CPO Focus on Life Science, Part One

4 comments Posted by Kristine at 3/09/2011 07:35:00 AM

Very shortly, we'll be starting on a new year of science with CPO Life Science. The company publishes two life science textbooks, Life Science (ISBN: 1588924874) and Focus on Life Science (ISBN: 1588922537), the California standards-based edition. For whatever reason, it is much easier to obtain student copies of the California books (in fact, the entire CPO Focus on Life Science student textbook can be found online here as a .PDF), and teacher's editions of Life Science. At least, that's the case at the moment, as well as the most cost-effective solution.

There is also a wealth of free material available at CPO's website, but all of it is aligned to Life Science. To simplify things, I decided to match the two books up so that I could make better use of what we've got and what's available online. Fortunately, they match up fairly well. The chapters listed below are from Focus on Life Science and the corresponding student supplements are from Life Science. My list is still quite rough, but I will be improving upon it as I get further into my planning. A supply list for the entire course can be found here.

UPDATE: I've uploaded a copy of our CPO Life Science schedule for the first quarter to give a better idea of how I scheduled it, using the list below. The schedule can be found here.

Unit 1: Living Systems

Chapter 1: Studying Life
Chapter 2: Cell Biology
    Supplements
    Chapter 3: Interactions of Living Things
    Supplements
    Unit 2: Living Systems

    Chapter 4: Chemistry and Physics Connections
    Chapter 5: Cell Structure and Function
    Chapter 6: Cell Processes
    Chapter 7: The Microscopic World
    Supplements

    Unit 3: Genetics

    Chapter 8: Reproduction
    Chapter 9: Heredity
    Chapter 10: The Code of Life
    Supplements
    General Resources

    Part Two: Units 4-6

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    Week in Review: 03/04/11

    4 comments Posted by Kristine at 3/05/2011 05:14:00 AM

    "Marguerites sur fond bleu,"Albert Marquet, c. 1943/44

    This was, quite simply, the week that was too much. We took last week off so that I could schedule all of our new curricula, and it seems that I went a wee bit overboard. Despite having been at this for two years now, I appear to be incapable of finding that perfect happy medium - just the right balance of work. This week the kids spent an average of 7-8 hours per day on school work (solidly working) and still didn't get everything done. Looking over everything we did this past week, I'm honestly not even sure what was so time consuming. This weekend I'll be revisiting my master schedule to see how it might be adjusted, though the very thought makes me cringe because I had everything arranged so precisely.

    My current plan is that we'll continue school through the end of May, break for the month of June (so that we can move to Oregon!), and resume work in July. Hopefully that's doable. In the upcoming months I've got to get our house ready to sell, declutter like crazy, and of course, pack. My husband has already been living in Oregon for some time, so will not be around to help, lucky him! Needless to say, when I made our recent curricula changes to such teacher-intensive programs, I was not considering all of this!

    Religion

    This week, we begin using Faith and Life: Following Christ from Ignatius Press and I really love it! It is exactly what I'd hoped to pull together on my own, but never found time to do.

    I deliberated on whether or not to buy the Teacher's Manual, but am so glad I did. It's a massive book (truly), but is incredibly helpful for scheduling purposes and includes valuable supplemental materials.
    • We had one lesson per day and one activity page from Faith and Life: Following Christ.
    • The kids memorized the following catechism questions: CCC 1692, CCC 2055, CCC 2072, CCC 1855, 2072, in addition to the Ten Commandments.
    In addition, the kids attended two faith formation classes at our parish this week; they continue with preparation for First Holy Communion.

    World History

    Recently I purchased, and fell utterly in love with, The Usborne History of Britain (preview here). Primarily because of this book, I decided that we needed to add world history back into our schedule.
    U.S. History
    • From BJU American Republic, the kids read Chapter 5 (one section per day over four days) about the French and Indian War and completed the corresponding pages from the Student Activity Manual. This kept them very busy! This was our first week using American Republic as our spine and it had poor M in tears a number of times, though J seemed to enjoy it very much.
    • The kids watched 3+ episodes of Liberty's Kids per day.
    Language Arts

    Grammar and Writing:

    This week we switched to an updated version of Voyages in English (Loyola Press, 2006). We had been using the 1958 Lepanto Press reprint, which was wonderful, but didn't offer nearly enough practice or review. The new version has the added benefit of a practice book, and, because it so closely correlates to the old version,  the old books can still be used if additional exercises are needed for review.

    The new books were a smashing success and the kids actually enjoyed grammar this week! Though the content hasn't changed significantly, the full color pages were a nice improvement.

    I opted to have the kids start back at the beginning of the grammar section so that they could do the corresponding writing portions in the proper sequence. I adapted these lesson plans for our 2006 books, which made scheduling a breeze.
    • Grammar was largely review this week. The kids studied singular and plural nouns, count and noncount nouns, concrete and abstract nouns, and nouns as subjects and subject complements. The kids completed two pages daily from the grammar portion of Voyages in English (an average of four exercises), in addition to the corresponding practice book pages.
    • From the writing portion of Voyages in English, the kids completed four activities pertaining to personal narratives, in addition to one practice book page and an assignment on "Introductions and Conclusions."
    While I am quite satisfied with the writing instruction found in Voyages in English, I will be adding significantly to our writing program in the weeks ahead. However, this is a matter of personal choice, not because Voyages is lacking in any way.

    Spelling:
    Literature:

    This week's assigned literature selections were: The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare (J) and Calico Bush by Rachel Field (M), both set during the French and Indian War. In the end, this proved way too much reading for them with all of the other work we had this week. J finished his book, but I allowed M to stop after she'd read roughly half the book because she was getting behind on other assignments. J and I discussed The Sign of the Beaver on Friday following Susan Wise Bauer's guidelines for literary analysis.

    Next year I'll be handling assigned selections differently, but now I'm pondering how I'll manage them for the rest of this year. Neither of the kids enjoy historical fiction, and while they do occasionally like a book that I've assigned, it's pretty uncommon. I suppose as long as they're reading quality literature, it's not necessary that it be historical fiction that is oh-so-carefully aligned with our history schedule. Neither of them enjoy history and would much rather stick to textbook work.

    Science

    Science continues to be muddled. I am, however, committing myself to the subject in a big way next year. Both M and J are very science-minded and I've let them down by largely ignoring it this year. 
    • For science this week, the kids read and completed narrations from Colonial American Medicine by Susan Neiburg Terkel, which they found quite fascinating. It's a shame the book has been allowed to go out-of-print because it contains a lot of very good information not readily available otherwise.
    • From Time Travelers Colonial American Life, the kids colored, cut and assembled "A Glimpse in the Apothecary" and "The Pharmacopoeia."
    Math
    • The kids continued daily work on fractions in their Singapore Math books.
    Personal Notes
    • Last week, in a quest to learn more about Wallis Simpson, I began reading The Duchess of Windsor: The Secret Life by Charles Higham. A massive biography, I finally finished the book this week. While it was obviously exceedingly well-researched, I got bogged down by the sheer amount of detail in the book, though I did learn a great deal from it.
    • This week I also read the short, sweet and rather sad, Lady Rose and Mrs. Memmary (Persephone Book No. 53) by Ruby Ferguson, a "fairy tale for grown-ups." I'm haven't time for a proper review now, but Dove Grey Reader wrote very nicely about the book here. I accidentally ordered two copies, so if anyone would like my extra copy (free), just let me know in the comments! I've got a few other Persephone extras that I'll be giving away in upcoming weeks, so stay tuned. ;-)

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    Teaching Science Fiction

    2 comments Posted by Kristine at 2/13/2011 10:40:00 AM


    There is a wide range of options available when it comes to teaching science fiction. One of the first things I read when deciding to put together a science fiction literature study was the article, Why Teach Science Fiction? by Professor James Gunn. In it, he writes:

    The kinds of subjects that can be taught through science fiction involve all the social and physical sciences, history, ideas, futurology, religion, morality, ecology, reading skills, and many others. In fact, looking at the course descriptions gathered for this issue of Science-Fiction Studies, I am impressed by the fact that they are addressed to almost every issue but the genre itself.

    When teaching science fiction from a literary perspective, he outlines three approaches, any or all of which would be valid:
    1. The "great books" approach, in which the focus is on novels and critical analaysis of what makes them great.
    2. The "ideas in science fiction" approach, dealing with how science fiction stories can be used to dramatize contemporary problems.
    3. The historical approach - what is science fiction and how did it get to be that way?

    Before I get back to planning our literature study, here were a couple of other ideas that captured my interest:

    Teaching Science with Science Fiction

    Bibliography:
    Websites:
    Teaching Writing with Science Fiction

    Bibliography*:

    *The first three books are specifically for middle grade students, while the last two are for adults, but still of value.
    Websites:


    Miscellaneous Resources

    Retro-Futurism

    0 comments Posted by Kristine at 2/13/2011 07:11:00 AM


    As a spin-off to our year-long science fiction literature unit, we'll also be taking a look at retro-futurism, just for fun. This would also make a quirky tie-in to a study of technology or the history of inventions. Here's my reading list, though there may be some overlap between titles:
    Paleofuture is a terrific blog that explores "The Future That Never Was" and Dark Roasted Blend also has some amazing stuff.





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    Middle Grade Science Fiction

    6 comments Posted by Kristine at 2/12/2011 02:49:00 PM


    One of my recent ideas for school next year was to put together a science fiction unit for J, something that he would absolutely love (he wants to be an astrobiologist). Below are the books that I initially purchased, though I expect that some will be culled and others added as I get further into my pre-reading and planning. In particular, I like the idea of studying the books by sub-genre (time travel, dystopian, apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic, etc.), so there's clearly some organizational work to be done. More than likely our "spine" will be the amazing Prentice Hall Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy, a college text which I'll use selectively.

    A fascinating blog documenting non-fiction children's books about space flight, from 1945 to 1975, is Dreams of Space.


    The Tom Corbett - Space Cadet series was inspired by Robert Heinlein's Space Cadet and published between 1952-1956. The series inspired comic books, a daily and Sunday newspaper strip, radio shows, and a television series.

    Thanks to Boom Pop!, I discovered that 7 of the 8 titles are available as free eBooks at ManyBooks:
    While these books might not have much literary value, I thought they might be fun to include anyway (or maybe not!).


    Dystopian Fiction*
    *I picked these books from the excellent lists found here and here.
    Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time

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    Week in Review: 02/11/11

    3 comments Posted by Kristine at 2/11/2011 03:40:00 PM


    Since I haven't done a weekly report in forever, I decided that I should force myself to write something this week. Overall, I'm feeling unusually dissatisfied, and have been since winter break. In particular, language arts (which I've written more about below) and history are distressing me - and distracting me from most everything else. I think I'm only upset about history because I'm working on a plan for next year which is utterly unique and rather brilliant and I'm impatient to get started on it! It's really hard to focus on this year when it seems positively dull in comparison!

    Religion
    • We've been shamefully lax about religion this past month, though the kids are still attending religious classes twice weekly at church. I hope to piece together a plan this weekend to get us back on track!

    History
    Math and Science
    • The kids read and narrated a chapter per day from Isaac Newton and Physics for Kids: His Life and Ideas with 21 Activities. As usual, there wasn't enough time to actually complete any of the activities (nor was there, quite frankly, much interest). J has been doing his own science reading as well lately, studying the topics that interest him.
    • The kids continued with daily lessons from their Singapore Math books. They're currently working on fractions and all is going blessedly well.
    Language Arts

    Since December, I've been feeling enormously discontented with several aspects of our entire language arts program. With D at public school again this year, and headed to an academically rigorous private high school next year, I've become increasingly aware of his weaknesses in language arts. There are deficiencies that I wish I had seen sooner, so that we could have worked on them during the brief time he was at home. This has made me especially mindful of M and J's education, since they remain home with me. What an enormous responsibility a child's education is! Silly as it may sound, I think the full weight of that has only just hit me.

    In analyzing the potential "gaps" in their education, I found it helpful to first compile a list of goals. To do this, I consulted the state's curriculum content standards and the result was, quite frankly, overwhelming (here, for example, are the reading goals). Then, I decided to take a step back and listen to Susan Wise Bauer's excellent audio lectures (specifically those on writing and literary analysis). They're really such a joy to listen to, and very comforting, but at the same time, too simplistic I think.

    So, I've been puzzling over all of this for awhile now and, while I still don't have a clear plan in place, I am getting closer. Nevertheless, I expect there will continue to be a slight amount of chaos until everything gets sorted out. With that in mind, here's what we did this week:
    • Daily cursive copywork from the Bible and George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation, part of the Time Travelers: Colonial Life unit.
    • In Voyages in English, the kids completed five lessons pertaining to limiting adjectives, demonstrative adjectives, possessive adjectives and the position of adjectives. Overall, I'm quite pleased with Voyages in English, but realized this week that while the books cover a lot of ground, there isn't nearly enough review (and thus, retention suffers). Beginning next week, I plan to resume daily or thrice-weekly review drills. We did this with Rod and Staff English and I found it fairly effective.
    • For spelling we completed four lessons plus a review lesson from Dictation Day-by-Day by Kate Van Wagenen. Misspelled words were written ten times each. Though we haven't been using the book for long, I really like it.
    • From Figuratively Speaking, the kids learned about denotation and connotation, with an emphasis on the shades of meaning a word can have. I stretched the lesson to last all week and supplemented with a few additional worksheets found online (here, here and here). 
    • We took a week off from writing/composition work this week while I assess where we're at and where we need to be. Moving forward, I know that I will continue to use Methods and Material for Composition in Intermediate and Grammar Grades by Alhambra Deming. I'm also expecting Grammar for Middle School: A Sentence-Composing Approach by Don Killgallon to arrive today, and have a few other ideas that I'm working on.
    Personal Notes

    I feel as though I've been going in about a hundred different directions at once these days! I recently learned that the company I work for may be closing soon and am feeling quite conflicted about that. Since high school, I've never not worked, but at the same time, after working from home for seven years, I think I would find returning to a 9 to 5 office job very difficult! So, it's not likely that I will get another job if/when my present job ends. That would, of course, free up so much more time for me, which would be wonderful. At the same time, my income pays for all of our books and fun stuff. Needless to say, I've been spending every penny on books these days - in a panic for the future!

    At present I'm trying to sort out all of our lesson issues (see above), pre-read M and J's books for next year to forumulate ideas (honestly, I think I've got at least two years of books so far!), read books on teaching reading and writing, and, in the time that's left, read for pleasure...Needless to say, I fall asleep every night with a book in hand and am, overall, utterly exhausted. I just finished Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden, which is quite simply the best novel I've read in a long time - I loved everything about it.

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    7th Grade Reading Goals

    0 comments Posted by Kristine at 2/11/2011 10:34:00 AM


    For the most part, I've simply copy and pasted the Kansas curriculum content standards for 7th grade here, and added the resources that I've found to assist in teaching them. Thus far, this is a largely a collection of graphic organizers, but I hope to add more varied resources in the future.

    Vocabulary

    Goal: The student expands their vocabulary.
    1. Determines meaning of words or phrases using context clues (e.g., definitions, restatements, examples, descriptions, comparison-contrast, clue words) from sentences or paragraphs.
    2. Determines meaning of words through structural analysis, using knowledge of Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon roots, prefixes, and suffixes to understand complex words, including words in science, mathematics, and social studies.
    3. Identifies and determines the meaning of figurative language (similes, metaphors, analogies, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, personification, and idioms).
    4. Identifies word connotations and word denotations.
      The choice of words that a writer uses, and the tone of those words, is what evokes an emotion in us. As an active reader, you should question the author's use of words: Why does your author use neutral, positive, or negative connotative language? How does it affect the characters and you?
    Reading Comprehension

    Goal: The student reads and comprehends grade-level-appropriate material. They describe and connect the essential ideas, arguments, and perspectives of the text by using their knowledge of text structure, organization, and purpose. The student comprehends a variety of texts (narrative, expository, technical and persuasive).
    1. The student identifies characteristics of narrative, expository, technical, and persuasive texts.
    2. The student understands the purpose of text features (e.g., title, graphs/charts and maps, table of contents, pictures/illustrations, boldface type, italics, glossary, index, headings, subheadings, topic and summary sentences, captions, sidebars, underlining, numbered or bulleted lists) and uses such features to locate information in and to gain meaning from appropriate-level texts.
    3. The student uses prior knowledge, content, and text type features to make, to revise, and to confirm predictions.
    4. The student generates and responds logically to literal, inferential, evaluative, synthesizing, and critical thinking questions before, during, and after reading the text.
    5. The student uses information from the text to make inferences and draw conclusions.
    6. The student analyzes how text structure (e.g., sequence, problem-solution, comparison-contrast, description, cause-effect) helps support comprehension of text.
    7. The student compares and contrasts varying aspects (e.g., characters' traits and motives, themes, problem-solution, cause-effect relationships, ideas and concepts, procedures, viewpoints, authors' purposes) in one or more appropriate-level texts.
    8. The student uses paraphrasing and organizational skills to summarize information (e.g., stated and implied main ideas, main events, important details) from appropriate-level narrative, expository,
      technical      , and persuasive texts in logical order.
    9. The student identifies the topic, main idea(s), supporting details, and theme(s) in text across the content areas and from a variety of sources in appropriate-level texts.
    10. The student follows directions explained in a technical (instructive) text.
    11. The student identifies the author's position in a persuasive text and describes techniques the author uses to support that position (e.g., bandwagon approach, glittering generalities, testimonials, citing statistics, other techniques that appeal to reason or emotion).
    12. The student distinguishes between fact and opinion, and recognizes propaganda (e.g., advertising, media, politics, warfare), bias, and stereotypes in various types of appropriate-level texts.
    Literature

    Goal: The student uses literary concepts to interpret and respond to text.
    1. The student describes different aspects of major and minor characters (e.g., their physical traits, personality traits, feelings, actions, motives) and explains how those aspects influence characters' interactions with other characters and elements of the plot, including resolution of the major conflict
    2. The student identifies and describes the setting (e.g., environment, time of day or year, historical period, situation, place) and analyzes connections between the setting and other story elements (e.g., character, plot).
    3. The student identifies major and minor elements of the plot (e.g., problem or conflict, climax, resolution, rising action, falling action, subplots, parallel episodes) and explains how these elements relate to one another.
    4. The student recognizes aspects of theme (e.g., moral, lesson, meaning, message, author's ideas about the subject) and recurring themes across works (e.g., bravery, loneliness, loyalty, friendship).
    5. The student identifies literary devices (e.g., foreshadowing, flashback, figurative language, irony, metaphor, tone/mood, symbolism).
    6. The student contrasts point of view (e.g., first and third person, limited and omniscient, subjective and objective) in narrative text and explain how they affect the overall theme of the work.
    Goal: The student understands the significance of literature and its contributions to various cultures.
    1. The student identifies common structures and stylistic elements in literature, folklore, and myths from a variety of cultures.
    2. The student compares and contrasts customs and ideas within literature
      representing a variety of cultures.
    3. The student recognizes connections between cultures and experiences through a variety of texts.

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