The Art of Poetry

 

If you enjoy poetry and are looking for a creative way to incorporate poetry study in your homeschool the Art of Poetry by Classic Academic Press just might fit the bill.  The Art of Poetry curriculum bundle includes a Teacher's Edition, Student Text, and the poetry DVD set for $124.95.

You can purchase each item separately for $29.95 (Teacher's Edition), $24.95 (Student Text), and $89.95 (DVD set).  The curriculum can be used for middle and high schoolers.  I used it with a 6th grade student who doesn't have an appreciation for poetry.  She feels that readers' analysis of the author's intentions are too deep and thinks the subject matter of most poems are gloomy.   I'm sure this has a lot to do with her maturity level and her readiness for going deeper.  The author makes a good point of poetry helping one to think analytically and metaphorically which is essential to writing literary analysis so at some point my daughter will have to develop this skill.

One can use the student text without the DVDs and Teacher's Edition but the sample DVD we used of Chapters 1 and 2 came in handy to help bring perspective to poems that we would otherwise not have.  Each chapter focuses on an element of poetry like Image and Metaphor which is then explored in the various poems of that chapter.  At the end of each poem is a series of questions to help readers understand the poem.  The answers to these questions are in the Teacher's Edition.  The Teacher's Edition also includes quizzes for each chapter which helps the student put into practice the skills learned in each chapter.  Poem vocabulary and suggested activities end each chapter.  The activities include creative suggestions for further investigating the element of poetry that was explored in the chapter.  For example, the first chapter explores images.  One activity includes finding four images that describe the past school year or make a collage of images that describe you or a relationship that is important to you.  There are plenty of activities to choose from for each chapter including writing your own poetry.

I love that the website and the student text includes a suggested schedule to use the curriculum.  You can use the curriculum as a unit study, spread it out over a year, or do several chapters to spread it out over several years.  If your student is like my student and isn't ready for deep analysis, you can just read a poem a day just to familiarize yourself with different poets and their styles.  This is the approach I like best.  You can discuss aspects of the poem if something jumps out at you and is relevant to your student.  This way the material isn't too heavy for the reluctant student.  Even better are the audio files available at the Art of Poetry website under "free resources."  I don't have to rely on myself to read the poems "correctly" stressing syllables and lines that should be emphasized.  We enjoyed the audio files.

Even though my student didn't enjoy the poetry, I liked this curriculum.  I like the flexibility of it best.  It allows one to ease into the subject matter slowly saving meatier concepts for when the student is older.  In my opinion it is a little pricey for a poetry study which I expect to be part of a larger language arts curriculum.  However, you could start slowly by purchasing the student text only and using the audio files at the website.  Then add in the more advanced analysis for an older student and include the teacher's edition for the discussion questions and quizzes.  The DVDs help to round out everything adding the expertise of the facilitator to give insight and foster further in depth discussion.









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Is there such a thing as too many educational choices?

You know the great thing about homeschooling is choice and flexibility and the worst thing about homeschooling is choice and flexibility.  When Princess was sick for a week I was able to move all of that week's assignments to the following week.  Since she has one outside course, Geometry, she had to take the following week to just do her Geometry assignments so that she could catch up with her class.  No problem.  It worked and if need be extending the school year will allow us to finish up everything that is planned.  Flexibility - check.

As I evaluate her many strengths and weaknesses, I am attempting to make decisions about next year's schedule.  We definitely want to take advantage of dual enrollment at the local community college and I'm very fortunate to have two colleges to choose from.  One is 20 minutes south and one is 15 minutes north.  I'm thinking about an Art History course one semester and Spanish I the second semester to help round out the Spanish she's done in Rosetta Stone Level One.  Literature/Composition and History is an easy option to do at home with an outside evaluator for composition.  However, I am at a fork in the road with Algebra II and Chemistry. Choice - check.

We attended an open house for a local university-model school on Wednesday.  She would attend 3 days a week and complete assignments at home on Tuesday/Thursday.  I like the concept and the school's mission but it is a costly option.  We HAVE to have math take place in a classroom setting.  It is just what is best for her.  Our current co-op won't offer Algebra II next year.   There is a second coop that will probably offer it but I think Princess wants a different social setting.  That point has us looking at the local public school for 2 courses.

In homeschool you can always change something that isn't working.  You can even leave a co-op if you choose but taking a course in public school, I don't know if it is so easy to change if we find it just isn't working out.  Furthermore, I am a believer in finishing what you start.   So I am looking down all paths just praying about what to do.  Decisions.....decisions.

www.petermanseye.com

 Head over to weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers to see what other moms were up to this week.

Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat

Well this week has been a whirlwind.  Pumpkin and NuNu signed up to be a part of a christian theater group which put on a production of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat this weekend.  For weeks practices have been once a week for 3 hours.  This week started with an 8 hour Saturday practice and two weekday practice of 4 hours each.  Friday night was the opening performance and there were three Saturday performances.  The girls are tired and so am I.  I'm glad its over.  They thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the group and are already asking to be a part of the next performance which begins this summer.  I don't think I've ever seen them more excited about anything they've been involved in.  So no matter how demanding this production I have to let them do it again.

good times with new friends

my young thespian signing autographs

They described their experience as an escape.  Does that mean my home school is like prison?  I guess we all need an escape from our daily grind.  Now if I can only find an escape for Princess and myself. 

When will these long cold days turn into sunshine?

This is my 3rd full year homeschooling and I don't know how I'm going to make it until the end of the school year.  We are only in week 23 out of 36 and I have no mental strength.  Okay so I know part of it has to do with being sick for a week but what is the other part?  There is always housework undone, something I have to run to the grocery store for yet again, and someone always needs my attention.  And why can no one fill the dog's food and water bowl?? Really?

Perhaps I am just overwhelmed?  I think I need a women's retreat.  You know a place I can go stay overnight in a hotel room, eat food someone else has cooked, encourage and be encouraged by others.  Where can I find one of those places?

I need my motivation back and apparently I'm not the only one.  I just received an email from a friend saying she just wanted to go hide under her covers with snacks and a movie.  If we could find babysitters I would go hide somewhere with her. 

Maybe when the sun comes back out the warm breeze will bring back the optimism.

College Commonsense

I will be graduating my first homeschool student in 2 years.  That thought is a little scary.  I’ve been very proactive in sculpting her high school years so that she is prepped for college level work. Year after year fussing over curriculum and resources and then you are faced with the overwhelming process of college applications.   I have researched schools, saved scholarship information to review when needed, and done countless other things to help her grow and mature in her desired field of study.  I am determined to not screw this up.  That is what every home school mom fears – screwing up their child’s future. 

The timing could not have been better for me to review the College Common Sense “Going to College and Paying for it” DVD and Workbook program by Denise Ames, as I am now discussing post high school options with my sophomore student.  College is definitely on our minds and having this product was timely.  The product comes as a DVD/Workbook combination for $50 + shipping or you can pay $25 for online access to the videos for one year and a downloadable workbook.  The latter is the product I had access to.  My daughter and I watched the online videos together and it really held my high schooler’s attention as she is really interested in knowing more about the process and how to get money for college.  The College Common Sense program can be used with students in all grades since there are scholarships out there for elementary aged students.  In my opinion it is most beneficial for the high school student.

Lesson Plans were sent via email telling me exactly what to do for that week.  The first set of plans I started with had me filling out the FAFSA4caster at FAFSA.gov to see if my daughter was eligible for need based aid.  Going through this exercise helped me to understand how need is a relative term.  What one needs in terms of financial aid depends upon the cost of attending a given school.   So I shouldn’t avoid the expensive schools just because of cost.  The lesson plans also include SAT type activities for kids to practice.  Since we do our own SAT prep we skipped over these exercises.

The second set of lesson plans had us actually searching for scholarships that my daughter was eligible for.  We found one that was relatively easy to apply for and sent off the online application.   This really gave us a feeling of accomplishment.  Two other scholarship opportunities my daughter emailed to herself to fill out later as they require essays.   She picked essays that didn’t require too much research as she could pull from her own experiences and produce a good essay easily. 

Before viewing the online videos you can download a pdf file which is a detailed explanation of what is on the video.  This is great so that you can go back over the details after looking at the video.  The video covers topics such as the financial aid process, and how to find free money for school, and organizing the system.  Currently, I keep all scholarship information in an email folder on my computer.  Ms. Ames' system is a paper system that organizes all scholarship information by month in a binder.  This is a good system as it ensures that you always have something to put your hands on and that you constantly work on your binder and scholarship goals.  Depending upon how many scholarships you apply for, I do see how it can get confusing if you don’t remember what you’ve applied for or which deadlines are due when.  I have a spare binder and printed out some of the scholarships that require essays so that my daughter can work on these as soon as possible.  Highlighting important information on scholarship requirements as Ms. Ames suggested allowed me to catch important information on one scholarship with a 1500 word essay limit.  My daughter thought 1500 was the minimum so now we can go back and edit the current essay she is working on.  The College Common Sense program can be very time consuming but you only get out of it what you put into it and I think it is well worth the effort.  Even if we don’t win any scholarships, my daughter has had an abundance of essay writing practice which will come in handy at college.

We were able to visit one of the colleges on my daughter’s list during the review period.  It really opened our eyes.  The school has a very comprehensive website and there is so much information there but visiting the campus and hearing what the professors and administrators had to say about their school was an entirely different process.  It is an urban campus with 20,000-30,000 students.  It has the best program for my daughter’s intended major but we aren’t quite sure how we feel about the campus being in the middle of a major capital city.  We got to tour two residential halls and eat at the student commons.  It was a long walk between buildings in cold weather but we enjoyed sharing this experience together.  The College Common Sense program includes a college campus tour worksheet but we didn’t take it with us.  Most of the information on the sheet can be found on the school’s website so when we get closer to knowing which schools my daughter wants to apply to we will look over this worksheet to try and fill in the blanks.  For this visit we just wanted to soak up the experience.  

VCU Rams

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Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product through the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

Flu season

There is no fun in being sick.  Tuesday two of my daughters and I were in bed all day.  My oldest daughter took care of us and the baby.  Wednesday all of us except for the baby were in bed or on the couch all day while my husband stayed home from work to take care of us.  A visit to the doctor revealed that two of us tested positive for strep throat and the flu.  We are all on antibiotics and tamiflu as we all have the same symptoms.

Thursday my husband comes home from work and barely makes it up to the bedroom.  He said it hit him like a ton of bricks when he left work and the 2 hour commute home almost did him in.  It has been a miserable week to say the least.  One bright light to my day was having the lady in front of me in the grocery line give me her BOGO free strawberries just because the kids looked as if they would enjoy them.  God bless that woman for her small act of kindness!  It wasn’t even about the strawberries as much as it was about her thoughtfulness.  She has no idea what kind of week I’ve had but she really did make my day.

Needless to say no school happened this week.  Because I am on the upside of healing I managed to crank out a study guide for my daughter’s science test and we finished the video for a poetry curriculum I am reviewing.  I am looking forward to next week being completely different – better.

 Head over to weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers to see what other moms were up to this week.

The kid who never has enough to do. . . .

Is this really an issue, a 6th grader who no matter how much you give her to do finishes before noon?

We have daily bible readings.  I try to start our day with this but if for some reason it doesn't happen the kids read the passage on their own as scheduled on their grid sheets.  She does one lesson daily in her grammar book, one lesson daily in her math book.  We do geography and science together but more times than not she is waiting on me to sit down to do it with her.  On occasion I'll copy the mapwork or worksheet for geography and she does it on her own.  I purchased a Prentice-Hall literature workbook to give her more literature work to do.  This is usually reading a short narrative, taking notes on the concept, answering a few questions about the story, and doing short assignments in a reader's journal. Finally, she is suppose to read an hour a day (may or may not happen).  She doesn't like to read.  She says it makes her sleepy.

She still is often finished between noon and 3 pm.  There is also 20-30 minutes of piano practice.  Honestly, I don't always hear the piano.  If I didn't have 6 kids (3 homeschooled and one running around in diapers) perhaps I could make sure she dotted every "i" and crossed every "t" then she wouldn't finish before the end of the day but that just isn't possible.  She really is on top of everything she just often skips the hour reading and piano practice sometimes.  I grapple with feeling guilty that I haven't planned adequately for her but then realize she will often get ....(as I'm typing I hear the piano :) and its 11:56 am)...... all the academics out of the way so that she can run off to the basement to do what she wants to do in solace - sewing, writing in her journal, building with Legos, or nod off :0.

This is where being a part of the TOS review crew is really a blessing.  While my other two older kids are swamped daily and often need the weekends to catch up, the products I have to review for the crew are a sneaky way of giving my 6th grader extra work in the name of helping mommy do a review.

I suppose having this "problem" isn't so bad I just don't want to slack off in keeping her challenged.  I desire for them all to reach their full potential.   I'm off to look at curriculum for next year perhaps a change is in order.  Something that is more challenging and takes a full academic day to complete.


Head over to weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers to see what other moms were up to this week.