Let's Write Right...alright?

 Disclaimer: As a member of the 2010-2011 TOS Homeschool Review Crew, I received a complimentary copy of the product in this review in exchange for my fair, honest and unbiased review. No other compensation was received.

I keep wanting to say that I've found a NEW way to teach handwriting, but the truth is that Peterson Directed Handwriting has been around since 1908!  As I used the materials that were provided to us for the purpose of this review, I found myself wishing many times that I'd found this before I ever started homeschooling.  I'll tell you why in a minute, but first let me give you an overview of this amazing program.

Peterson Directed Handwriting works differently than any other handwriting program I've ever used...and with four kids with four different learning styles, I've used a LOT!  Peterson approaches handwriting as rhythm-based muscle-training.  Instead of students tracing letters over and over again, Peterson teaches students to learn their letters and numbers as simply a sequence of trained movements.

Each movement is learned in the following four steps:
1. Illustrate and describe (that's my job)
2. Air write and say (me with children)
3. Finger trace and say (on paper, a white board, newspaper on a wall, etc; the children do this step)
4. Write and say (with a pencil on paper; the children do this step)

I've been using the Peterson PDF By Hand E-Workbooks for Homeschool program with both Kaitlyn (6) and Megan (4) since we received it.  We received Print Step 1, Print Step 2 and Print Step 3 e-workbooks (we're still working on Print Step 1).  To me this program is very intuitive and makes complete sense.  Each letter is formed using specific verbal reminders.  For instance, a small "h" is formed by using the clues "tall down" and "roll around"; those tell me that my first stroke is a long straight vertical line, my second stroke moves in a curve to the right.  A letter with "hook around" instead of "roll around" would curve to the left.  I found that I like this program very well, even given that some of the letter formations look odd to me.  It seems like a very artistic/musical, and yet logical way to teach handwriting.

My children were not as enamored as I was.  I think the main problem is that ALL my kids have already learned to write all their letters.  Yes, even my four-year-old can write her letters (large and small) with about 98% accuracy.  To have to go back to the beginning and do something that they "already know" was frustrating to them, even though both girls could definitely stand to improve their handwriting skills.  Despite doing this with them day after day for several weeks, they started every new lesson with "why do we have to do this?" and more specifically "why do we have to talk when we write our letters?"  I tried explaining several times how the rhythms could help them remember how to make each letter correctly, neatly and accurately, but they just did/do not want to do it.  Even after I spent several minutes demonstrating the process to them, they insisted that "I sound stupid" to say the words.  I have a very strong feeling, though, that had I begun with this handwriting program nine years ago when my oldest son was learning how to write, he would have loved it, and subsequently each child would also have enjoyed it and gone through the program without whining at all.  Which is sad, because this program truly is amazing.

I do have at least one chance to redeem this though: neither girl has learned cursive writing yet!  I'm planning to keep up with the Peterson program with both girls, and hopefully by the time we get to cursive writing (starting next year), they'll be used to it enough that doing the cursive program will feel normal to them.

Overall, I really liked Peterson Directed Handwriting.  There are many more products offered on the Peterson Directed Handwriting website, besides the three e-workbooks that we received.  The Print Step 1, 2 and 3 E-Workbooks retail for $19.95 each.  There are also homeschool kits that can be purchased with all the materials already printed out for you.  One of the things I noticed was that printing out the e-books did require color printing to show the child the separate steps for each letter, which can drive up your printing costs quickly.  In addition, Rand Nelson (aka "Mr. Pencil") leads the user through web meetings to learn how to use the program.; this can be invaluable for parents who are having trouble getting started or who are unsure of how to do something.  There are training courses, help for left-handed writers, technical support, and more.

The only frustration I had with this program, aside from my uncooperative children, was that the Peterson Directed Handwriting website was difficult to navigate for me.  I found it confusing and at times, frustrating.  Unlike the handwriting program, the website is not laid out intuitively.  However, there's always that live help at the click of a button (conveniently located on the home page).  In addition, Rand Nelson offers an e-mail and phone number for additional help, so a hard-to-navigate website is just a minor problem.

Thanks to Peterson Directed Handwriting for providing these materials for us to review.  To read other reviews on this product, as well as other Peterson Directed Handwriting programs, visit The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew Blog.

Our "school" room - a work in progress

This post is my first for the Not Back-To-School Blog Hop at Heart of the Matter Online.  This week's Blog Hop feature is School Room Week.  Click on the link to see lots of other neat ideas for homeschool rooms and areas.  Here's a peek into our "school" room.

We've been living in this house for nearly four years now.  When we first bought it, I mentioned to my husband that I wanted to use the "den" off the front entry as our "school" room.  The den is accessed through a pair of French doors, and he was (rightly) concerned that the first impression that people would get upon entering our home would be the piles and disorganization that tends to go along with our learning.  I promised that the room would stay tidy, but unfortunately, I didn't have the tools to follow through on that promise.  Our school room was crammed full of furniture - two large office-sized desks, two 6-ft bookcases, two 2'x3' lateral files and a 3.5'x5' table - and all of it was either open, showing everything inside, or a flat surface, which accumulated piles of clutter.  I never took pictures, but here's a little diagram that shows the basic layout of the room.

The crude drawing doesn't do the room justice, really.  The French doors were constantly in the way, until we finally decided to leave one permanently closed by stacking boxes of occasionally-used items in front of it; the other was left open but was right next to the girl's chairs and they were constantly either slamming their chairs against it, worrying me that the glass would break, or coloring in the panes when I wasn't looking.  Other frustrations were: 1) the bookcase next to the boys' desk, making the child closest to the bookcase either pushed up against it, or annoying the other child by moving into "his" space; 2) The entire underside of my desk filled up with rolling carts, which made it difficult to get side-by-side with any child to do one-on-one teaching; 3) The visual overload when walking into the room - it wasn't conducive to learning at all.

About this time last year, my husband's parents gave us a very generous financial gift and asked us to use it for something we wanted and not spend it to pay bills, etc.  We talked about several things, but kept coming back to the idea of doing something with the school room to make it more visually appealing and better organized.  Right around that time I found the Not Back to School Blog Hop: School Room Week and found all sorts of great ideas to get us started.  Still, it took us several months to agree on a basic design, and get things ordered.  We had the cabinets and counter-top ordered by Thanksgiving 2009, and in anticipation of their arrival and installation, we cleared out the school room.

That was nine months ago.  The cabinets were in by Christmas, the counter-top installed in late January, but we are still waiting for the rest of the project to be completed.  Here's what we had planned:

• The cabinets and counter-top (ordered from Lowes, installed by husband) 
• Bookshelves across the entire wall above the cabinets (to be made and installed by husband) 
• A 4-person square desk for the children (to be made by husband) 
• A slightly-smaller (than what I have now) desk for me.  

My husband wants to make the bookshelves and kids' desk himself, but he was concerned about making the bookshelves to go in such a high-profile place - remember, this room is right inside our front door - without some practice.  So he's currently at work on a set of built-in bookshelves in the master bedroom as his "practice run"; when he's finished with those, he'll get back to the school room project.

In the meantime, the "school" area has been temporarily moved to several places.  The majority of our learning takes place in the living room.  The boys' desk and my desk have been moved into the living room, along with the lateral files that hold most of our schoolwork.

The lateral files actually don't look too much different in the living room than they did in our previous school room.  They still end up piled with the "stuff" that doesn't have another home. 

The living room furniture has been pushed to one side to make room for the school stuff.

  

Most of the books and supplies we had out in the school room are currently being stored in front of and around the fireplace.

  

The boys each have a desk in their own room, so when they get too overwhelmed by the very verbal learning that the girls are doing, they can retreat to a quieter place.

 

The bookcases from the school room are currently living in the piano room.  One kept all the books it had in the school room; the other has been partially re-purposed for music, though some of its books remain.

  

But here's where we're hoping to be moved into VERY soon.  I can't wait to move the STUFF into the cabinets and drawers, and get at least that aspect of life more organized.

So we're a work in progress this year.  I am praying that by this time next year, I will have a 100% finished, uncluttered and well-organized school room to show everyone for the 2011 Not Back to School Blog hop.  

Jason Francis: In Memoriam

Yesterday the Taylor University Communication Arts newsletter landed in my mailbox. I'd been looking forward to and dreading it, knowing that it would contain a special remembrance of my friend, Jason Francis. It's good to remember, but also hard knowing that he's gone from this life and I won't get to see him again until I reach heaven.
It gave me great joy to see that the picture the department chose to include from Jason's performance of Macbeth was one that also included me.  I only spent 2 minutes on stage during that play, where Jason played Macbeth and was on stage for most of the play; it lifted my heart that they chose that picture.
The print is small, and might be a little difficult to read (and probably slow to load), but this tribute is well-worth reading.  Check out our Macbeth picture in the lower right-hand corner.

A Speech Every American High School Principal Should Give

The entire article is at Townhall.

I came across this article a couple days ago and it blew me away.  Here are a couple excerpts:

First, this school will no longer honor race or ethnicity. I could not care less if your racial makeup is black, brown, red, yellow or white. I could not care less if your origins are African, Latin American, Asian or European, or if your ancestors arrived here on the Mayflower or on slave ships.
The only identity I care about, the only one this school will recognize, is your individual identity -- your character, your scholarship, your humanity. And the only national identity this school will care about is American. This is an American public school, and American public schools were created to make better Americans.

The author, Dennis Prager, cuts to the heart of the matter on several issues, but essentially shows that by caring more about our individual causes and "identity" we are stripping away the fabric of what it means to be an American.

Fifth, we will end all self-esteem programs. In this school, self-esteem will be attained in only one way -- the way people attained it until decided otherwise a generation ago -- by earning it. One immediate consequence is that there will be one valedictorian, not eight.

It's hard to pick the "good" quotes, because honestly, the entire article is fantastic.  It makes you wonder, though, how many American High School Principals could actually give this speech and retain their jobs.

Summer Travel, sort of

In 15 years of marriage, we've house-hunted three separate times.  Our last house-hunting expedition took place without the help of a realtor, because I discovered something about myself after the first two rounds: I have a hard time giving criticism.
My children will tell you different, and probably my husband as well.  The funny thing is, when it comes down to a house, the realtor WANTS to know your criticisms about the house, so they can do a better job in finding what you want.  I'm just very bad at doing that.  I feel like I'm going to hurt the realtor's feelings, or worse, get talked out of feeling that way.
All that to explain why I've been hesitating on this review, even though the material has been in my hands for a month and was put into use only a couple days after I downloaded it.  I realize that the point of reviewing curriculum is to help others avoid the material that may not be the best for them, to help the publishers address flaws, and to help steer users toward the best materials for their homeschool.  Even so, I found it extraordinarily difficult to write down my thoughts and experiences without reverting to my old house-hunting faithful, "It's okay."  I've had to push myself out of that "appeasement" comfort zone and into doing the work I've agreed to do in honestly reviewing the material I am sent.  So here goes...

The Material: The 2009 Schoolhouse Planner June 2010 Module: Travel the World  This was provided to me at no charge through the TOS Homeschool Crew program, in exchange for this review.
Travel the World is an e-book that retails for $7.95 at The Old Schoolhouse's website store  It is part of a larger series contained in the Schoolhouse Planners. 


At first glance, Travel the World confused me.  The front page clearly said "Schoolhouse Planner" but the rest of the e-book was just a geography lesson(s) and activities.  I jumped back to TOS website to track down the full planner, and found through the sample downloads that the full planners include homeschool forms, calendars, recipes, articles, lists, resources, links, activity ideas and more.  But the module I was sent was clearly just the geography lesson.  That was my first criticism: the TITLE of the material did not match the SUBSTANCE.  After looking through the website, I did find this:

What is a module?

A module is an add-on for The Schoolhouse Planner, the amazing planner brought to you by The Old Schoolhouse®. This module includes a study guide, activity pages, quizzes, coloring pages, copywork, lapbooking, and more!

You do not have to have The Schoolhouse Planner to use the modules. Each module is designed to be its own stand-alone unit study. You can choose to purchase the modules by themselves or bundle them with The Schoolhouse Planner.

That didn't help me a whole lot - I was still confused as to why the MODULE said PLANNER and why these things were related, but not together...  It just did not (does not) make sense to me.  But I can be dense sometimes, so I told myself to get past that, though, and jumped into the geography lesson with all four of my children.  For my younger children (ages almost-5 and almost-7; we've got 3 birthdays right around the corner), the material presented was brand new to them.  For my older kids (ages almost-11 and 13), the material was mostly review.  

Travel the World presents the basics of geography (what is geography? globes and maps, oceans and continents) over the course of eight pages.  There is a plethora of links, including several very fun games that help kids locate the parts of the world correctly.  Okay, let's face it: the games also helped mom located parts of the world correctly.  However, with the links, came the frustration I faced when reviewing Expedition: Australia - EVERY time I clicked a link, a warning popped up "The document is trying to connect to {url}  If you trust the site, choose Allow.  If you do not trust the site, choose Block."  And while I could remember my action for that particular site, there was no shortcut to allow all the links in the PDF to just open automatically.  Criticism Two! and given that it wasn't limited to only this PDF, I truly hope that it won't continue in the rest of the e-books I'll have to review throughout the year.  An extra click every now and then is fine; an extra click 50+ times in one document is overwhelming and frustrating!
The material itself is very sparse, just the bare-bones basics of geography.  It's a good beginning or overview for children not familiar with the subject.  It's a good review for those who already have some geography knowledge.  The links provide further study on numerous topics.


Following the source material is 28 pages of work-sheets, crosswords and word-finds, lap-booking materials,  coloring pages and handwriting exercises.  Again, very basic, but good reinforcement of what the child has just learned.  The lap-booking materials provided are just a start of what could be lap-booked with this study.  We chose to skip the lap-booking exercise this time around; I barely got my feet wet when we did the lap-booking activities in Expedition: Australia and I didn't feel confident enough to come up with my own activities for this one.


I'm not sure how to do this gently, so I'll cut straight to the point.  I wasn't impressed with the geography study.  The material was sparse, and seemed to manage to be both too juvenile for my big kids, and too mature for my little ones.  Even the high school expansion supplement at the end, which included a harder word search and a couple of recipes, did not seem to be any more in-depth than the main lessons.  Many of the challenges suggested in the high school expansion were more writing-intensive than geography-intensive.  I realize that many subjects have a writing component to them, but even my 13-year-old correctly identified the assignments as "geography-themed English."  Criticism three: light on actual geography.


Final criticism: the language in the lesson itself jumped back and forth between sounding like a read-out-loud lesson and a do-it-yourself lesson.  For instance, this excerpt from the section on globes:

"Do you have a globe at home? If so, have it with you as we discuss what

we see on a globe. If you don’t have one with you, use this picture on the right."

This part to me sounds like something the child would best understand if he read it to himself.

Okay, what is the first thing you notice about a globe? You’re right—it’s round.

Whereas this part seems much more like something that should be read out loud - essentially a script for the teacher.  On the same token, if the child is reading along, they have no incentive to guess the answers because many times the question is asked and answered in the following sentence.

To sum this up, the module is good for a light summer course on geography.  The links are very helpful and many of them have been added to our computers for daily geography practice.  For what it's worth, after looking through the sample pages provided for the 2010 Schoolhouse Planner, I am impressed with the full planner and feel that it is probably worth the investment, especially if it has more lessons like these to use as a jumping-off point for further study. Overall, though, I feel that I could have invested the same amount of time and effort in Google and come up with a more in-depth study with the same amount of handy links for future reference.
You can find more reviews of this product on the Homeschool Crew Blog

Ride Along with Mitch

Ride Along with Mitch

For the majority of my time lived in Indiana, Mitch Daniels has been governor. I've been continually impressed by the way this man has handled the authority he's been granted by Hoosiers, and this article does an incredible job of summing up the man and his work. It's long, but SO worth the time to read. Despite his family's wishes to the contrary, I find myself hoping that he will make a bid for the 2012 Presidential race. He is very much what this nation needs; read the article and discover why!

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear

Today's Speed Bump comic strip:

I don't want this to be me, but there are days when it hits pretty close to home.  It makes me wonder, if I asked my kids what they thought was most important to me, what would they say about me?  Frankly, given the fact that I actually just "shoo'd" my youngest away so I could concentrate on writing this, I'm pretty sure I know what they'd say.  I'm just not brave enough to pull out a camera and record their answers.