Alternate scheduling for Christian, Modern and Classical Studies
Hello everyone,
I'm quite new here, although I did post a brief introduction under the poetry memorization thread. Having been through the homeschool evolution from "relaxed" to WTM, I feel like I am "coming home" to LCC. I had no background in Latin, but the LCC concept resonates with me.
Now on to the topic at hand. For grammar school grades, has anyone scheduled or considered scheduling Christian, Modern and Classical Studies sequentially in blocks of time? What I mean is doing Christian Studies 4-5 days a week for several weeks, then on to Modern Studies, etc. My concern about scheduling these subjects as outlined in LCC is the retention from week to week when each subject is scheduled for an hour a week.
I am interested to know if anyone else has encountered this situation, and has comments one way or the other.
Lawana
I've thought about this as well.
How much would be retained week to week. I will be starting in a few weeks, so I guess we'll try it as recommended in LCC for a bit and modify if need be.
cindy
Same thought
Hi Lawana. I had exactly the same thought! One thing that I took away from my exploration of Waldorf Education was the idea of a "main lesson" where the child studies one topic/area/subject in depth for several weeks. That idea really made sense to me, and I plan to implement it even though I will chose topics using LCC as my guide rather than Waldorf recommendations. My dd will be in First this fall. Our plan is to have a block of Classical Studies using the beautifully illustrated Craft books, a block of Modern Studies using the Holling C. Holling books and the Evan-Moore Beginning Geography series, a Science block where we will study the periodic table, etc. etc. so on and so forth.
Latin, Math, Recitation, and Copywork will be done daily in small increments. But everything else will be done in "blocks" lasting a couple or more weeks.
I can't make any claims as to how well this works yet, but the idea really clicked for me.
For 1st grade Classical Studies,
Drew recommends (in LCC) Pegasus, King Midas and the Golden Touch, and Cupd and Psyche all GORGEOUSLY illustrated by Kuniko Y. Craft.
How has it been going?
I love reading over these older posts because I learn so much!
This idea is so intriguing. Of all you who thought about it, did any actually try it? It's like so many other things in life, you can read such contradicting accounts of the best way to study. I've read arguments by people who think the indepth, single-focus approach is better. And, on the other hand, I've read arguments that it is better to divide up the lessons into shorter time spans and do them consistently over a longer period. I've never known anyone to experiment with the two. I can see how it would be so much easier to do the blocks with multiple grade levels.
I'm dying to know what happened! How did all of your experiments turn out? :)
Sandi
I hadn't thought of it...
but I dont see why it wouldn't work if that is the way you prefer to do it :)
Drew does recommend tailoring the suggestions to your own liking :)
~Rachel~
SAHM to James (6) and Lenore (2)