Hey Friends! I wanted to share some thing super exciting that has been happening around here (hence the neglect of this blog)! We have been working to develop

True North Homeschool Academy 

 (formerly Homeschool Works4U) for folks just like you!We deliver live on-line classes for 6th-12th graders wherever you are, Guidance Counseling to ensure success throughout High School, on-line Homeschool Coaching and more!

You want classes? We have some amazing classes! History, Lit & Comp, Science, Math, Latin, Hebrew, Spanish, Logic, Computer Coding! Ahhhmazing classes!

Our classes are taught by some amazing people! Our teachers are experienced homeschoolers, have been educating their own and others for years- between us we literally have decades worth of educational experience. Many of us have worked diligently to ensure our educational rights as parents, have homeschooled and have worked professionally as educators, farmers, programmers, musicians, writers, business owners, linguists and missionaries. We are your kind of people!

Need homeschool coaching? Winning teams have experienced, passionate coaches and this can be true in our personal and homeschooling lives as well. We commonly feel like we are failing our kids, not educating them well enough, dropping balls and wonder if they wouldn't be better off in school.  We are offering 1:1, Group and email coaching. You don't have to go it alone- our years of experience, successes AND failures and our passion to help other families succeed is what makes our Homeschool Coaching unique.

Guidance Counseling are you unsure what direction to go for with high school classes, what a credit really is or how to transcribe your students passions so that they can graduate? We've got you covered. We've worked with hundreds of High School students around the world over the years and helped them gain admittance to college, the military, vocational training and into vocational careers. We are here to help you juggle the demands of High School!

And lastly, just another thing I am super excited about - CLUBs! So far, we are offering a C.S. Lewis Club (be still my heart!), a Classics Club (so your kiddo can rock the next NLE level!) and a Writing Club (yep, my baby, Creative Writing - we are going to have a blast!). These courses are designed to count as a 1/4 credit a semester, with lots of fun stuff, opportunity for student interaction, and more!

And if you still need to get your standardized testing in, no fear! We are offering Scranton Peformance Series tests, that we can personalize for your students grade level AND offer you amazing feed-back on. Sound too good to be true? It's just part of the great service you'll find at True North Homeschool Academy! 

My dd is super excited about taking Biblical Hebrew, along with Hebrew History, Culture and Conversation with our new friend, Rabbi Fischer, from Israel! She's continuing on with Latin as well, and will be taking Latin II and jumping into our Classics Club.

I am most excited about teaching Christian Psychology (a CLEP prep course!) as well as World, Literature and leading the Writing Club. Because, you know, writing and literature. I'll also be heading up the Guidance Counseling and Homeschool Coaching programs. Things I do already and love, using my counseling degree, professional experience and years of homeschooling. Happy sigh!

I hope you'll take a look at our new endeavor. And if you have any questions, or want to know more, please reach out! We'll be hosting specials and give-aways throughout the summer, so stay tuned for that as well!

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@Golden Grasses 2008-2013. All photographs, artwork and text are the property of the owner unless otherwise stated. Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to Golden Grasses and get our articles right to your inbox!

High School Syllabus!

Welcome to the 2018 Virtual Homeschool Curriculum Fair!  This weeks topic is homeschool Curriculum.

We have been using Classical Conversations Challenge program for the past 3 years. Each year we get a guide, purchase resources and get to work. One of the major criticisms that I've heard of Challenge is that it is so prescribed, and there is no room for creativity. In all honesty, the curriculum picks are not far off from what I would have chosen on my own with the added benefit of amazing group projects, weekly accountability and very cool classical tools used in the context of group discussion.
Down to brass tacks. At least one of my youngest two have now gone through Challenge A, B, 1, II and III.
The curriculum choices follow 6 Strands: Logic, Grammar, Research, Rhetoric, Debate, Expo & Comp.

While CC recommends Saxon for Math (the Logic stage) every student is free to use whatever works best for them. My son uses Math U See, while my daughter is committed to Saxon. Weekly Math "discussions" at Community Day include a Math "Exordium" (using pictures from the book, "100 diagrams that changed the World, Perploxors, Critical Thinking, etc), presentation of a math concept, and then students sharing their own math problems, using the 5 Common Topics. We also enjoy games like Agricola, Risk Legacy, Ticket to Ride, etc. Definitely in the Critical Thinking, Strategic development camp.

Grammar is all about Henle I and II. We also use Memoria Press' guides to Henle. Before Henle, we used First Form from MP. How to succeed with Henle? Memorize and power through. There is no substitute for memorizing. I recommend the MP Latin Form posters and doing them daily with your kids. We also do Latin National Exam and I highly recommend Memoria Press' LNE guide and on-line prep class.

Expo and Comp is just that. Reading lots of great books and then writing essays, using Circe's Lost Tools of Writing. The kids are also delving into Shakespeare and writing and doing Recitations from Shakespeare plays. Great stuff. My son, especially, does a great amount of reading on his own, usually going through a book every week or two, outside of CC required reading. Of late, he's been reading Karac Tor and the Endor's Game series. He is also big into history, weaponry and Theology, and is often checking out reference books and reading Artifax and Biblical Archeology Review.
My daughter is a much slower reader but really puzzles over issues. For instance, her current read is To Kill a Mockingbird puzzling greatly over the times and situation of the book.

Research is Science and CC uses Apologia- which has been our high school Science go-to for over 15 years. We do experiments during class day and the kids do Lab Report write-ups and reading, tests at home. The focus is on the Scientific Method and Lab Reports. This year, we have Physical Science and Chemistry going on 'round here;  my dd will be writing a formal research paper as well and last year she participated in a Science Fair (which she won, btw).

Rhetoric is the art and science of speaking and writing well and has included Current Events, World View, Philosophy, Socratic Dialog and Music Theory. This is a rich, rewarding and at times difficult strand, but worth struggling through. What we have loved is that with community we have the courage to go beyond what we would do on our own. Additionally, the discussions that ensue from the reading and studying are always thought-provoking and at times, amazing!

Debate- this strand has covered Physical Geography (drawing the world by heart), to Formal Logic, LD and Policy Debate, Mock Trial as well as History from the perspective of original source documents and recitations.Again, challenging, great stuff.

Additionally, while it's not considered a "strand" per se, CC has Rhetorical events for the kids, including, essays, recitations, debates, stock market analysis, COLA analysis, Science Fairs and more! This year, in Challenge 3, the kids had 14 events first semester and 19 second. It's a rich, varied and very full curriculum. Parents are still the homeschooling parent and encouraged to scale as needed, both up and down.

CC recommends an hour a day per strand. Sometimes we hit that, sometimes we don't. We often do homework on the week-ends, especially when rhetorical events are due.

We host an in-depth Bible study in our home every week. Additionally, we've used Memoria Press's Christian Studies I -IV and High School studies. An excellent overview of Bible basics and church history that will give your students a firm foundation.

Additionally, both kids spend hours drawing and creating; my dd is has been into clay creation for a couple of years and ds crafts weaponry and costumes. Both participate in Karate for a couple of hours two to three times a week and both take music lessons, piano and violin. and watch movies- often related to the history or composition that we are currently studying.

Theater has been a big part of our curriculum for a long time and our kids have participated in a yearly One Act Play competition, Spring Drama Camp, and in the past a Shakespeare camp, where they perform a Shakespeare play in it's entirety. The Tantara program coming up soon will by my Senior's 15th performance, many delivered at a college campus theater or at a park.

We've also spent countless hours participating in TeenPact (state class as well as Alumni events). Three of my kids have interned at the State capital and we've all campaigned for various people and causes.

The Challenge program has allowed us to accomplish more than we ever could have on our own, especially some of the group events, such as Mock Trial, Science Fair and Debates.

Check out what my amazing VCF buddies have written this week:

Looking for more curriculum ideas? Visit my fellow homeschool bloggers! 

Note: all posts will be live after 8 am EST on Monday, Jan. 22nd.
Our Homeschool Plan for 3rd, 6th, 8th, & 12th Grades by Susan @ Homeschooling Hearts & Minds
Our 10th Grade Plans by Christy @ Unexpected Homeschool
Planning Out Our Unschooling Studies by Jen @ A Helping Hand Homeschool
The Details of Curriculum by Michele @ Family, Faith and Fridays
Reflections of a Curriculum Junkie by Brittney @ Mom's Heart
Freedom through nature journaling. by Kim @ Good Sweet Love
How I pull together a homeschool curriculum without packaged curriculum by Dana @ Life Led Homeschool
Our Favorite Curriculum and Resources - An Annotated Bibliography by Sabrina @ Kids, Crunch, and Christ
Our 2018 Homeschool Curriculum Choices by Amanda @ Hopkins Homeschool
Top Home Educating Resources by Sarah @ DeliveringGrace
Homeschooling Curriculum We Are Using This Year by Laura O @ Day by Day in Our World
Use the Force and Complete the Course by Kym @ Homeschool Coffee Break
Choices, choices - how to choose your curriculum wisely by Lizzy @ Peaches@Home
Our Curriculum Needs - grade seven by Annette @ A Net in Time
The Heart of Our School by Laura @ Four Little Penguins
What I Use with 7th and 9th Grader - Virtual Homeschool Fair -Week 3 by Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory
How to Avoid Gaps in Education by Kristen H. @ Sunrise to Sunset
Tricky Subjects and Starting the Decision Making Process by Lori H @ At Home: where life happens
High School Syllabus by TrueNorthHomeschoolAcademy @ GoldenGrasses


   http://i1297.photobucket.com/albums/ag30/Lisa_Nehring/siggywithflower_zps2ffa66ba.png @Golden Grasses 2008-2013. All photographs, artwork and text are the property of the owner unless otherwise stated. Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to Golden Grasses and get our articles right to your inbox!

Still Classically Educating After All These Years

I grew up reading. I grew up learning from books and to books I turned when we began homeschooling 27 years ago. Books have figured heavily into our family life, homeschool world and larger community. (I edited a book this summer, The Cup of Salvation, by Rabbi Pesach Wolicki and am currently reading a review copy of Nancy Pearcy’s book, Love Thy Body). Basically, everyone around here is either reading, writing, or listening to a book of some sort around here most of the time.

We began homeschooling with a great books approach using a literature based curriculum and  pedagogy for years, despite seeing obvious holes and weaknesses in it. I loved the idea of Classical Ed and had a well-loved copy of The Well Trained Mind that I read yearly, but I just could not make it all come together.

In 2006 I discovered Classical Conversations as I was researching curriculum for the large local co-op that I had started and was running. Leigh Bortins just happened to be speaking a few hours away and I took the opportunity to go and listen to her. She changed my understanding of education and learning. We changed our curriculum, co-op, and focus and haven’t looked back. Leigh Bortiens talked practical application of the theory of classical ed. She was compelling and challenging. She told me that I could in fact learn grammar. This was a paradigm shift for me as I thought that you either had the grammar gene or you didn't. She said teach to your kids strengths (check) but also teach to their weaknesses (oh, we should shore up our kids academic weaknesses, too!). 

Classical Education is a catch-phrase for a lot of things, but at its core it focuses on skill building through a series of stages, most commonly known as the Trivium (Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric) and the Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy). The Trivium is what is mostly talked about in homeschooling circles, as it’s the foundation for higher level thinking.

The Trivium is comprised of the Grammar, Dialectic and Rhetoric stage. The Grammar stage focuses on Memory work, the Dialectic stage focuses on the rules of Logic and argumentation and the Rhetoric focuses on presenting well through the written and spoken word. Classical Education is also word versus image focused (for a more in-depth analysis of the differences, check out Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman).

Utilizing the classical method has saved us enormous amounts of time and money. We are focused on developing skills and honing those skills so curriculum is often non-consumable. Also, being committed to a pedagogy, versus a curriculum, allows far more freedom in how and when materials are gathered. There is no longer the yearly confusion about whether our curriculum is “working” or not. We have either learned the skills we set out to or we need more work on those skills.

Teaching classically has built my confidence and ability to teach. Mainly because I am not “stuck” anymore. Classical Ed has gifted me the freedom to not know, to learn and to grow beyond self, or school, imposed limitations.

And more stuff I’ve learned educating classically. Important stuff:

•  You aren’t going to learn most things the first time you see it; that’s overview. You must become familiar with material in order to really learn it.
•  Memory is the mother of learning. Memory works requires time on task and drill. And more drill.
• Overlearning is underrated and misunderstood. Overlearning is taking a difficult and uncomfortable behavior or skill and turning it into an automatic skill.
•  Learning something for long term memory is not the same as the short term memory required to cram for a test.
• 
• When you memorize something, you own it. Memorizing material allows you to make connections and see relationships that don’t happen when you don’t own the material.
• We should teach to our kid’s strength and allow them to go as fast and far as they can, while at the same time, shoring up their weaknesses and requiring them to push beyond comfort. Difficult things are often uncomfortable. It’s o.k. for our kids (and us!) to be uncomfortable.
• Kids are capable of working much harder than we give them credit for or they often belive.
• Fun is great but solid academics afford our kids the opportunity to push beyond their comfort level and gain the deep sense of satisfaction that comes from working hard and accomplishing much.
• 
• Building copiousness goes way beyond a set curriculum. Scaffolding information is very helpful to mastering difficult material.
• Using planners and breaking down long term projects does not come naturally to most kids.
• Most people do better with a study buddy or drill partner.
• -Envisioning what could be versus reacting against is a much more effective long term motivator.
• 
• You are not going to know everything. You can learn more than you probably give yourself credit for. Even if you were terrible at grammar or science in elementary school, you have the tools and skills that you have learned as an adult. Things will come easier to you know. Be the lead learner in your home. Wrestle with concepts- it won’t hurt you or your kids to see you struggle to learn something or gain mastery over new concepts.
• 
  
• 

Classical Eduacation has allowed us to go far beyond the simple surface of things, dive deeply, teach and learn efficiently and well.

While we love the pedagogy of Classical Education, our goal is not to turn out little intelligensia robotrons. Our goal is to educate life-long learners who know and will continue to appreciate and discover Truth, Beauty and Goodness. 

Ad gloriam Dei! 

What do my fellow homeschool bloggers have to say about their Homeschool Method? Go visit them to find out!

Note: all posts will be live after 8 am EST on Monday, Jan. 15th.
How Our Academic Co-op Completes Our Eclectic Homeschool by Susan @ Homeschooling Hearts & Minds
A Method to Our Madness by Michele @ Family, Faith and Fridays
Finding Our Homeschool Method by Christy @ Unexpected Homeschool
How We Homeschool by Amanda @ Hopkins Homeschool
Give Us.... by Annette @ A Net in Time
A day in our Home by Sarah@DeliveringGrace
Lit-Based Education: How We Homeschool by Debra @ Footprints in the Butter
Overhauling Our Homeschool - Adjusting our "How" to fit our "Why" by Sabrina Scheerer @ Kids, Crunch, and Christ
A Day in the Life of a Homeschooler: Expectation Vs. Reality by Leah @ As We Walk Along the Road
How Charlotte Mason Transformed Our Homeschool by Brittney @ Mom's Heart
Captain's Log, Supplemental - Our Homeschool Days by Kym @ Homeschool Coffee Break
How we get it done. by Kim @ Good Sweet Love
How to Organize Daily Curriculum with the School Cart by Jeniffer @ Thou Shall Not Whine
Learning For LIfe by Lori H @ At Home: where life happens
Eclectic Homeschooling: When It All Comes Together by Jen @ A Helping Hand Homeschool
A Typical Day? by Lizzy @ Peaches@Home
This is the Way We Do Our School, So Early in the Morning by Laura @ Four Little Penguins
A Little of This and a Little of That: Eclectic Homeschooling by Laura O @ Day by Day in Our World
Still Classically Educating After All These Years by True North Homeschool Academy
So what exactly is Life Led Homeschooling? by Dana @ Life Led Homeschool
The way we learn ~ 2018 Virtual Homeschool Fair by Jacquelin @ A Stable Beginning
Our Homeschool Routine by Joelle @Homeschooling For His Glory
Homeschool Methods – 8 Tips for the Journey by Kristen @ Sunrise to Sunset

Home School Happenings

It's been a busy year chock full of working, teaching, learning. This is our 4th consecutive year of Classical Conversations and our 3rd consecutive year of Challenge. Challenge is challenging. As we speak my Challenge 1 and 3 kids are working on a Power Point for a Shakespeare project and a 5 minute Philosophy Lecture. It's a full and amazing program. When they work, I work. Yeah, if you need help with sentence diagramming or Latin translations, or delivery a presentation, I'm your girl.

I was bumped from my cute little Jr. High kiddos up to Challenge 3 this year - our class consists of nine 11th and 12th graders. I started this year with no small amount of fear and trembling. Chemistry,  Trigonometry, Philosophy, and a boatload of presentations and projects -  14 total in all this semester and 19 next  includig essays, individual events, impromptu, Lincoln Douglas and policy debates, Shakespeare Recitations and more. It's been amazing.

Challenge 1 and III go along with each very well this year, including Shakespeare and American History. I am loving the fact that my Senior, who also went through Ch 1 is making amazing connections and integrations in History, Literature, Philosophy and Theology. I live with some true-blue nerds and honestly, I love it.

In other news, I quit the job I've had for the last 4 years. Almost to the day. It it was a great blessing to get the job and a great relief to let it go. I'm still Directing Challenge and I am also taking on another Academic position with a newly re-branded on-line homeschool titled True North Homeschool Academy. So, it's not like I'm not working, it's just like I'm working and it's fun again. You can keep abreast of all the good things happening there by liking, following and sharing at True North Homeschool Academy. Courses schedules and descriptions will be posted as soon as we launch our brand spanking new web-site, coming soon!


What's been keeping you busy?

@Golden Grasses 2008-2013. All photographs, artwork and text are the property of the owner unless otherwise stated. Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to Golden Grasses and get our articles right to your inbox!

Shoebox Scientist - Challenge B

Flower's Shoebox on Einstein - complete with Nobel Peace prize medal, tons of great quotes, a warped clock, representing "special relativity," etc.

We are finishing up our first 10 weeks of Scientists and moving on to Science Fair projects. To wrap up this phenomenal study, the kids did "Shoebox Scientists." Each student was assigned a Scientist and had to fill their shoebox with clues- without using a picture of him/her or their name. Their class mates then guessed who they were representing. 

This activity was really fun- fun to put together and fun to evaluate. We invited the Challenge A class to come and guess the scientists, too! 

This was represented Linneaus

Archimedes and "Pi." 

Another favorite of mine was "Morse"- the box contained candy "dots" and a bottle of "Mrs. Dash." (get it- dots and dashes for Morse Code?).

We invited Challenge A to guess alongside of us, as they heard some of our presentations each week. 

Another GREAT project, that was a ton of Fun, brought to you by Challenge B!

@Golden Grasses 2008-2013. All photographs, artwork and text are the property of the owner unless otherwise stated. Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to Golden Grasses and get our articles right to your inbox!

The Story of Christianity -Curriculum Review

I am a long-time promoter of Memoria Press everything and we've used/reviewed

Core 6, Christian Studies, Famous Men Series, Lingua Angelica,  The "Form" Series and all things related to Henle Latin. We have gone through the Christian Studies program- which is excellent and includes people, places, scripture memory work, maps, time lines and in-depth analysis. I honestly wish more Sunday School programs were as thorough in the approach to the study of Scripture. 

I've had my eye on the High School Christian Studies programs for a while and we landed on The Story of Christianity this year: The History of 2000 Years of the Christian Faith. I purchased the package comes with a text, Teacher's Manual and Student Manual. 

Every lesson is set up in the same way. There is a section in the Teacher's Manual that sets up each chapter of the book, with highlighted features and background information.  Then you read the chapter in the book by David Hart. 

Hart covers complex concepts and time periods with wit and wisdom. He has an awesome sense of humor, but is never disrespectful or anachronistic. His respect and reverence for the Christian tradition is always evident, but tempered with differentiation between faith in the Master of the Universe and His church on earth. 

At the end of each chapter there are "Questions from Your Reading" as well as "Ideas for Further Thought." The questions are thorough and comprehensive, ranging from historical, "Who called for the first Crusade?" to ecclesiastical, "What was the doctrinal dispute that was most representative of the division between the East and the West."

The "On Your Own" questions are open-ended, thought provoking queries such as,"Which scripture versus could be used to explain substitutiontary atonement?" and "Could another Great Awakening happen in our time?" There are also quizzes and tests with matching short answers.

We started our Morning Symposium with The Story of Christianity and found it to be an engaging way to begin each school day. It is an excellent over-view of Church History, tying together history in a unique way. We finished it just this last week, will continue our study of Church History with The Acts of the Apostles, also by Memoria Press. 

Don't forget to sign up for Memoria Press' free magalog: The Classical Teacher. Excellent, thought provoking articles!

@Golden Grasses 2008-2013. All photographs, artwork and text are the property of the owner unless otherwise stated. Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to Golden Grasses and get our articles right to your inbox!

OREO Science Fair Prep

Oreos and Science? But of course! Got this great idea from an awesome Challenge B Director. 

The kids loved it! 

We are talking about the upcoming Science Fair and our in-class exercise centered on creating reproducible instructions. Each student was given a zip-lock with 2 Oreo cookies in it and told to create instructions about how to eat the cookie for a class-mate. 

The kids were allowed to eat one cookie as they created the instructions and then passed the 2nd cookie and instructions to a neighbor to see how effective their instructions actually were.

We have some kids in our Challenge class who love a good laugh! The above included eating the chocolate cookie pieces and using the cream filling to create lip gloss. Oy vey.

JR was the lucky recipient of these instructions! 

Big laughs were had by all!! 

@Golden Grasses 2008-2013. All photographs, artwork and text are the property of the owner unless otherwise stated. Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to Golden Grasses and get our articles right to your inbox!

Sam Morse Presentation - Challenge B

The first 10 weeks of Science this year consists of presentations on Famous Scientists.

Queue Sam Morse.

One of his descendants was a neighbor of ours growing up in Ohio. He was a fighter pilot in the A.F. with a picture of good ol' Sam proudly displayed amongst the family photos. 

When I asked Dr. Dh if he had ever made a telegraph machine, or could, he was confident. He is a scientist at heart.

 So, one fine Saturday afternoon found Flower and Dad in the front yard with an odd assortment of stuff, measuring, cutting, crafting, drilling, honing and doing electronic things. (yes, I am the wordsmith, not the scientist).

The end result was not one, but two telegraph machines that "talked" to each other. 

After Flower's great presentation on Samuel Morse, she tapped out:

Cutest telegraph operator in the west.

Challenge B, and best Dad ever, for the win! 

d

@Golden Grasses 2008-2013. All photographs, artwork and text are the property of the owner unless otherwise stated. Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to Golden Grasses and get our articles right to your inbox!