Kolbe Reviews: Thoughts on Math

Kolbe calls for Saxon Math as its default math program for upper elementary school. That’s the one in the course plans, and it’s one I’ve looked at but never used. The Kolbe plans primarily serve to divide out the work day-by-day; there is not math instruction in the plans. (In contrast to say the religion course plans, which include teaching suggestions in the daily notes of the course plans.) There are quarterly exams in the course plans, so you can do an exam at the end of each quarter that will line up with what was covered in the plans. The exam answer keys show not just the answer, but the “show your work” way that the problem was solved.

Saxon’s reputation: A lot of people love it. It’s the A+, teacher’s pet of math curricula. If you successfully complete Saxon, you’ve got a well-trained math student. People who don’t like Saxon tend to not like the homework: For each lesson, the homework includes a relatively small number of practice problems for the new concept (so complain those who want more practice), and many problems that review previously-taught concepts (so complain those who can’t bear repetition). The latter problem is easy to fix — just don’t do all the homework problems. If you have a student who tends to need more practice to “get” a concept, preview the curriculum and see if it looks like it will provide enough help for your child.

Kolbe’s second-choice recommendation is Singapore Math. Give it serious consideration, because it’s the top choice of some well-regarded homeschool moms. Look here for Rebbecca Frech’s comments on Miquon & Singapore Math, and here for her general approach to teaching mathematics.

Another homeschooling friend and math-professor-on-homeschool-leave recommends the Life of Fred, which her kids love. I ordered a book, and my 5th grader is excited about using these to review and master the topics she’s been learning. She likes the story-format better than a regular math book, perhaps in part because she has spent many years with a regular math book. I’m not persuaded every family would use Fred as their sole math book, though. But it’s a good resource to know about.

I am pretty happy with Math-U-See, which is what we’ve used all along, but don’t think it’s a good fit for everyone. I like it because I like the way it explains the math concepts — that whole thing of understanding how math works, rather than just memorizing processes. I am also 100% comfortable with the MUS guidelines on teaching math, which direct you to slow down and speed up per the student’s readiness. Which in our family consistently translates into long periods where we make “no progress”, then quick speed through a bunch of chapters at once when the brain catches up with the new topic. A lot of people would not be comfortable with this. (Even if you despise MUS, check out their various free E-sources, land of the free printable worksheet generator.)

Note also, that MUS’s scope and sequence is not the same as in most public schools. It would not be the best choice for someone planning to put the kids in and out of school during the elementary years. On the other hand, if you have a struggling math student and want to spend a summer on review, the videos and a workbook used strategically might be a way to help a student master a topic that had never quite clicked.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the controversial Teaching Textbooks. People hate these for all sorts of reasons, some of them (reportedly) valid. But people love them because they let you sit your kid in front of the machine, do the work, done. They seem to be most popular with non-math kids who just need to get the basics down by moving at their own pace, and with families that are extremely overloaded and need a method that is not parent-intensive.

Based on all that, here are my criteria for a good math curriculum:

You the teaching parent like the general approach. If you don’t believe in the method, you’ll never last 10 minutes when your kid digs in the heels and tries to talk you out of it.
It fits your family’s needs and abilities. People vary in how well they read, how easily they learn math, how much hands-on time the parents have, and so forth. Shed the fantasy life and be the math person that you are.

The big problem with math instruction: Not enough of us love math. And those who do love it are divided into those who have fun with it, and those who take perverse pleasure in accomplishing nasty chores. It is very hard to teach a subject that you don’t personally enjoy.

What to do? My advice if you are math-phobic is to relax, sit down with your kids, and learn with them. Your brain is more mature than it was a decade or two ago, and it is not too late for you to finally understand the topics that confused you way back when. (FYI – Math-U-See is popular with moms who are going this route. I can’t speak for other series, but I’d say for any math book: Take a look and see if the explanations make sense to you. If they do, you’ll be able to turn around and explain them to your kids.)

My advice if you are competent at math but just don’t love it* — and this is me, and so I constantly nag myself with this advice — is to keep searching until you find a way to love it. Be it via games, or making a sport of comparison shopping for groceries, or rewarding yourself with chocolate for every twenty minutes spent faking it for your kids’ sakes, try something, anything, to get you past the I-hate-math hump. Don’t give up on yourself — keep trying different things until something clicks.

Okay readers: What’s your favorite math curriculum? Supplements? Games? Websites? Recommend away.

*People think accountants are math whizzes. Some are. But accounting actually only requires about an 8th grade math education, and a teeny tiny bit of algebra, sometimes maybe. In any case, I am not the kind of accountant who just loves adding columns of numbers. I am the kind of accountant who loves creating spreadsheets that add numbers for me. Also I like to figure out what went wrong with your computer and make it work for you again. I like figuring out why the government just sent you a nasty letter, and then digging through your confused box of documents and showing you how to properly fill out your form the second time around. That kind of accounting. I am not the person you want keeping your books. I am the person you want to call when you suspect your bookkeeper is up to no good. That’s what I like. Accountant detective work.

3.5 Time Outs: Family Life

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who is nothing if not a family kinda guy.

3.5 Time Outs Tuesday — Click and be amazed.

This weekend I met a couple of the ladies from the Society of Joyful Hope. I’d never heard of such a thing! A real-life support group for families that use NFP! A true support group, btw, not just your NFP instructor checking in to remind you what Acheiving-Related Behavior tends to achieve. The group prays together, and then kids do activities and the parents talk about parenting. Very cool.

1.A You can see their website here, and though the events page is a running behind on updates, they are an active organization. I’m in that blissful state where I am not the least bothered by people who are running a tiny bit behind on website maintenance. Ahem.

1.B The nice thing about openness-to-life is that eventually you don’t need to go visit the NFP instructor to be reminded what Achieving-Related Behavior acheives. Your children are there to remind you. All the time.

1.C I was showing around Sarah’s new pregnancy book, and the Joyful Hope lady exclaimed when she saw Hallie Lord’s endorsement on the cover. Solving the mystery of what it was that had caused Betty Beguiles to pick up and move south. Wow. I had no idea.

1.D More cool: Fr. Kirby at Charleston Vocations gave us a bunch of t-shirts to give away for prizes at our Family Life reception.

1.E Triple Cool: Eldest daughter has been reading assorted fiction and lives of saints from Pauline Media, causing her to ask all kinds of questions about the Daughters of St. Paul. Mostly: What do they wear? So it was neato to walk into the Doughnut Room and, surprise!, there was Sister Francis, whom I’d never met before, but it turns out is very good at chatting with girls interested in all things Nuns Who Publish Books. Less cool: I had no money with me for book-buying. Because of course the girls found something they liked.

Coolness aside, here’s the real topic: How Good is Your Parish at Doing Family-Friendly Ministries?

I had a conversation with a young mom, not at my parish, who had moved up from Florida (St. Agnes’s in Naples, I think?), and she really missed the number of family events and activities at her former parish. I got to thinking about it, and realized that one of the things sabotaging some of my own parish’s ministries is a lack of Stuff for the Whole Family to Do.

It’s not like families with young children are really going to turn out for ministries five nights a week, don’t mistake me. There’s only so much a person with humans for children can do, time-and-energy-wise. But in order for a family with young children to do anything. at. all., there has to be provision for the whole family. The crying people. The climbing-the-curtains people. The elementary-aged people. The teen people. The female people. The male people. All of them. And if we’re feeling broad-minded, how about the elderly-relative-living-with-you people? Or the not-so-polished-in-the-social-skills-for-reasons-beyond-their-control people?

–> Because otherwise, church stuff breaks apart the family. Oh it’s all lovely to get together with just the girls, or just the fathers-n-sons, or whatever it is. We do that here and there. Sunday afternoon our girls met for Little Flowers while our boys went mountain biking. It was good. But there are only seven nights in a week, and people keep insisting we eat dinner together at least a few of those.

[Without wishing to pull out the Evangelicals Are Smarter Than Us card, I will point out that on Wednesday nights around my town, most of the other churches are hosting an evening of this-n-that, in which you can bring your whole family, and all y’all get your faith-formation or ministering-to-people fix in one fell swoop. It’s only one night a week. But it’s one night a week. Some of the churches do the same thing Sunday nights too. Or Fridays. Or whatever.]

So anyhow, that’s my question: If your parish is successful at getting families involved in the life of the church, what is it that works so well?

Happiness is agreeing with your editor.

3.5

fairy wings and magic wands. Works great.

***

Well, that’s all for this week. Tuesday’s Link Day, which is when instead of e-mailing fun things I ought to post but forget to, you just tell the world all by yourself. Entirely optional.

7 Takes – Edited

1. What I’m doing this weekend instead of everything else, ever? Looking through my freshly-edited-by-my-editor manuscript (catechist book), and seeing what’s there.

2. First thought: It is helpful if you spell the names correctly on your acknowledgements page. People will like that. If you are like me, I advise you to only ask for help from people whose names are very easy to spell. Or else you will have to have an embarrassing conversation with your publisher.

3. Thank goodness we are having this conversation now, and not after the thing is actually published.

4. Dorian Speed, not difficult to spell, is doing her annual tour of duty saving me from making very, very dumb mistakes. What will it be next October? I try not to think about it.

5. Before ~~I descended into the pit of despair~~ my annual DSpeed Humility Training Session, here was what I was thinking as I read through the manuscript, which I hadn’t looked at since the end of August: Wow! This is a really good book! As in: I should read this more often!

6. Because, yeah, it’s basically a big long note-to-self. All the things I forget to do, but am always glad if I do manage to remember them half the time.

7. I had something else completely unrelated to post about. But I can’t remember what is.

Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you when I’m out from the tunnel.

Liturgy and Catechesis: The Blessing for a Child in the Womb

In which I use this coming weekend’s minor festivities to illustrate how formal catechetical programs are just one piece of a much bigger faith-formation ~~spider wedding cake~~ pie. Or something. Okay, actually the whole post is just a chance to show off how cool my diocese can be. Because yeah. Sometimes we are.

Oh and hey, speaking of cool palmetto-state Catholic things, go subscribe to Fr. L’s newsletter. It’s really quite good. And free.

3.5 Takes: Halloween Wedding

Thanks once again to our host, Larry D., who is no doubt terrified by this post.

When my friend real-life friend Sandra told me she was planning a Halloween-themed wedding, let me assure you: I was skeptical. But it turned out absolutely lovely! Which you would expect, if you know Sandra and her beloved Larry L.. Here’s the tour, in 3.5 parts.

1. The Dress.

The event was held at the Robert Mills House (civil ceremony), so you’ll recall Sandra was thinking of a regency-era theme. She raided the silk remnants at the upholstery shop, and put together this:

Awesome period touch: detachable sleeves.

2. Ceremonial Innovation Done Right.

Recall also that I am a curmudgeon’s curmudgeon, and if you tell me that as part of your ceremony you’re going to do some groovy sand-art activity with your children, I’m going to be very, very skeptical. But Larry L. came up with an idea for including the boys in the ceremony, and it went over beautifully. I was impressed. Not many people can pull that off. Well done.

3. Reception = Costume Time.

I think the key to making a Halloween wedding work is to not have a Halloween wedding. Normal wedding, costume-optional reception. Tons of fun.

The decorators-in-law used a deft touch in decorating the reception hall. There were spider webs and all that stuff, but it didn’t pop out like I’m Back In Elementary School For Orange Cupcakes And Candy Corns. The wedding cake was probably the most Halloween-y moment. Which is about right. Wedding cakes are ~~supposed~~ allowed to be fun. Is a giant hairy spider really that much goofier than a chintzy plastic bride-n-groom?

I wish I had a picture of the buffet table, but I’ll just tell you that the secret to a tasteful theme-wedding is to put out a fantabulous spread of good food. Then all the stuffy friends and relatives who might otherwise complain about the decor are too busy noticing the hummus and the curry and the peanut sauce, and the rest is just background. But if you want to put on a Sponge Bob costume, you can.

Or, if you’re a young groomsman, add sunglasses, earbuds, and a suitable weapon, presto-chango, Secret Agent Boy:

(Shown here posing the following day, before we rushed the tux back to the rental place.)

3.5 SuperHusband went medieval for the reception, which is the most comfortable thing you wish you could be wearing anyway. Girls and I stuck to our ordinary wedding attire, but added

***

Well, that should give you something to talk about for this week. No, I haven’t ~~finished~~ started my sidebar renovation, so I’m still taking link suggestions.

Hey and while we’re on the topic of good things worth doing right: This week my editor at Liguori is doing her edits on my Classroom Management for Catechists manuscript. So you could say a little prayer that she gets it all cleaned up so that it’s as helpful to readers as possible. Thanks!

Catholic Mother’s Companion to Pregnancy – Book Tour & Giveaways

Welcome to Sarah R.’s stop at my place on her book tour!

Sarah Reinhard Book Tour Catholic Mom's Pregnancy Companion — Click to Enter the Nook Giveaway

We’ll start with some info from the publisher and from Sarah:

To celebrate the launch of her new book, A Catholic Mother’s Companion to Pregnancy: Walking with Mary from Conception to Baptism, Sarah Reinhard invites all of us to spend her blog book tour praying the rosary together. Today, she shares this reflection on the Nativity:

The cave in Bethlehem probably isn’t what Mary had in mind for her Son’s birth. Straw as bedding and oxen as companions, with shepherds and townsfolk dropping in to wish her well?

Maybe it wasn’t so shocking to her, after being told she would be the Mother of God, that it didn’t go at all how anyone would picture it. Even so, I’m sure it wasn’t that comfortable even by standards of the day. She gave birth with animals all around, in the chill of winter, in a town far away from home.

So often, things don’t go the way I plan. I struggle with my knee-jerk reaction to the wrenches in life, to the natural temper tantrum I want to give in and throw. It’s hard to see God at work in the up-close of a situation turned differently than I think it should be.

But he is at work. Jesus being born in the most humble of circumstances made him accessible to all of us. It also makes Mary someone we can all turn to for comfort: if anyone knows what it’s like to go with the flow, it’s Mary.

As we pray this decade of the rosary, let’s hold all those brave women who have said yes to difficult and challenging motherhood in our intentions in a special way. Don’t forget, too, that we are praying for an increase in all respect life intentions as part of our rosary together this month. (If you’re not familiar with how to pray the rosary, you can find great resources at Rosary Army.)

Our Father . . .

10 – Hail Mary . . .

Glory Be . . .

O My Jesus . . .

You can find a complete listing of the tour stops over at Snoring Scholar. Be sure to enter to win a Nook (and any number of other goodies) each day of the tour over at Ave Maria Press.

***

And a few quick comments from me:

This is an excellent book. (Yes, I wrote five paragraphs of it. But all the paragraphs are good, not just mine.)
When you’re pregnant, you naturally turn towards spiritual things. This is the book that meets that need for Catholic moms.
It’s absolutely devoid of the drivel-n-feel-good nonsense of other pregnancy books. Tackles the hard topics with maturity and clear thinking.
From here on out, it’s my go-to book any time I know a mom who could use it.

And for those of you local to the Diocese of Charleston, SC, we’re up to four copies for the giveaway from the Office of Family Life this coming Sunday, October 14th, at the Blessing of the Unborn Mass in Columbia, SC. See you there!

(For internet friends, check out the other stops on the book tour, there will be giveaways all over the place.)

Radical Freedom: When the Kid You Love Breaks Your Heart

Why do our kids do what they shouldn’t? What’s our part it in? God’s part? My latest at CatholicMom.com. I’m exceedingly encouraged by the response so far. (Not surprising, since none of what I write about was my idea. It’s just what God does. I sure wouldn’t have come up with that method. Try not to chuckle as you thank God He’s God and not us.)

7 Takes: From My Feed Reader to Yours

This week, after you pray for Allie & congratulate our hostess, I send you elsewhere. I scrolled through all my recent +1’s in Google, and picked a few:

1. People come here when they search on “Kolbe Academy”, and presumably when they do that, they also find Kolbe’s blog, Servant of Truth. But in case you had a google-failure, here’s an answer to a question that gets asked a lot: How to Change Pace in a Structured Curriculum.

2. Brad Warthen is aggravated, here, about a homeschooling bumper sticker that he sees as a flagrant rejection of a whole community. (He’s a Mr. Community kind of guy. A Rotarian, no less.) I concede in the combox that he is correct, it is indeed impossible to know what part of “the village” the hostile-homeschooler wants no part of. But I’m going to guess it’s something like this.

3. FTR, I homeschool for the library books. The village never even entered into it. I just want to read. A lot. There aren’t many jobs let you do that. (Also I like teaching my kids, like being with them, like playing outside, like traveling during the school year, and it’s the only Catholic school I’ll ever talk my husband into paying for . . . but it’s mostly for the books.)

4. NFP Apps. I like a pen and a free-in-the-mail calendar myself. (Helps if you don’t particularly need a graph or white baby stickers. About once a year I break out the graph paper to make sure I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing. But most of the time, 4/10 of degree shows up real nice just looking at the numbers.) But all you smart-device people can do NFP the Smart Way.

5. Can’t have too many religious education curricula. Read about Healing the Culture’s new high school curriculum, and, completely separately, Loyola Press’s new adaptive sacramental prep program for students with special needs.

Also a Bleg: Anyone have an RCIA text you really love? I’m dumb enough to try to make up an answer to that question, but someone who knows the field would be better suited to give the real scoop.

6. At Public Discourse: the obituary of an honest historian. Beautiful story. Especially if you’re the kind of person who reads a history book, and then rants towards your children about all the dumb ideas the book promotes without presenting any evidence whatsoever.

My kids say I complain a lot. I reply that easily 10-if-not-15% of the time, it’s because there’s something worth complaining about. The rest of the time, yeah, I’m just grumpy. Probably the nicest grumpy person you know.

7. The reason bloggers blog is because we have something to say. Abby Johnson doesn’t play around: If you want to be pro-life, get your act together and show up for work.

Have a great weekend!

(PS: The tiny tiger has persuaded SuperHusband not to haul her to the pet shelter just yet. Cuteness is a powerful survival strategy.)

The Geography of Busyness

In the early 1930’s in Fort Lee, New Jersey, my grandmother took singing lessons. It didn’t last long; one day the instructor took my great-grandmother aside and said, “Mrs. Hook, you are wasting your money.” My grandmother was sent down the street to tap-dancing lessons instead, and everyone was happier for it.

Also, they didn’t feel too busy.

Sunday I ran into a fellow homeschooling mom. “Why do I always feel so busy?” she asked. “We’re not doing too many activities.” She has only one student at home anymore, now a high school senior, and they moderate the extra-curriculars. It shouldn’t be a crazy time of life.

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

But I think I do know. I think it’s all the driving.

Here’s what our week looks like right now:

Daily mass.
School at home.
1 piano lesson on Tuesdays.
1 violin lesson on Thursdays.
Boys go mountain biking or hunting or some such on various afternoons / evenings.

(No, I’m not teaching RE this year, so that buys us a lot of time.)

For all these things, we have to drive. What if instead of being Catholic I were Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal or Lutheran? I could walk to church. Two blocks. Let’s imagine my daughter then took her piano lesson with that flavor music director, instead of our Catholic one. She could walk to and from piano. Let’s triple-imagine: What if instead of violin at a publicly-funded school downtown, my other daughter had her classes at the school on our corner — one block away?

Now let’s get super crazy. What if instead of trying to figure out how to meet up with homeschooling friends from across the city for Little Flowers, all we had to do was pick which house (or church) in our hypothetically-shared neighborhood we’d host it at? What if the nice new family with four girls that I want to meet up with for a playdate lived . . . not twenty minutes away, by car, but twenty minutes on foot, right in my subdivision? What if my friend who’s miscarrying lived down the street instead of down the highway? How about my mother-in-law? And what if our good friends who live a mile away down a busy road were connected by a decent sidewalk?

There are two things going on. One is the way we live: Picky. We drive farther to get to the grocery store we prefer; we’d rather see distant friends who better match our personality, than socialize with near neighbors. And I tried being Lutheran, for nearly 90 minutes in 1998; it didn’t take. Nearly all our neighbors have the religion problem, too, it’s not just Catholics who are choosy about their churches.

The other is structural. No sidewalks — that’s a physical structure that’s missing. But also the way our car-centered life changes our expectations: We consider it normal to drive ten or twenty miles for everyday activities, farther for weekly or special events — and then wonder why it feels like we’re living in the car.

The cost is physical — having to make special time to exercise, having to cram in meals between outings. The cost is also social. Up front we win, picking and choosing the best of friends and hobbies from around town. In the long run we lose; we’re socially isolated from our next door neighbors,with all the decay and loss that brings.

I don’t like it. I also don’t have a sense of how to change it, or even of really wanting to make the sacrifices that would be required to change it. But there it is. Why I’m too busy and my great-grandmother was not.

3.5

It’s Tuesday, so I bet you’re looking for 3.5 Takes. Here’s Larry D., our host, entertaining you with the awesomely awesome Savage Chickens. And 2.5 More:

Have a great week!

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