.50 eBook) has 66 pages of writing worksheets, editing checklists, printables for games, etc. Also included are the pages needed to assemble the Fold-N-Go folders.  If you opt for the physical copy, you’ll need one per student.  With the eBook, you may print as many copies as needed for your family.

The Time-Saver Pack ($14.95 physical copy, $11.50 eBook) is only 24 pages long.  It contains printables for certain activities to save you the trouble of making your own from scratch. For example, instead of writing my own sentence starters and characters on 16 pieces of paper I can print and cut out their version.  You just have to judge which is more valuable—your time or your money.

Three lessons focus on a specific writing assignment: writing an invitational letter, expository writing, and writing a Haiku poem, but most of the  lessons focuses on a different genre of fictional writing.

1. Letter of Invitation
2. Humor
3. Adventure
4. Science Fiction
5. Mystery
6. Haiku
7. Folktales
8. Historical Fiction
9. Personal Narrative
10. Expository Writing

Each lesson is broken into eight Activity Sets

1. In Fold-N-Go Grammar, the student builds two reference tools: a 6-page file folder book and a bookmark (which I chose to laminate) on a variety of grammar subjects: Punctuation Marks, Self-Editing, Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs, Prepositions, Capitalization, References.  This activity set also includes four options of printables for the student to keep a Reading Journal.

2.  Pre-Writing Activities gently introduce the student into the subject, often in the form of a game. For lesson 1 we had to turn over slips of paper (date, salutation, body, closing, signature) to mix-match a complete letter.   This activity set also provides a script for parents to Model and Teach the writing assignment. 

3. Skill Builders give your students the opportunity to learn new ways to enhance their writing or reinforce what’s been learned in the Model and Teach activity. It’s not necessarily a writing activity—to the right you can see a robot skill builder we assembled to reinforce learning the parts of a letter.  Kids will put pencil to paper during Journal Writing Practice.  There are writing prompts to give students a direction to go or they can keep a daily log, write dreams & goals, etc.  This is mostly to give their mind and hand exercise and isn’t graded.

4. Every lesson includes a Brainstorming printable to help students organize their thoughts before the writing project.  My son felt this so helpful.  If I just gave him a blank piece of paper and said “Write a mystery story” he’d get a case of writers block bigger than the iceberg that struck the Titanic. This way we could work together on characters, setting, and general flow of the story first.

5. Kids will use their Brainstorming notes as the foundation of the Writing Project.  This is really the first draft and parents are encouraged to give as much help as needed, even to the point of writing down what the child dictates.  In the Teacher’s Guide is a whole page on “How Much Help”  that talks about frustration or complaining about his hand hurting is my cue to step in with or step up.  The goal is ease the child into writing and make it an activity they look forward to, not push or force them into drudgery. This activity can even be tailored with Smaller Steps for struggling writers or Flying Higher for advanced students.

6. For Editing & Revising, the student has a check-off list to remind him to look for grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors (the bookmark you make for proofreading/editing marks also comes in handy here).  Schnickelfritz edits the work first and then I can go over it.  It really helped to explain to him that this step was “editing” not “correcting” and that every writer goes through this step to make their work better.  I was the same way at his age though and insisted I wrote it down just the way I wanted the first time.

7. Publishing the Project is creatively enhancing the final copy of the Writing Project.  It can mean printing the work on fancy paper, sharing a humorous story at dinner, or pasting the story in a decorated manila file.  Sometimes Fritz was ready to just have the writing be over with after he’d finished rewriting it, but the next day I’d let him decorate the paper and he’d show off the finished work with pride.

8. Evaluating Your Child’s Work is really for parents/teachers.  The printables help me “grade” the writing project based on content, mechanics,  and self-editing skills.

You’ll need copy paper and some cardstock to print out the student workbook pages and activities (I transferred the Teacher’s Guide to my Kindle rather than print it out).  You’ll probably have all the other supplies needed –rubber bands, manila folders, yarn, coins, etc.  Optional projects may mean a trip to the store for scrapbooking supplies . A complete list of items broken down by lessons is in the Teacher’s Guide.

Writing is my son’s weakest skill and the area we have the most frustration during our school day.  I have to admit, I get less complaining when we use Write Shop.  Short lessons are over before the melt downs come, the every other day schedule means some days he doesn’t have to worry about writing at all (he does write on those off days but just the fact it isn’t its own subject gives him a great deal of satisfaction). Yes, there are times I think he’s capable of harder work, but maybe I need to lower my expectations for now and focus on developing his love of writing rather than his skills.

K is for Katy Trail

The Fourth of July has now passed and we’re in the height of summer.  Have you enjoyed the great outdoors lately?   Gone for a hike or bike ride"?  Watched a hawk circle in the sky?  Watched a mighty river flow past? Missourians have a wonderful resource for doing all that and more!  Winding it’s was through the heart of the Show Me State is the longest “Rails to Trails” project in the country—the Katy Trail.

The name comes from the pronunciation of the last two initials of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas railroad.  The trains stopped running in October, 1986 when the Missouri River once again flooded and washed out the tracks.  The railroad made the decision to reroute and abandon the lines and the Missouri Dept. of Natural Resources acquired the usage rights under the National Trails System Act of 1968.

Tracks were pulled up, crushed limestone was put down and trail opened in 1996—originally stretching from St. Charles in the east to Sedalia in the west.  A shorter section (donated by Union Pacific) extended the trail from Sedalia to Clinton making the entire length of the trail 240 miles (390 km).   There are those with hopes to extend the trail all the way to Kansas City  or even link up to other trails in Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska.

Currently, the Katy Trail doesn’t go to the two biggest cities in the state, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of other towns worth visiting along the route.

• St. Charles—home of the state’s first capitol and the Lewis & Clark Boathouse (more on that when we get to the letter L)
• Defiance – site of the Daniel Boone home
• Augusta – the start of Missouri’s wine country
• Hermann – founded by German immigrants in the mid 1800’s.  A great place to celebrate Maifest and Oktoberfest and Weihnachfest (Christmas) 
• Jefferson City – the State Capital
• Boonville—the sons of Daniel Boone harvested salt here to sell in St. Louis. Across the river is Franklin, the start of the Santa Fe Trail
• Sedalia – home of the State Fair

 Because this was formerly used by trains (and it runs along the Missouri River flood plain), the trails don’t have any steep grades or sharp turns –great for family biking, maybe a little dull for the X sports crowd.  Still, many cross county cyclists include the Katy trail as part of their journey.  I’ve also heard the crushed limestone is easy on the legs for runners. Since I’ve recently started training for a 5K and the trail is just across the river from our home, I may have to give it a go.  If you plan a long hike/ride you’ll want to carry you own water as there are no fountains.  Horseback riding is allowed on the far western side of the trail (from Clinton to Sedalia).

"Boy on Katy Trail" by MoBikeFed - . Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

I’m linking up with …

Review: Moving Beyond the Page

On the inside cover of the Moving Beyond the Page catalog, in bold lettering, it says “It is essential that children become thinkers and problem solvers, not just memorizers of facts.”  Since I agree so heartily with that statement, I was pleased to be selected to review two of their unit studies.  Although Moving Beyond the Page is marketed a full-year, unit study based curriculum covering literature, science, and social studies you may also purchase individual units (1 book/1 guide).  We received the literature study for The Invention of Hugo Cabret and the science study for  The Solar System.

Moving Beyond the Page sells their units with either physical copies of the curriculum guides (a coil-bound book) or online guides for a slight discount.  In either case you’ll receive a print version of the literature.  We reviewed one of each version and I can see some advantages and disadvantages to each.  The print version has all the work pages to be filled in, the test, the game cards to be cut out all in one package.  The front of the book is written directly to the student and the back contains the “Parent Overview” or what I would call the teacher’s guide.  NOTE: this has the Test Answers so you’ll need to remove them before you give the book to your child.  On the bottom of each page is the copyright information with explicit instructions NOT to copy the page so if you have more than one child, you’ll need to buy more than one guide.  That may be a reason to consider the online version where I’ve found no restrictions to the number of times you can download and print the PDF files.   I only have one child so the number of copies wasn’t an issue, but there were a lot of pages were had to cut out for a board game and I would have liked to been able to copy them onto cardstock for durability—as it was we had to cut and paste them onto heavier paper.

In the online version guide, you may choose to have the Parent Overview turned on or off (this feature is password protected so don’t pick the dog’s name as your password).  When it’s on, you’ll see notes to the parent and the answer key in gray boxes.  When it’s off, questions for the student have pencil and keyboard icons.  Choose the pencil and you can print out the page of questions to write on, choose the keyboard and a separate window opens for you to type in your answers (my son’s a typist).  The image below compares the two views of the first lesson.

The Solar System

Ages 11-13, $33.94 ($29.88 online version)

Now onto the individual units. My son wanted to start with The Solar System, so we will too.  In addition to the physical copy of the 153 page curriculum guide we received a hardback copy of 13 Planets:The Latest View of the Solar System (60 pp.) written by David A. Aguilar.  This book is written from a big bang/billions of years/the Moon forming from pieces of the Earth perspective   You’re probably familiar with 9 of the planets (Pluto is classified as a dwarf planet), but this might be the first time you’ve heard mention of 4 other dwarf planets: Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris.

For each planet, the is a full page photograph or artist’s conception, a drawing of the god or goddess it’s named after, a diagram of it’s orbit around the sun, but really just a short paragraph with a few facts about the planet itself.   Often, this wasn’t enough information to fill in the charts for the student’s activity and we’d have to look at other resources from our o home library.   Younger (or less enthusiastic) students may opt to write the answers for the board game questions on the back of the cards—most only require one word or number (larger/smaller, length of a year, etc.).  There were also three “Ideas to Think About” in each lesson—I suppose this is what they consider the critical thinking part of the lesson, but there was no direction how to use the questions other than read them.  The entire unit has nine lessons and is designed to be covered in 15 days according to their syllabus.

Our final project was a grocery bag solar system.  We gathered and labeled our planet models but didn’t actually space them out according to scale – it really wouldn’t be realistic to place grains of sugar and salt hundreds of yards apart and be able to see anything.  The guide also mention a Styrofoam ball solar system kit that comes with the full year curriculum but I could not find it sold as a separate item on the Moving Beyond the Page website.  It shouldn’t be too hard to find a similar model at the local craft store.  Other activities involved typing in a web address for the Moving Beyond the Page website, but then we’d be forwarded on to an outside site like NASA.  At least one of these links was out of date and we got a 404 Error message.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Ages 9-11,  $39.98 ($35.92 online version)

For The Invention of Hugo Cabret, we had the online version of the guide but were sent the hardback version of the novel by Brian Selznick. Rather than look on the computer every day, I stuck Post-it notes to divide the book into each day’s reading assignment.  If you’re not familiar with this novel, a great deal of the story is told simply with pictures.  In fact, you may find a span of 20 or more pages of only illustrations.  For this reason, my son didn’t mind “reading” three chapters a day nearly 10 days in a row (and sometimes the activities would involve more reading, like two versions of Anderson’s The Little Mermaid).  Still I wonder  if that pace could be maintained by a 9-11 year old in a normal book?   Of course if you purchase the study as a stand alone unit you can set your own schedule, but as a full year curriculum, the student is expected to work through  five science, five social studies, and five language arts units per semester.

For each of the seven lessons there are comprehension questions to answer and vocabulary to learn (words, suffixes and prefixes).  Sometimes there are printables for writing assignments and sometimes the student is expected to write in a journal they’ve been keeping.  Among the PDF files for getting ready is a Guide to Writing and Grammar, but other than that I found no formal instruction.  I assume that might be in a different language art unit of the complete curriculum.

It wasn’t all study, reading and writing.  For the second lesson my Schnickelfritz got to practice some magic (one of the key characters in the book used to be a magician).  One trick involved optical illusion, one manipulating cards, and one based on math.  Fritz already has a fair number of magic tricks under his belt so he put on quite a show.

We did not complete every activity for every lesson.  In lesson Six, is was much easier for Fritz to draw a picture of a dream (I’m not sure it was even a sleeping dream, but perhaps a day dream) then to analyze the purpose of each character and each member of the family.  I have to admit even I struggled with the word “purpose.”  We left it as a discussion about “roles” and “responsibilities” and I did not make him write anything down.

Bottom line: would we use Moving Beyond the Page Units again?  If there was a particular novel with a guide, perhaps, although it seems expensive for a 2-3 week study.  For the science units, I felt there was a lot of work summarizing facts, no experiments and very little critical thinking.  This goes against the standard they had written in the front of their catalog.  For this age group I think they need to be doing more lab work and work with the scientific method rather than painting models.

Rescued Books 25 & 26

Growing up I loved the Little House books!  You know, Laura and Mary, Pa and Ma,  Jack and …Pa’s fiddle.  My son loved them too (yes boys can enjoy Little House books too).  He used to listen to the audio versions at bedtime.  Once he got stuck listening to the chapter on losing Jack when they crossed the river.  He listened to it night after night and I wanted to tell him that everything would be okay if he’d just move on to the next chapter.  But this isn’t a post about those books, even though I’ve rescued copies of every title.  This is about two books that can enhance your understanding about Laura’s life and all the Little Houses.

The World of Little House

Collins, Carolyn Strom.  New York: Scholastic, 1996.

Laura does a good job describing the homes she has lived in, and yet there’s nothing like being able to see the layout for yourself.  This book provides overhead views of all the Little Houses, including the dugout home on Plum Creek and Laura’s Rocky Ridge home (she never wrote about it, but it is where she wrote all the books).  The introductory chapter about Laura includes the rare photographs of Ma and Pa and other family members, a map showing all the locations Laura lived (one is in Florida!) and family trees for the Ingalls, Wilders and Quiners (Ma’s family).

The next chapters each focus on a specific book and give the floor plan of the Little House, a synopsis of the book, a glimpse at life at that time/location, a Make It Yourself project and a Cook It Yourself recipe.  If you were making a unit study of the Little House books, this would be a great source for projects.  You can make Almanzo’s favorite Fried Apples ‘n Onions,  sew nine-patch quilt squares, or decorate clove apples (Ma’s Christmas gift from her sister).

The book ends with a timeline of events from the Ingalls’ and Wilder’s lives as well as important events in history (For example Rose Wilder was born the same year the Statue of Liberty was unveiled in New York harbor) and the addresses to visit all the Little Houses today.

Of course, you may not be able to take a whirlwind tour across the Midwest right now—which leads me to the second book of the week..

Laura Ingalls Wilder Country

Anderson, William and Leslie A. Kelly.  Mexico: Harper Perennial, 1990.

Photographer Leslie Kelly has taken all the pictures you need to feel like you’ve visited each Little House—exteriors, furniture,  landscapes, etc.  Some locations never made it into a book, like the Master's Hotel in Burr Oak, Iowa that the Ingalls managed for a year.  In the book you can also find photographs of Ma’s china shepherdess, the china jewel box that Laura got for Christmas at Plum Creek and of course Pa’s fiddle.    Mixed in with the modern day color photos are black & white historical pictures and some of the illustrations from the books over the years.

This book is mostly pictures with captions –and be sure to read them because they’re fascinating.  For example, under a painting done by Laura it explains that her younger sister Grace asked Ma “What is a tree?” She was living in the treeless plains of Dakota and had never seen one.  Laura painted trees and waterfalls to show her sister the answer to the question.  Among the family portraits, I found Eliza Jane to be quite lovely, not the spinster she was portrayed to be in the TV series.   The book ends with a much briefer timeline focusing on the Ingalls family.

My son loved studying the floor plans and the timelines while I read.  When our co-op read through the Little House series, I took these books in for the discussion days. 

You can find a list of all my Rescued Books here