Homeschooling: The Important Questions

Recently, I spent some time with a woman musing about homeschooling.  She’s teacher in the public schools, and she feels certain she wants something different for her children, who are still several years away from school-aged.  So she’s considering homeschooling and wanted to pick the brain of someone who was walking that path.  Given the ages of her kids (three and one), her questions wisely aren’t about curriculum.  They’re about surviving, and they cause me to think.

One of her first was, “Do you ever want to kill your kids?”  This is the less-subtle version of, “I could never do this.  It would drive me crazy.”  I answered as I always do to that line of questioning:  ”I haven’t eaten my children yet.”  This extreme question and its equally eyebrow-raising response address what is at the heart of what many fear about homeschooling.

I didn’t set out to homeschool my kids.  Four months after my first was born, I returned to work as a physician assistant, although at 20 hours a week.  Honestly, I was desperate to return.  Yes, I liked my job.  And, yes, I loved my son.  But having worked up until the day prior to his birth, the world of the at-home mother overwhelmed me.  Lonely, unconnected, and caught in the time warp common to mothers of their first child, I knew I’d be a better mom if I returned to work. So until my younger was born, four years later, my then-husband and I walked the tightrope between work and home, and we did it fairly well.

But by the time my younger was born, I’d had enough of juggling an often sick child and unrelenting, family-unfriendly jobs.  So I stayed home, with plans to work evenings and weekends when my second got a bit older.  Then, I intended to find suitable schools, return to regular work, and lead a “normal” life.  But life didn’t agree, and for reasons of poor fit and parental fatigue with schools, we came home in the middle of my older son’s second grade year.  My younger son, a challenging three-year-old was in public preschool two mornings a week, which was also a poor fit but allowed me some time alone with my older.

And I didn’t eat my young.  Yes, I told this young mother, I yell sometimes.  Yes, I lose it.  Yes, there are days when the routine of a work day seems far preferable to the relative chaos of homeschooling.  But, no, I’ve never really looked back and wished I’d never begun.

“What if I don’t like it?” she asks. “What if I want them to go back to school?  I don’t want to fail.”

I explained that we reassess the situation each year, with a sincere reminder that school is fine, if that is what a child wants.  I also confessed that I’d threatened a return to school on many occasions, generally saying something like, “If you refuse to learn here, then I am breaking the law having you home, and you’ll have to go to school.”  Tears ensue, first the child’s then, generally in the privacy of my room, mine.  Those moments are far more a statement about my reluctance to shift my plans when those plans aren’t working than they are about my children’s desire to learn.

But return to school isn’t failure.  It’s merely an adjustment in course.  School isn’t bad.  Bad educational fits are bad, and homeschooling can be a bad fit just as school can be.  When I’ve played the return-to-school card at home, it’s almost always out of fear that somehow I am failing — failing them, ruining their future, scarring them for life.  In contrast, when I ask my honest annual “do you want to go to school in the Fall” question, it’s not out of fear at all but out of a desire to respect for their desires for their education.

And what if I should decide, for whatever reason, that I can’t do this anymore?  Then they’d go back.  It has to work for both sides.  It’s a line I often give as a La Leche League leader when talking to an unhappy (usually sleep-deprived) new mom:  if it’s not working for both of you, something probably needs to change. For some families, return to school come junior high or high school is the desired result.  Entry to school is far from homeschool failure.  Being miserable while homeschooling indicates a need for change.

“But will I lose myself if I homeschool them?” this young mother asks.

“That’s up to you,” I reply.  I certainly know moms who lose themselves.  They struggle to find who they are as small, needy people grow in independence and reach out further into the world.  But I’ve seen the same for at-home moms who don’t homeschool, women who struggle for their identity once the youngest is in school all day, or perhaps once that youngest reaches middle school, where parental assistance at school is less welcome.  In other words, it’s not a uniquely homeschooling issue

I told her how I kept my identity (as more than mom) in plain view: I volunteer via La Leche League, I work (very) part-time (making return to work later far easier), I write, I knit, I make time and space to be without my lovely children.  I take time alone, and I make sure I’m still comfortable with the person I find during that time.  Yes, being a homeschooling parent is part of my identity, but it’s not the whole shebang.

This young mother asked other questions about finding similarly minded community, managing financially, and losing one’s career, which are also important issues to families considering the homeschooling lifestyle, although their answers are much more specific to the individual.   All of her questions are far more important before setting out on a homeschooling odyssey than questions about curriculum, record-keeping, and pedagogy.  Those latter concerns have their place, and they are likely ninety percent of what more homeschooling books, blogs, and article are about.  This young mother’s questions, instead, were the ones of the heart, the ones that can keep us up at night and fill us with worry and doubt before we even begin.  They are the important questions for all of us, wherever we are along our homeschooling path.

NanoWriMo III.V: E-book Achieved

(Part I details how the process of writing began.  Part II and III recount the editing and publishing process.)

After posting that the process of turning my son’s  novel from NaNoWriMo 2011 into an e-book was either too pricey (via CreateSpace) or too much labor on my part, I took an hour and a half yesterday morning and got the job done.  Almost all of that time was spent reformatting, which is tedious work, but it’s done.  Only hours later, Grand River Hotel became available in Kindle edition, available to borrow for Amazon Prime members or for purchase for $0.99.  Kindle Direct Publishing lacks some of the hand-holding that CreateSpace does, but it is still an easy way to move a printed work to market quickly and for my favorite price — free.

Will his book become the next best-seller in children’s fiction?  No, and that’s not the point.  It’s powerful to see your name in print, to hold a volume of your work in your hands. It reinforces that thoughts and ideas can become a reality, even if in a small way.  It’s proof that hard work can yield tangible results.  And the process has been a learning opportunity for both of us:  he’s learned to polish a work, and I’ve learned how to navigate a bit of the self-publishing world.  The fruits of these labors reach far beyond this first book.

NaNoWriMo Part III: The Final Product

(Part I recalls the start of his writing process, moving from reluctant writer to willing novelist.  Part II discusses the editing process.  Part III.V covers e-book publication.)

He’s published.  My ten-year-old son self-published his NaNoWriMo novel through CreateSpace just a month and a half after finishing is 12,000 word book.  It took an intense month of writing followed by a challenging month of rewriting and editing, but Grand River Hotel is available in paperback at Amazon.

I’m obscenely proud of him.  He’s pleased and quite modest, although he likes to remind me he’s the first in our house to be published.  CreateSpace proved to be relatively simple to use, taking us from his story on the computer (originally written on Google Docs for greater portability from laptop to Mac to Dad’s house) to print with minimum pain and wailing on my part. CreateSpace offered a host of cover designs and art, templates for Microsoft Word, and decent support along the way.  (He did all the writing work and cover design and text.  I did the data transfer from Google Docs to Microsoft Word then to their layout software.  It wasn’t tricky, but each edit once it was in their format took a few somewhat tedious steps.)

Anyway, it’s done.  Five free copies are on their way, thanks to a NaNoWriMo code he received for meeting his writing goal, although we’ll likely order a few more for unsuspecting relatives.  I’d like to report it’s available in e-book formation, but the price point for doing that was a bit steep via CreateSpace and the reformatting a bit much for me via Kindle Direct Publishing, at least now.  His biggest thrill?  Having he own ISBN number.  He’s proud of his accomplishment – writing a novel and surviving a few edits – but that number seems to bring the greatest satisfaction.

His next project?  The next book in the Grand River Hotel series is underway, but the author is otherwise occupied lately.  With the rush of NaNoWriMo gone, he’s moved on to a deep study of the Revolutionary War, including daily private re-enactments in the living room (so private, my older son and I are not welcome to enter).  I’ve hinted that he may want to try a piece of historical fiction, and he’s mulling that over.  Whatever he decides, he’s gained significantly from the writing, editing, and self-publishing process over the last three months.  Now it’s time for his mom to catch up.

Behavior is Communication

Behavior is communication.  That’s a maxim more recently held among many parents of autistic spectrum kids. It’s certainly true with my Aspie son.  His behavior is my best indicator of internal milieu.  While my younger son is verbally precocious and his output, um, prolific, it’s his behavior that tells me what’s really going on.  When I see him chewing his shirt or blanket, I know he’s needing to soothe himself.  That behavior isn’t random, and it isn’t there to drive me nuts.  It may appear to be both of those things, but it’s not.  It’s communication and coping mechanism wrapped into one.  Holes and soggy clothing aside, it’s not a terribly problematic behavior, and he’s glad to substitute a piece of gum when asked.

Some behaviors are less clear.  Breakdowns during lessons require more detective work and rarely related to the assigned work.  When he becomes teary during a page of math problems, fatigue and anxiety are often to blame.  The anxiety may be about an upcoming flu shot, global warming, or his birthday.  Even fun stuff causes anxiety, since it also entails change. But his behavior for all is pretty much the same — teariness for assignments he generally manages well and resistance to all demands.  In the last year, thanks to growth, good therapy, and low-dose medication, with prompting he’s often able to identify the problem and work through.   We didn’t have this a year ago, but not just because he was struggling to express himself.

I wasn’t listening as well then.  I was listening for words, words in response to, “What’s wrong?”  I was watching for body language that matched his words, and the match wasn’t there.  I wasn’t considering the behaviors themselves to be communication.  Oh, I knew that certain behaviors meant he was distressed.  But the tantrums and all tended to overwhelm me, making it hard for me to really listen to what his behavior was saying.  I saw the meltdown, the chewing, the foot tapping, and I just felt frustrated.  Frustrated that I didn’t know what was wrong.  Frustrated at the behavior, which was often loud and large. Frustrated at the interruption in our lives, which occurred nearly every day.

When I can remember that behavior is communication, I can respond initially to what is being communicated, not to the behavior.  No, I don’t tolerate violent acts to people or property.  And yes, behavior does have consequences.  But we do the best around here when I listen to what he’s really communicating.  When I recognize the anxiety, fear, anger, or sorrow behind the behavior, I can respond to that. When he identifies the emotions behind his behavior (which often takes help), he’s more likely to shift away from more problematic behaviors.    Also, there are some behaviors best let be.  I’m delighted my son has found ways to calm himself, even if one of those ways is chewing his shirts to pieces.  He spent more than half of his life without any of those independent mechanisms, requiring me to soothe him.  I still do help him out, cuddling or just being near when needed, but finding ways to manage that oneself is a task of growing up.

Behavior is communication.  This holds true for my older son.  At fourteen, he has plenty of ability to express his feelings, but, whether due to gender, age, or temperament, he often doesn’t say much.  He speaks volumes when he retreats to his room to read –again.  Even missed assignments and failed tests give me information as to his state of mind and mood.  It’s harder for me to see his behavior as communication, perhaps because, in general, he communicates his feelings in words more readily than his brother.  But his behavior towards his academic work or music studies are a window into his heart and mind, one that as a mom to a teen, I’m glad to have available.  As with my younger, I try to verify my understanding of a behavior.  Did he not finish work because it was too hard, because he was bored, or because he has bigger matters on his mind?  This isn’t an out to assignments he doesn’t want to do — life requires us to do plenty that we’d rather avoid.  (My examples to my boys include cleaning toilets, cooking meals each day, and showing up for work on time.)

It’s far too easy to jump on the behavior — the tantrum, the late or sloppy work, the retreat to a room — rather than to examine the communication behind the behavior.  It takes a fair amount of self-restraint to block the initial (often negative) reaction to the behavior and think for a moment and ask aloud what’s going on. It takes some patience to help a child sort through their hearts and minds, but it’s worth it.

The more I try to see behavior as communication, the less conflict we have around here.  It decreases my yelling and their whining.  And, to my delight, it increases their ability to identify and share their feelings before they wash over into their behavior.  That makes for a more peaceful home, which we all appreciate.

Secret:  This works with adults, too, but adults tend to be more guarded about their emotions and have stronger ego-defenses.  Strong reactions and grownup tantrums are rarely about anyone but the one having the snit. At least remembering that can help you de-escalate and keep your own behavior in check.

Book Ban: Not In Our Homeschool

This post is in response to a book challenge at a local public school.  Here’s the introduction to blog post written by a parent of a child in the AP Literature class under scrutiny:

The following letter was written in response to a situation unfolding at my high-school-age daughter’s school.  In short, a group of parents are trying to remove several books from an Advanced Placement Literature class, despite the class being voluntary and parents being provided with a detailed syllabus prior to the start of the year.  After a few outspoken parents protested, a committee meeting was held, at which the parents protesting had the opportunity to speak.  This meeting, held at the curious time of 5:00PM (prohibitively early for me to attend, and, I assume, many other working parents), did not allow parents with opposing viewpoints to address the committee.  Teachers were allowed the opportunity to defend their curricula, however, and other parents were allowed to submit written opinions.

Sadly, this drama is all-too familiar.  Books such as Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five,” Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” and Orwell’s “1984″ faced similar such efforts over the years… and have rightfully, in time, become classics of American literature.  But even now, there remain those who would rather choose censorship rather than expose their high-school-age adolescents to new ideas, challenging views, and the latest generations’ emerging classics. (Yancy)

As a homeschooling parent, all curriculum has to pass through just one set of eyes:  mine. No committees, no superintendents, no teachers. Just me. Like many homeschooling parents, I make dozens of bigger curriculum choices a year, often including mid-course corrections when my carefully laid plans bomb by December.  I’ve rejected curriculum because it was too boring, not challenging enough, too challenging, or not helping us enough to bother.  I’ve let curriculum go that didn’t include what I’d like it to (evolution, for example) and that included too much of what wasn’t well-edited and well-researched.

What I’ve never done in fourteen years of parenting and eight years of homeschooling is ban a piece of fiction.   Now, that may not be a big deal in a house where nonfiction was the preferred reading material for much of their (to date) reading experience.  And no, I don’t present them with exceptionally racy or violent fiction, prodding them to read it. (That would, however assure they’d reject it on the spot.)

I did hand my older son Judy Blume’s Then Again, Maybe I Won’t when he was eleven or twelve, recalling that was the age I devoured whatever titles Blume had to offer. (Adult titles were yet to come.)  He’d delighted in  Fudge books when much younger, but didn’t care for this coming of age title, starting it then soon stopping. Between ten and twelve, he also rejected My Brother Sam is Dead and Johnny Tremain based on the back cover summary alone, while managing to finish Call of the Wild with my support and guidance.  He’s a sensitive child, and violence especially wasn’t palatable for him.  In contrast, my younger was ready for such material far younger, seeing the book as a whole far younger than his brother good.  Temperaments vary, and I respect that.

By thirteen, my older was no less sensitive but had grown more able to read fiction without it consuming him.  He read To Kill a Mockingbird.  So did his brother, then nine.  I discussed rape and racism to the levels each was able to comprehend it.  It was similar to how their father and I handled Tom Sawyer (age 6 for each) and Huckleberry Finn, many years earlier:  we put the language and situations in the context of the times of the book.  As my boys mature, so do the themes in their reading.  Both pick their own fiction have yet to have their values overturned by the process. Over the years, they’ll continue to run into the sometimes ugly underside of humanity.  At least when it happens in fiction, events can be set at some distance, discussed, and thought over in the safety of one’s own home with one’s family.  Unfortunately, much of what scares us is at a much closer distance.

Fiction is the ideal venue for exploring the world of ideas, places, and happening that aren’t part of our everyday lives.  Good literature transports us to another time, another world, or at least another set of shoes.  Literature either removes the mundane allowing us to focus on the extraordinary or brings the mundane into focus, forcing us to see what commonalities we all as human hold.

So what place violence, sex, difficult ideas, and four-letter words in our literature, much less our children’s literature?  Because they are part of our lives.  I’m not talking about gratuitous sex and violence, the kind that fills so much of prime time and the movies (and I do censor that). But sex and violence are part of the human condition.  So are hunger, fear, pain, loneliness, and a host of painful experiences.  Love, too, falls on the continuum of our experience, as does courage, tenacity, bravery, and compassion. Literature brings us all of this, while taking us to places that our pocketbooks cannot afford and to times that physics will not allow.  Literature brings us beyond our singular human experience and shows us what was, what is, and what could be.

So when I hear a local, generally well-regarded public high school in the area is holding meetings regarding removal of two of the books in their AP Literature course for high school juniors and seniors, I worry.  This school provided a list of books for the course before the course began, giving time for parents to voice concerns beforehand rather than midway through a rigorous class where each book was selected to demonstrate a particular literary element or theme. (Let me add that if a child was deeply disturbed by an element in a book, I’d back allowing the child to skip that element, if putting it into context didn’t reduce the tension.)

Why does a homeschooling parent care about banning books in public school?  Heck, I can choose anything I want for my kids, meaning I can leaving anything out, too.  I don’t have to let them in on racism, genocide, rape, environmental disasters, political ideas that differ from mine, or the like.  It is, after all, an approval committee of one.

I care because my children are better served by exposure to ideas that don’t just come from me.  They’re better, more completely educated by hearing and reading about more than what I believe, for that would be limiting indeed. Challenged with ideas within the safety of literature is an ideal place to start this pondering.  Reading allows time for reflection — putting a book down to think for a moment, a day, a week is a luxury we do not have in the immediacy of live interaction or even the movie theater.  Reading knowing you have parents, friends, mentors, or teachers available with whom to ponder aloud provides opportunities to sort through the difficult or even upsetting material most quality literature presents.  I can’t think of a better way than through reading literature for most challenging materials to be presented.

I care what the public schools do because those kids are part of the world in which my children will life.  They are my sons’ future colleagues and companions, as well as their generation’s leaders.  They should start now, in the safety of their youth, exploring what is hard, what discomforts them and turns the warmth of their world on its head.  They should read what they wouldn’t have discovered on their own, what might take guidance to understand, even what makes their parents a bit uncomfortable.  That’s what starts making their world bigger.  That’s what leads to understanding more than what they see in their homes, their community, their church.  It leads to a better understanding of humanity.

That’s what I want for my children.  I want them to know the world they live in, not just the sanitized parts that make me the most comfortable.  I want their beliefs in compassion, kindness, and inclusiveness to be stretched to include those who are hard to love and include.  I want them to read the literature of the past and of today, where sometimes the elements of it are disturbing, where characters are imperfect, and where not all endings are happy.  By the time they head to college, they’ll have begun to grapple with all of this, and they’ll be better prepared to deal with the literature — and world — that confronts them in academia and beyond.

Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2010 (ALA)

Banned Books Week

Review: Life of Fred Pre-algebra

I’ve never taught Pre-algebra.  I’ve taught Algebra.  I’ve taught all the math that comes before it, at least what Singapore Math comes before Algebra.  But Pre-algebra?

I had no need, until this year.  My younger is a hair away from the end of Singapore 6B and doing just fine, but for an assortment of reasons that deserve their own post, I’d like to delay a full, rigorous Algebra program.  He’s fairly mathematically talented but not terribly interested, and since we’re not in a race, I thought we’d take the scenic path to the Big Four (Algebra, Geometry, Trig/Pre-calculus, and Calculus). He also has the Algebra jitters, and I’d like to see him more confident before launching into one of my favorite classes.

So after considering a variety of choices and hearing so many accolades for Stanley Schmidt’s Life of Fred series, I secured copies of Life of Fred Pre-algebra I and II.  My ten-year old was thrilled.  We’d snuggled on the couch enjoying The Adventures of Penrose, the Mathematical Cat by Theoni Pappas, and he was certain more math on the couch with Mom and Fred would be equally delightful.  So we settled into the first volume.

Life of Fred is math told in story form.  Each chapter at this level is a few pages of story/biology or economics/math followed by about three to ten problems and questions in the section “Your Turn to Play.”  Answers immediately follow the questions, and we found covering them with an index card kept one from taking in the answers while working the problems.  After seven or eight chapters, a set of five tests of sorts (“The Bridge”) appears.  According to the book, the student should continue to attempt these ten-question tests until mastering one with an 80%.  Then the student can move on to the next section.  Looking back for assistance on all of the tests is encouraged.  At the end of the book, are five “Final Bridge” exams, with twenty-one questions each.

All the books tell the story of Fred.  Fred is a five-year-old mathematical genius who teaches at KITTENS University and sleeps under his desk.  In Pre-algebra I, the story revolves around gardening (in Fred’s office) and a scandalous, swindling shopping mall owner.  The story is interspersed with brief descriptions of sets, volumes of various solids, the five kingdoms of living thing, a smattering of genetics, a bit of algebraic equations, and more.  Evolution in not on the topic list (and the author points that out in the introduction).  Far more biology surfaces in this book than math, although most of the problems to work are mathematical.

No risk that I’ll give away the ending of Pre-algebra I.  We lost interest midway through. Actually, I lost interest in Chapter 3, but my son hung in until the halfway point.  The science is sound, if rather scattered and incomplete. The story was far from compelling, at least to the two of us.  I’ve heard from those who’ve used Fred for the preceding Fractions and Decimals books that those earlier volumes are far more focused and interesting.  And while I’ve read on message boards that some families manage to make Life of Fred their entire math curriculum, for many folks it seems to be a supplement.  If my son had enjoyed it, I suppose we’d have stuck with it as supplement, a way to vamp a bit before Algebra — The Real Thing.

But he didn’t enjoy it, so we stopped.  Perhaps our problem stemmed from not having used prior volumes of Fred. Not that I felt we were missing parts of the story, but the scattershot of math and biology often left me explaining details the author omitted.  I understood that issue when set theory tripped him up (none of that in the elementary Singapore) — that was some of why I decided to try the series.  Sets, a bit of probability, and those sorts of odds and ends are what we need.  Unfortunately, there was precious little of that math — or any math — to be found in Pre-Algebra 1.  The biology was sound, but it’s largely vocabulary (solipsism, proprioceptors, hexaploid, pleotropic genes) amongst interesting biological facts, not ground-up biology that will provide a strong base for future studies.

Yes, I was disappointed.  I was disappointed four years back when my older tried Life of Fred Advanced Algebra.  I can’t recall all the details of that break-up with that piece of curriculum, but I do know my older son’s learning style did not jibe with the series either.  Perhaps it’s just us.  Life of Fred is designed to be self-taught, and we just don’t do that with math.  I have two mathematically talented kids, but they like interaction with a human for math.  I like it that way.  Math deserves conversation. Certainly one could do that with Life of Fred, but it is definitely a sit-and-read kind of series, not a work-at-the-white-board one.

Life of Fred offers books for an ever-expanding range of ages, now starting with early elementary math and reaching to Calculus and Linear Algebra.  Obviously Schmidt is doing something right with this unique approach to math.  But it’s not for us.  We’ll continue to take our time at this point of my younger son’s math education, but instead of Fred we’ll reach for Zaccaro’s Challenge Math (and later Real-Life Algebra), more from Theoni Pappas, and other diversions yet to be discovered.

Word Games

That's my score on the right, making for three losses in row.

“Aren’t you proud of how well your children play Quiddler?” my older asked this morning.  

“Sure,” I replied while losing again to his ten-year-old brother.  Admittedly, I agreed through gritted teeth, since I like to win just as much as I like to be right.  However, my sons’ growing prowess with words delights me, wordsmith that I am.  At the start of our homeschooling experience, science and math ruled the house. Looking back, I can see they dominated our plans and energy at home mostly because they weren’t as easily available in school.  For years, science, math, and history were our subjects of focus.  I worked language arts into the edges for many years. However, in the last year, there’s been a swing toward all things wordy.

Lessons from the Kitchen

There’s plenty to learn kitchen.  I mean, there’s plenty to learn beyond the math required to  half or double recipes, although the often abstract nature of operations fractions becomes concrete when cookies or brownies enter the equation.  Kitchen time furthers other academic and life skills, and this time of year, it’s easier to entice my guys into that room.
My boys went through periods of loving to help mom in the kitchen, generally at ages when they were, um, less than actually helpful.  My older was two when he mastered snapping the ends off green beans, although he was apt to start snapping them smaller and smaller if under-supervised.  Thanks to Montessori at age 4 and 5, both were proficient with a sharp knife. (They practiced on pickles first, then cheese.  And, yes, the sharp knife was on a low shelf for quite a bit of his time in that classroom.  Their teacher amazed me.)  As they grew, their interest in all things kitchen has waxed and waned.  My older went through a few baking sprees, including a meringue making binge.  My younger spent a fall making soups and some delightful periods of washing dishes.  Neither are chefs in the making, most likely, but both are learning plenty. Here’s a few of their lessons from the kitchen.

NaNoWriMo, Part II

(Part I explains how my reluctant writer turned novelist.  Part III and III.V cover the sometimes painful editing and publishing process.)

November 30th came and went without much fanfare.  My younger son met his 10,000 word goal for National Novel Writing Month’s Young Writer’s Program on the 29th, so we’d hoorayed and back-patted a day earlier.  It was the 30th when he actually finished his story, which turned out to be 11,007 words.  We cheered that accomplishment, too, but meeting his word and being declared a winner on the site was the joy of the 29th.

What to do next?

Early Review: CPO Middle School Earth Science

This is our Earth Science year.  I’ve never formally studied Earth Science (the honors sequence in my high school bypassed it in favor of two years of biology), although my older son was intensely interested in astronomy, meteorology, and natural disasters throughout his younger years.  My younger son had no such previous interest, so this year we set to filling that hole in his education.  He and I are using CPO Middle School Earth Science and, five chapters in, enjoying the tour of our planet. (We had Chemistry to finish for the first two months.  Some day I will finish my science and history plans in a school year.)

CPO Science offers secular courses in Earth, Physical, and Life sciences at the middle school level and physical science (with or without some earth science) at the high school level.