Going back to Calvert

This was written last week for automatic publication today while we take a break to attend to our new baby.

Last week, after much discussion and deliberation, we finally decided to go back to Calvert even after a long, highly productive year year with Sonlight. We don't regret having used Sonlight after two solid years with Calvert--we needed the change, and with one year of Sonlight Nitoy was able to skip a whole "grade level" as his abilities at the time dictated. And we loved the Sonlight experience so much that ever since we got the 2009 catalog, we'd been in throes of excitement just thinking of ordering the Sonlight P3/4 to K curricula for our then still unborn second child!

All of us--Mama, Papa, and Nitoy alike--wish we could have both systematic Calvert and literature-rich Sonlight for the next school year, but with a new baby to care for and a finite income to live on, we need to maximize our resources, streamline our processes and logistics, and choose what's optimal for us for the entire year. And Calvert seems to be the curriculum that can help us accomplish that, at least for now.

And as for our older child Nitoy, we go back to Calvert keeping with us many aspects of Sonlight's homeschooling philosophies and methods, i.e. "the way you wish you'd been taught, guaranteed," such as

• reading, reading, reading, and comprehending, comprehending, comprehending, beyond the confines of "grade level" and peer group expectations
• regular use of reference books (encyclopedia, etc.) even at the early grades
• use of multiple sources to build on a single topic
• natural method of learning, something akin to gleaning and synthesizing (inductive approach)
  
• "copywork" method of learning composition skills
• Usborne books and Usborne Quicklinks
• Getty-Dubay Italic handwriting system
• Singapore Math
• life skills, physical skills, and developmental skills check lists
• weekly lesson planning system
  
• various homeschooling paperwork such as field trip forms, year-end assessments, etc.
  
• and many, many more!
  

Our new baby and future homeschooler

This was written last week for automatic publication today. We will update this entry with photos as soon as we get back home from the hospital.


By this time, around 7pm of July 11, 2009, our new baby will already have been born by cesarean section at one of the hospitals in Quezon City. Her big brother Nitoy will already have seen her at the nursery, and her mother will already have joined the rest of the family in her room after a couple of hours at the recovery room.

We will already have welcomed Ingrid Molina Pongco to the world.

Her nickname will be a Scandinavian name to be pronounced the Tagalog way, accented on the second syllable, with a glottal stop at the end--Inga.

As for the first child, he'll now be known as Kuya Nitoy.

And so today, we close our homeschool for an important event

This was written yesterday for automatic publication today, when we temporarily close shop in preparation for our new baby's arrival tomorrow. There will a few more blog entries saved and ready for next week, and we hope to be back and blogging by the 3rd or 4th week of July.

Nitoy and (pick one)
(a) the stranger formerly known as Mama (b)the Venus of Willendorf (c)the Michelin Man (d)the Stay Puft marshmallow man from Ghostbusters. Just a few days before Mama gives birth to Baby Sister. Thanks to Tita Pat for the top, now stretched beyond recognition, and Tita Amy for the pants, whose button is now held in place only by a few remaining threads and a prayer.

As of today, most of Nitoy's lessons are done. We have intentionally left many of the Makabayan lessons for the "summer" (July-Aug) break, having found soooo many errors in the textbook and workbook that we decided that we needed to focus on the concepts one by one, uninterrupted by lectures in other subjects. There are two lessons left in Filipino 1 ("Oshii na!" as the Japanese would say) that we will have to finish later, and as for music, PE, and life skills, we'll see if we can still do something about them. Papa has until August 31 to finish all the experiments with Nitoy, and then we can rightfully say this school year is done.

But before that, we now have to close shop, if only temporarily, because we have a little thing to attend to, and that is our new baby. By the time this blog entry gets automatically published, grandma Grace will have arrived and accompanied us to the hospital. Mama needs to get admitted today to be prepared for surgery tomorrow morning. Post-CS recuperation takes about a week or so, so we hope to be back homeschooling, and blogging, before the month ends.

To summarize, the next items on the family homeschool agenda area:

• bring everyone home from the hospital
• set up new routines at home
• resume homeschool lessons (postponed work, remedial work, summer bridge work)
• have Nitoy assessed by pyschometrician
  
• finalize curriculum order list
• order curriculum for the next school year
• collate and bind this year's teaching materials and student output
• put away this year's teaching materials and student output
• reorganize bookshelves
  
• take much-deserved school year-end break

Reader's Q&A: Sonlight P4/5 or Calvert Pre-K?

Q:
Hi! I have been viewing your blog for almost a year cause I have been considering homeschooling my daughters. Your experiences are quite inspiring (sometimes intimidating and overwhelming--I'm not sure I can provide the same enrichment like the one you give). I am still undecided between Calvert and Sonlight for the pre-K program but I need a program that offers a lot of learning activities. I am more inclined towards Sonlight but the Calvert lessons looks very interesting. Would you recommend that I try it for pre-K over the Sonlight pre-K?


A:
BAMBI, I'm really sorry but I cannot offer you any solid opinion re: Sonlight P4/5 because our family hasn't had any experience with it. What I do can tell you is that the Sonlight program does seem to have much more materials than Calvert's. As for what is supposed to be done with those materials, I really cannot say.

We bought some of the books in Sonlight P4/5 on our own and we (Nitoy in particular) consider them treasures. On the other hand, Calvert Pre-K is fully consumable, you will be left with no home library, BUT with tons and tons of papers and projects that you will have done with your child.

When we did Calvert with Nitoy, we felt he was a little "behind" compared to his peers in regular pre-schools, but we stuck to the Calvert School philosophy and he came out okay. In fact, okay enough that my sister bought her daughter her own Calvert Pre-K set, too.

Which is not to say I will necessarily get Calvert Pre-K for my 2nd child come 2013. The Sonlight P4/5 program looks exciting, too! I will have to carefully gauge my daughter's academic and psychological needs at that time to see which one is the better fit.

I feel that I am not really giving you any decent reply here, LOL, so please do not hesitate to ask us more detailed questions about the Calvert Pre-K program, what your concerns are specifically. I cannot answer them this week and next (will be in the hospital), but I'm sure I can spare some time by the end of July. And my husband and I sure will have fun reminiscing about our son's Calvert Pre-K days while thinking of our reply!

P.S.
Please don't be intimidated or overwhelmed by what we have done in the past by way of enrichment! When you do begin homeschooling, you will realize that these enrichment ideas and opportunities come naturally out of the daily things that you do. We do try to plan in advance, but the best field trips we've ever been in were the ones done at the spur of the moment (e.g. eating at the Chinese Mcdonalds in Binondo after looking for sequins in Divisoria), and the best projects were the ones that weren't even in the curriculum (e.g. making milk carton trains). Good luck, have fun!

Finished Sonlight Core K (Introduction to the World: Cultures) today!

Finally finished Sonlight Curriculum's Core K (Introduction to the World: Cultures) today! We're really pressed for time this week to do a full-length review of the entire program, so let us just say that we (especially Nitoy) loved the books in this program. We didn't get to maximize all the program offerings, and in the end, we excised most of the extras and concentrated only on reading the books, but it was a good social studies program to supplement Nitoy's Grade 1 Makabayan subject for the entire school year.

Nitoy especially loved A Grain of Rice, the last book assigned in the program. It helped a lot that Papa made a spreadsheet especially for him, one that shows exponential growth in actual numerical terms:




Nitoy was amazed that Papa (market risk guy in a bank--sounds fancy until you realize his job is about spending hours on end on Excel, LOL) actually knew how to make spreadsheets like he learned in Learning With Computers Level 1!

In any case, having finished this program, Nitoy will be getting his completion certificate tomorrow! :D