Twtm

[Kylix]

Anyone here NOT like TWTM? I checked the book out of the library so excitedto finally read it. And while I like the basic idea of giving my child a classical education, I feel the authors go over board. And it just seems so dismissive of unschooling. Like it almost looks down on it.

It just reminds too much of school at home. Especially with the set time periods for each subject per day per grade. I was looking at the first grade recommendations..and geesh! It seems like the kid would be doing sit down work all day!

I know that some here use it and adapt it to make it work. How do you do it? Like I said, I like the "concept" of it but the way the book is written really turned me off. But if someone could show me how they've used it in a much more relaxed manner (think "unschooling" as that's my passion) then maybe I could be persuaded not to look at it in such a poor fashion...

Kylix

[SRHS]

We use it soley as an Agenda of what to do each year...Like for First Grade we had our list
Mummies
Greeks
Romans
Throw in a few studies on Asia and Americas if possible.

I have th Kingfisher Book, and he looks through it and if he finds something interesting that I didn't plan to cover, well, we change gears.

For Science this year (earth Science) we did Volcanoes (for what seemed like FOREVER), then Tornadoes, Storms, Rocks, Fossils, Crystals. We use nutshells kits for science experiments/activites but we do it more in an unschool fashio...I guess we unschool with an agenda vs true just unschooling and going whereever his interests lead. He needs a tad bit of structure.

We don't do spelling except for words we come across in our reading, handwriting is done whenever he writes, math we do some math everyday and are using Scott Foresman. WE definitely do the narration after reading soemthing...but grammar...well, we're definitley deficient in that according to twtm...

Hope that helps...pm me if you have any other questions.
Susan

[Linda KS]

I don't like TWTM. It just really turns me off. I do like Charlotte Mason stuff, though. It seems to have the high points (real books, Book of the Centuries, arts) but without the dogma.

[Marsupialmom]

The schedules that are given was because that was what the publisher wanted. Also in one of the first chapters the book does say make it your own and you cannot do it all.

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/schedules.php
http://www.welltrainedmind.com/hsday.html
http://www.welltrainedmind.com/J01script.html

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/articleindex.php
For reading you can do games.

I am not the best person on how to make it "unschooling" style. My kids (especially my son) needs structure and division of subjects.

But here is one activity they did out of "Story of the World". We read a chapter on the pyramids and did narration/s last week. The activity today was to build a pyramid out of Legos. It gives instructions for both Lego's and sugar cubes. We are fighting fruit flies so that is why we decided not use the sugar cubes, that was after we researched fruit flies, made drawings and labeled parts. We also have set up another science project with the fruit flies, at my son's creation and wish. This fly study fits right in with the science recommendations for both (1st and 4th grader). My daughter is just observing.

My son is also reading History of US because he wants to. Actually we started that last year because he wanted to focus on American history. I just filled in hear and there. We researched Napoleon deeper. It was my son's decision to do History of US and STOW with his sister. Since he has both I don't make him read as much as I would like him to about the Ancients. He just heard me read "The Story of the World" and asked if he could work with his sister.

When we went through the ancients the first time with my son I found books at the library like that gave ideas poems, et about what ever time period/area we were one. We cooked meals and made togas. Did little writing because my son had motor skill issues.

My son by their idea should be starting outlining for his second go around but he still has work to do other areas in writing so we work on narration and just getting his ideas out.

We started typing for him this year. Which I have to set a time up for or he would do it all day (not good for his eyes or wrist).

As for math my son we did Minquon (SP), which was 20 minutes tops a day. The only thing I wish I had done differently was drilled his math facts more. There are songs for this. We play a game called Countdown to help him speed up his math facts.

My daughter we started out with Math-u-See but she hated the program. I took her to a home schooling store and let her pick the program she wanted “Rod and Staff”. It has duckies instead of boring blocks as manipulatives and there is drill of math facts. We sing them, rap them, whisper, mumble, et. She loves this program.

Even though I use it as on outline if something I am using doesn’t work for my children I don’t usually make them stick with it.

I think we all need to remember what works for one child won’t for another. Unschooling bothered my son. He does better with schedules and routines. That is his personality. My oldest daughter wants to do what ever her brother has done. The youngest learns by osmosis, LOL. She learned to write her alphabet by watching me teach her brother and sister. She can do this at 4. Basic reading skills she is picking up by listening to me work with the others.

We do a structured grammar for both children. It might take me 10 minutes to do one lesson for my 1st grader. My son requires more time (approx. 45min)because there is more writing.

For spelling with my daughter we still do games.

My son we are doing a program for dyslexic children.

[Kylix]

Thanks to all of you.

SRHS--Thanks! I like the idea of maybe having an outline of things of things you (general "you) would like to do over the course of the year or so and trying to guide your child towards that. Right now, I don't have any kids. I'm just a homeschooling fanatic and am already "planning" how I will handle it with my children. Thanks for the suggestions, though!

I really liked your real life story, Marsupialmom--i.e. reading about the pyramids and then building ones out of legos. That's the type of homeschooling that appeals to me.

I will definitely keep reading through the Well Trained Mind, I think there is alot there that is good. I just need to wade through the dogma.

Linda--I LOVE Charlotte Mason too and I didn't expect to. I think I'm lightening up on the unschooling thing. It is still my first love but I am starting to see that you can incorporate other ideas into it too. I see this (delving into Charlotte Mason and TWTM) as an education for ME and ways to guide my (future) children--very similar to the way that SRHS and Marsupialmom are using it.

Again, thanks!

Any others who use it want to speak up? I'm finding this interesting.

Kylix

[teachinmaof3]

I use WTM and don't follow every single thing they recommend. I make Classical Education work for my family.

Examples:
My dd isn't memorizing the Egyptian Pharoahs. Instead she will be memorizing The Lord's Prayer and Psalm 23.

We don't do dictation and narration right now.

I don't do all the copywork they recommend.

I don't keep all the notebooks.

I don't follow the time recommendations!!


What I do like is the order and structure of learning. I like the flow of history and science. It just works for us.

ITA with marsupialmom. And I would add:

Make a curriculum work for you, don't work for the curriculum.

[eilonwy]

We're doing TWTM and I absolutely love it, but I agree that they tend to go overboard on the whole "unschooling is evil" thing. Yes, unschooling is antithetical to classical education, but we can just leave it at that, there's no need to say that a child will never learn anything if we wait for them to bring it to us. (IMHO).

I think the schedule is a bit much; I don't know about most kids, but my niece doesn't need an hour of math each day. She finishes two or three Saxon lessons in about 25 minutes. That's not to say we don't do an hour of math, but the rest of it is real life math, like how much medicine BooBah needs to take, and things like that. I'm not real hung up on the time in any of the subjects, it's much more important to me to see how much work she gets done than how long it does (or doesn't) take her.

We do the dictation exercises, and will be doing more copywork later (I just don't have time for it right now . I try to incorporate real-life writing (letters to penpals, thank you notes, etc) into the curriculum. We're doing "First Language Lessons for The Well-Trained Mind" and we both love it; every day, my niece asks "when can we do grammar?" :LOL (For this, I owe my thanks to the public school system-- they didn't teach grammar at all, so my niece didn't learn to fear and hate it. Thanks! :LOL) She does not enjoy reading as much, but she's doing Hooked on Phonics (my sister bought it) and she really likes that.

I've even started teaching her piano. She's not doing sit-down work all day, although I also wondered about that when I started. There's a lot of work involved, but it's not always sitting at a desk; we do jumping jacks and clapping for math (those meetings are really boring if you can't move!), and she stands to recite her poems from FLL. I do have her stand up straight, look straight at me, and enunciate clearly for recitations, but she loves doing them and feels like she's putting on a show so she definately wants to do the best she can.

It is an intense program, but it reads more intensly than it is in real life. If you look at the books they recommend, you'll see that it's not nearly as much "work" as it appears to be, especially in the early years. The first dozen lessons of FLL, for example, all say pretty much the same thing. I don't think that even an average 6 year old will really take a month to learn that "A noun is the name of a person, place, thing or idea," especially since my niece with Asperger's picked it up in about a week just listening to her sister.

The history program, especially in grades 2-4, is rather Eurocentric; I'm working on that.

[2tadpoles]

I just wanted to read all the responses.

We're entering our sixth year of homeschooling and I've never read TWTM. I think that anything with the word "trained" in it, especially as pertaining to education and children, is a turn-off. I know you can't judge a book by its cover, but we've been doing fine without it.

[white_feather]

For the home schooling novices among us (myself included!) could you please tell me what the acronym TWTM stands for?

Thanks!

[Simply Nurtured]

white_feather,

It is The Well Trained Mind.

I do not use it, it has a different focus then what we are doing. I knew some other families using it years ago. They became really burnt out because they did try to do it ALL, and ended up sending their kids to school at high school age. The approach of not doing it all sounds like a good plan. I know that different approaches work for different families and there is room for all.

[Kylix]

2tadpoles, I had the same reaction on first hearing the name as well. "Trained" just has a bad connotation to me too.

The book, as it is normally, still turns me off but adapting it and making it my own is making it easier to take. I'll take what I like (a few things) and leave the rest.

I personally don't believe that children will NEVER learn anything if you wait for them to bring it to you. Also, I don't think unschooling rules out the parent broaching certain topics with the child. But there is a HUGE difference between hours of sit down school at home and the parent making suggestions to the child about possible reading material etc. I don't think that anyone here is sounding like they do the former but TWTM definitely does sound like it promotes the first rather than the second option and that's what is turn off for me.

But like I said, I will take what I like (the outline of possible things to foster in your child) and leave the rest (all the structure and dogma).

Kylix

[tarasam]

I read TWTM and had similar feelings, because we are of a child-led bent.

That said, my unschooled child seems to be following a classical education path without any formal guidance from me. For instance, he lives and breathes ancient history, and I found SOTW (written by the daughter in TWTM duo) to be a decent reference, if only as a jumping-off point and its bibliography for child-appropriate history books.

Tara