The Sun, History and Geography

Amazingly, I woke up this morning to birds singing. I haven't heard that in several days with all this rain! If you a weather follower (like me), you'll know that we've had something like 110 inches of rain in the last several days...OK, really it is around 4 inches but seems like feet!. Torrential downpour is an understatement. It does make me wonder where all that water comes from! I am very thankful that we are on the top of the mountain, because the plateaus and those on the side are really getting hit hard with flooding. The Lehigh River was four feet above flood level (forecast to be nearly six feet above by this afternoon) and Jim Thorpe (the town, not the guy :) ) declared a city emergency. Roads are destroyed and homes are full of water. It is just a mess. Up on the other end of the county, the Tobyhanna is flooding in Blakeslee too. We are safely here in the middle, but going anywhere is quite an adventure. I wanted to go to the Salvation Army this afternoon for their half-off day, but I don't know of a way there that isn't closed. It is just weird weather.

Yesterday we were all stick indoors again. Now I might occasionally let the kids go play in the rain, but it was actually storming with lightning and wind and black skies, so inside we all were. Cabin fever in the summer... who would have thougt?

I spent the majority of the day planning out our school schedule for next year and researching history and geography curriculum and materials. I just haven't settled into a history curriculum I'm in love with yet and that works for us. We started with The Mystery of History last fall and though I thought there was some great stuff in it, I didn't LOVE it. It was a bit too puffy. I know that doesn't mean much, but it is hard to explain so the word puffy meets the need for a word. I actually like the premise of the book and the author has done an amazing job gathering information into one place, but the activities were pretty involved in my opinion but also pretty necessary to get the information into the kids. It bordered closely to twadle for us. I loved the timeline idea, but the method describe (using a big sewing board) just wasn't working for us.

I love this part of homeschooling! We can change whenever we need to do so until we find what works best for us. The freedom to tailor to the needs is a big reason we are doing this. If something isn't working, we find something that will! Yes, it is work, but necessary. I will interject here, that if the local school was better or there was a local Christian school (and that if there was, we could afford it), our kids would most likely be there. We are not a militant homeschooling family :) We've done private school, public school, charter school and homeschool... each has advantages and disadvantages. There are things I really don't like about homeschooling and I'd be lying if I said otherwise, but for our family, for this place in life, this is the best thing for now. Nothing is perfect this side of heaven. Just thought I should clarify that point...

back to my rainy Tuesday and the hunt for history....

Mid-year, we moved Jot and Emma to The Story of the World which is a nice curriculum if used with the Activity Book. It is similiar to the k12 curriculum they had in the charter school but still came close to busy work and wasn't covering American History for many years which I wanted them to have. I love chronological history, but the Story of the World was repeating much that they had already been through and since Jot will soon study PA history, I felt some American history was needed and would be a bit more enjoyable.

Also mid-year, we moved Hannah into using the A History of US series. This is an awesome series. I love the way Joy Hakim writes and the material covered is balanced and thourough in the series. Hannah began using this when she was enrolled in the charter school, so I was familiar with it. Personally, since I love history, I knew these books would get used. I got the teacher's guides that Amazon sells too and these are working to some extent for us. The material is interesting, but Hannah seems to not like it too much. Now that doesn't necessarily mean we need to change anything, but having her enjoy history is more important to me that forcing information into her. I want to develop a love of learning and an enjoyment of history in her. I've seen her excitement with historical fiction and non-fiction as well, so I'm leaning more towards going with a literary based curriculum... in other words: real books. There are tons of book lists broken down by time periods, but I was looking for a bit more guidedance until I have more confidence of my ability to put together enough real books to fill out a year. And there is always the PA homeschool law of "the portfolio" and having something more than just a book list in there seems safe. Not that I think real and substantial learning isn't occurring without "paper evidence", because I know it is... but I really don't want the district on our case about anything and having a few worksheets in a portfolio is easy enough to do and satisfy the state as well. I also need some structure in the planning for my own sanity... so off I went to search history curriculums with a literature base.

Cathy Duffy's Top Picks book and website have been so helpful to me for various things and I highly recommend her stuff. In her book, I found TruthQuest History and we are considering giving this a try. I like that it provides an overview of the historical time period (chronological) and lots of information about the books that are listed (it includes some films as well). It is very flexible for our schedule and also has some writing activity ideas and quesitons for our use (and the portfolio). I think we'll start Hannah on Ancient Egypt/Ancient Greece mvoing her through a six year track and begin Emma and Jot with American History for Young Students at a slower pace so Jot can begin the second level stuff in sixth grade. Emma will repeat the lower level stuff with Faith or possible join Jot for the second level stuff...time will tell. Hannah will revisit American History in her later High School years so we will be reading our "A History of US" books still. I may use them for her composition copying work as well. I'll be reading them for my own enjoyment regardless!

We considered having them all work together for history, but the gap is so great between Jot and Hannah and it hadn't worked well for Science last year, so we're leaning toward two different tracks for history. It does make me wonder if everyone second guesses curriculum as much as I do?? All this was just over history... geography was another mess. I'm leaning at this point towards the Trail Guide series from Geography Matters , World for Hannah (to go along with her history) and U.S. for Jot and Emma. Thankfully, I think we're settled on the other subjects. For now anyway ;)

Another time perhaps, I'll blog about the stress we endured to initially decide on other subjects :) Nothing has created more sweat in prayer thus far in my life than how to educate our children. I often wish the Bible were more clear on which of the options was right and which was wrong.... would it be easier that way? All this decision making is hard work. Being grown up is much more trouble than I ever thought it would be than when I was 12.