In my Smashing Rocks for Science post, I mentioned that we are using Connect the Thought’s Geology curriculum as a framework for our geology study, specifically because it gives me high school geology for K and allows me to adjust for the rest of the kids. 

Since then, Michael asked:

First of all, thank you for providing the link to the Geology curriculum you’re using with your kids. I’m very interested in trying it with my own homeschool high school aged son. Can you tell me what it consists of? Is it a textbook? Are there lesson plans or tests? And finally, about how much time are you planning on devoting to the course? I’m trying to find out if it would count as a full credit or half on his high school transcript.
I appreciate any help you can provide. Sort of new to the whole homeschooling thing, and a bit overwhelmed.

First, Thank you Michael for the question.  I’ll try to explain things in writing below, but if you have the ability to watch it, here’s a video review I did today for you, answering the questions and showing you exactly what Connect the Thoughts Geology is, and what you need for it. 

What does it consist of?

Connect the Thoughts Geology is a complete secular high school (ages 11 and up) geology curriculum written for the student, and designed for indepedent study.  It consists of 78 lessons, about 90-100 hours of study. Each lesson follows the Connect the Thoughts study methodology, which is a little bit different than most curriculums.

For each lesson, there’s

• vocabulary for the reading
• geography for the reading, if needed
• hands-on exercises and experiments to help concrete the concepts
• 25-50 word writing prompts or questions to further concrete the concepts (I use these as discussion questions)

Overall, this is a thorough exploration of geology, originally written to give the students the education they needed to be well-educated without going on further to college. So it uses and covers materials that would be covered in more advanced geology classes, but with a study methodology that works well for students as young as 11 to do indepentently. (I’m adpating it for students age 7, 9, 11, and 13)

Topics wise it covers:

• What is Geology
• Plate tectonics
• How Earth was made (conventional view point, including Panagea)
• Minerals
• Rocks
• The interior of our planet
• Earthquakes and how they’re measured
• Volcanoes
• Weathering and Erosion
• Geology and history  (conventional viewpoint)
• Geology in our everyday lives

I do need emphasize that this is a secular geology curriculum. It covers conventional explanations of how the earth was created and developed. It does *not* include a creationist view of how the earth was formed; that’s up the parents to provide and compare and contrast with their students. For me, I’m good with this, but if you aren’t, then you will either need to skip these section of the course  or look for a geology course that covers it from a creationist view point.

Is it a textbook? Are there lesson plans or tests?

Many of the Connect the Thoughts courses including the textbook reading, but not Geology. It does require the additional purchase of a relatively inexpensive book called Geology: A Self-Teaching Guide  I got my copy off of Amazon for about $13 and you can find it used on Amazon for less. There’s also a Kindle version.

You also need access to The Amazing Earth video and the Journey to the Center of the Earth video. I ordered The Amazing Earth used from Amazon for less than $10, and am getting Journey to the Center of the Earth via Netflix.  So in all, with the curriculum (purchased on sale), plus the added book, video, and clay I needed for the plate tectonics section, I spent about $45 total.

Basically what you get with Connect the Thoughts Geology is a complete independent study guide for the student to go through on their own (though I’m using it with a group of students). It explicitly tells the student what to do.  And the end of each major section, there is a test. But tests in Connect the Thoughts are not-graded, instead they are used to verify mastery and understanding.

For more on how a connect the thoughts studyis laid out, I recommend downloading the free “how to do Connect the Thoughts” course. And of course you can see the actually Geology course in the video above.

If you go with this curriculum, your student will need access to the outdoors to do some of the investigative exerices and experiments (like smashing rocks ) 

Also, there’s a few miscellaneous materials needed (like clay or magnets) for some of the experiments, so it’s a good idea to have the students give you a list of what they need for the coming week, or to read ahead yourself to make sure you have everything on hand. To my knowledge there is no materials list available just for this purpose of making sure you have everything you need (a pet peeve, but workable still)

About how much time are you planning on devoting to the course?

The geology course is designed specifically to be a semester course, but is actually longer than the normal 60-70 hours. It is part of the Connect the Thoughts 3 part Earth Sciences series, which in all covers 1.5 credits.  I’ll be awarding a .5 credit (semester) to K when we complete the Geology course. 

We’re doing the course about 3 hours a week, so we should be done with it in 20-25 weeks. But this also lends it self well to intensively working through the Geology curriculum as well, in which case you can complete the course easily within a month.

A few more key points

This is not our first connect the thoughts course, we’ve done several. and I go into on the video a little more about what I like and don’t like about the curriculum and how I’m adapting the Geology course to suit my needs.  But overall, if you are looking for a secular high school geology course, this is a good one to consider.

I will emphasize also that this curriculum as well as all of the Connect the Thoughts courses we’ve tried are designed for the kids to think for themselves. It introduces a variety of information, but doesn’t want the students to regurgitate it back, but rather to own their own education and their own thoughts and opinions. If this is your goal, like it is ours, this is a wonderful benefit to the curriculum. If you aren’t ready for that…well, might want to look else where.

To give you a further idea of how the Connect the Thoughts science curriculum is structured, I recommend watching the videos that Steven has on the Connect the Thoughts site and reading through some of the articles. It’ll give you more of an idea of the man behind the curriculum and his thoughts and style.

(A side benefit to using Connect the Thoughts is the access to it’s author. Steven is really good at personally answering quesstions and is active in the Connect the Thoughts Yahoo Group.)

If Connect the Thoughts Geology sounds like something you’d like to try with your student, you can download your copy from CurrClick. And be sure to agree to get the email updates, because Steven does a great job of doing sales for those of us on a budget, and the sales are announced through those email updates.

So there you go…  If you have more questions about our experiences with Connect the Thoughts or the Geology course in particular, feel free to ask.

…Shannon

P.S. Looks like Steven is running a 20% off sale on all Connect the Thoughts courses this week too, The geology course is coming up on sale for $16 until Sunday, February 20th.

In my attempt to bring us back to learning together as a family more, I’ve been creatively trying to balance K & J’s need to learn middle school and high school geology with introducing the topic to Little E and Z. 

Now obviously mixing first and third grade with sixth and ninth grades, means some very different levels of detail presented.  Because I need the high school level for K, I’m using Connect the Thoughts Geology as our base geology curriculum,  and then incorporating the younger kids into the hands-on activities, and adding in some notebooking and lapbooking techniques to help with illustrations and retention all around.

While we got to play with Clay this month to help understand plate tectonics, the best experiments came from smashing rocks

Z - smashing rocks for science

Of course there was a point to smashing rocks: to understand what clues and marks geologists would use to identify rocks that may have at one time been one.

K & Jazzy comparing rock halves for a geology experiment

But it was a fun experiment, and we discoved  an ant colony living inside Z’s rock, so that was a bonus biology lesson

Z & Little E got so into smashing rocks they decided to be geologists for the day and set out to invesigate all they could about the rocks and the rock fragments we had that day. And they asked me to take a few pictures to share with you:

Z & Little's Collection of Rock Fragments (that's Z's hand showing you a fragment)

And of course  Little E had to get into one for you too (but she forgot to smile for some reason

Little E shows off the bigger rocks in their rock collection

Last week Bobbie asked me about the Bob Books and what we use to teach reading. Now if you’ve been following along with these Learning to Read posts, you know that so far I have two voracious readers who came to reading relatively late, one flourishing beginning reader, and one struggling dyslexic, soon to be reader.

Over the last 10 years, I’ve looked at and tried out a lot of different reading materials, and I’ve pulled what works for us and our learning styles from a variety of sources. At this point, I’m pretty comfortable with teaching reading and have complete confidence that even my struggling reader will eventually love to read.

One of the books that helped K and I break through her barriers was Reading Reflex combined with a set of plastic letter tiles.

I since have used the techniques taught in Reading Reflex with all the children, even Z. And those lessons that I’ve done with Z from this book, have stuck the best with him.

Our favorite and most effective exercises from this book are the auditory processing exercises that teach specific sounds and how blending them in different ways creates new and different words.

Combining the use of plastic letter tiles with a small segment of sounds that make up a variety of different words, we engage mind, body, and senses to learn how words are made.

We start out with a pile of letter tiles, from which I have the child choose the specific tiles (“sound pictures”) we need for the exercise

Next, from that small set of sounds, I ask the child to create the first word on my list:

Then from there, I say, “now, let’s turn ‘Sat’ into ‘pat’” and the child figures out which sound needs to change to create the new word. And this goes on through our list of words.

Then we do our final words, which usually end up swapping out the middle or last sound, so they further see how changing around sounds comes up with completely new words.

And then to end it off, I have the child put the letter tiles away, and we have a game for that too. But this has been a very effective way to teach phonological sounds, CVC words, and word structure.

This is but one exercise from Reading Reflex, and definitely our favorite. If you are looking for a way to further explain reading to a kinesthetic learner, or one that focuses better if they can move, this is a wonderful exercise.

On my Learning to Read: Celebrating Success post, Bobbie  asked about the Bob Books, a series of books for beginning readers that we use. So I thought I’d do a quick review.

Bob Books, Set 1: Beginning Readers

The Bob Books are these short little books, that come in sets of 12, that incrementally build on each other. The very first book, covers just four sounds (M, A, S, T) and on sight word (on), and each book builds from there.

The stories are so short and so doable for a beginning reader that they instantly give the child a sense of success. They’ve read an entire book!

It’s an incredible thing to be able celebrate, and the beauty of the Bob Books is that they give that opportunity to succeed early and often. 

The books themselves are not a reading program and should not be used on their own. Every child needs help learning the phonemic sounds, phonological sound combinations, and sight words of the English language. What the Bob Books give are an opportunity to practice reading in a book format very quickly, building on that sense of success.

Personally I’ve looked at and tested a LOT of different reading materials and tools over the last 10 years, as I’ve sought materials to help my own children learn to read, and I have to say that the Bob Books are crucial element to our reading program, especially at that early reader stage.

Even Z feels success with these books (he’s able to read the first few, and that knowledge that he can read at least some books, helps build his confidence and motivation for further reading).

Here’s an example of what you’ll find in a Bob Book. I grabbed the third book from the first set off our shelf. It’s title is “Dot”. 

As you’d expect the book is about Dot. The whole book uses 9 words total to tell the story of Dot, her dog and cat, and a hat.  So there’s a lot of repetition of common words, using sounds the child already knows.

At the beginning of each book is a list of the sounds that are covered in the book, which is helpful for determining if your child knows the sounds they need for that particular book.

Each page in the first set usually only has one sentence, but I have noticed that towards the end of each book, there might be a page that has one or more. So the child is feeling confident on each page, and has read the words in the book a few times before they get to a page with more words, like this:

As you can see the pictures in the book are simple, and not overwhelming, which for my kids is very important. When they are learning a new skill, they do much better on pages that are simple and in black and white, so this works perfectly for us.

I borrowed my first set for K, when she was just beginning her learning to read journey, as I always like to test something before buying it. Since then I of course have purchased my own copies (and have lent them out a few times too) of all three sets. J used these in early in his learning to read journey, as has Little E.  

Z of course is still working through the first few books, but that’s Z and with his dsylexia these books play an important role in his feeling successful in his efforts.

Again, these are not a complete program, but rather one (essential) tool in your learning to read tool box. I do use other readers as well, but these are the first that my children use in their journey.

If you don’t already have access to the Bob Books, I recommend either borrowing a copy from a friend or fellow homeschooler, looking for a used copy (if you can find them), or grabbing a set on sale. (Today as I write this I see Amazon has a great price on them, so you might check there as well)

Hope this helps!

…Shannon

P.S. Thanks Bobbie (Clumsy Crafter) for asking the question!

P.S. S. Here are a few more of the resources we use for Learning to Read:

My 12 yo daughter is nearly done with Teaching Textbooks Math 7 (she’ll finish by Spring Break in March 2010) and my 10 yo son just started a few months ago.

So, when another homeschool mom asked me about Teaching Textbooks, as a possible homeschool math curriculum for her 9 yo son, I was happy to answer her questions.

One of these days I’ll write a full review, but in the meantime, if you are considering Teaching Textbooks as a possible homeschool math curriculum, I’ve pasted our Q&A here.  If you have additional questions about Teaching Textbooks, feel free to put them in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Does your son like it?

Yes, my 10 yo son  likes it. All the lessons are fully explained in video format, and all the answers are fully explained step by step, so if he misses something he can click the solution button and see where he went wrong.

He does not like that each lesson is so long, i.e., has so many problems (20 problems, plus 5 practice problems per lesson). He’s used to a much shorter program, but he has adapted by doing a 1/2 lesson per day or a minimum of 2-3 lessons per week.

Any ideas about placement?

The Teaching Textbooks  has placement tests for each level, I highly recommend using them. Don’t go by what you think is the grade level; it’ll depend on what math program you’ve used in the past and where your son is currently at.  The placement test does a good job helping you position the student in the correct level. 

Also, you can look at the table of contents of each course to see what’s covered and see if your son is ready for that level of work. In my case, Teaching Textbooks Math 7 covers fractions, decimals, and some basic geometry, which is a good transition from our elementary math program, which is weak in these topics (in my opinion), before they are ready for Beginning Algebra.

Though I have to say because we moved from a mastery-based elementary math program to Teaching Textbooks (a spiral based program), there was lots of overlap in some areas and none in others.

I did placement tests with my son a couple times over two years because he was strong in some areas and not in others, and finally when he was ready, I just moved him into Teaching Textbooks Math 7, and that’s worked well.

From my perspective, it’s a big change for me, they basically don’t need me for math anymore (yes, I’m a little sad about that). My 12 yo daughter periodically will have a question when she gets a problem wrong and can’t figure out why (and doesn’t want to view the solution on the computer.)

But other than that…there’s no prep, no lesson planning, no teacher time at all. Just setting boundaries and saying “go do your math”. Which of course is a huge time saver.

Is it all on computer?

Depends on how you do it. It can be done completely on the computer, though you need a notebook or something to work the problems in.

The text book also contains all of the lesson materials (except the step-by-step walkthroughs & solutions, which are only on the CDs).

Because of some issues we were having with my kids, we now require the kids to do all the problems out of the book on paper.

So what my daughter does is watch the lesson on the computer (rather than read it), then does the problems out of the book (in a notebook, so the book stays nice for later resale and younger siblings), checks her answers after each problem in the answer booklet, and then inputs her answers into the computer for grading purposes.

My son watches the whole lesson and the problems on the computer, but works each problem on paper, checks the answer, reworks as necessary, and then enters the answer into the computer, and moves on to the next problem.

Different kids, different styles. But either way I require that they don’t move on to the next problem until they got the one they are working on right (no use doing the whole set wrong and then going back and fixing it…)

What about the testing/grading…is it on the computer as well?

There’s a quiz after each chapter, which is all dealt with on the computer (or in the textbook, see above). All the grading is done automatically for you on the computer and it keeps a record of it all for you. (nice)

Update: The high school level Teaching Textbook programs do not include the automated grading.

Is there a “lesson plan” or something that tells me how to get through it in a school year?

I’m not really sure. In Teaching Textbooks Math 7, there’s 118 lessons plus a quiz after each of the 18 chapters, so assuming 1 lesson a day for an 180 day school year, that’s pretty much how to get through it in a year.

You could look at the Table of Contents in the Teaching Textbook  you are looking at and see how it would break down. I set goals for the kids this way, based on where they are at, and how many weeks are left in the term, and how many lessons I think they can get through in a week and then term allowing for days off and slippage.

We’ve chosen not to try to complete it in a year. It’s taken my daughter at least a year and a half. There have been some chapters where she did a whole lesson a day, and others where a 1/2 of a lesson a day is fine.

But my style is to just let them go through it at whatever their pace is and not worry about what level they are in each year…just continuing on until they learn it. 

If you are working & homeschooling like I am, or are math challenged, or have a child who does best with visual or audio teaching methods, then Teaching Textbooks is a good, solid, and thorough math curriculum worth looking at further.