So far I have talked about the language arts block and the math block, but what about the afternoon? After an hour-long lunch and recess period and a half-an-hour read-aloud period, students attend either a history or science block. Science will be studied on Monday and Tuesday, while History will be taught on Wednesday and Thursday.
Before you go on, click on over to our daily schedule and take a good look at it.
The Cluster System: How the Hybrid Works
For many families, homeschooling can be an overwhelming process that can prove to be too taxing. Some parents might not feel confident in their ability to teach their children; others might feel overwhelmed by the paperwork to comply with state regulation. Still other parents might not feel like they can devote the full-time hours homeschooling requires. Perhaps above all, many parents might value classroom socialization as a means to develop leadership skills, cooperation, and adaptability.
Hybrid homeschooling is a model that can overcome many of these obstacles and provide for the positive classroom interaction a family is seeking. In the hybrid model, a student can split their educational time between the home and a more traditional classroom environment. A One-Room Schoolhouse provides for attendance on a flexible schedule while the parent remains part of the education program. Our curriculum, The Good and the Beautiful is an open-and-go format allowing families to pick up right where the student left off in the classroom.
Upon enrolling with A One-Room Schoolhouse family will choose one or more clusters to attend. Students can attend anywhere from one to five days a week.
Hybrid Schedule Options
Science Cluster: Monday and Tuesday
History Cluster: Wednesday and Thursday
Elective Cluster: Friday (can be added to any other cluster)
Academic Cluster: Monday through Thursday
Academic and Elective Cluster: Monday through Friday
History: What’s Included?
At A One-Room Schoolhouse, we use the unique history curriculum developed by The Good and the Beautiful. This history curriculum is designed for a multi-age classroom with group lessons, stories, historical fiction readings, games, and audio dramatizations. Emphasis is given to a Christian worldview while celebrating and nurturing positive character values.
The course includes four levels of student assignment books, called student explorers. These assignment books allow young students to cement basic facts and engage in fun projects while older students are challenged to take a deep dive into the content through extra reading, research, and more complex assignments. By completing two lessons a week, we will finish the course in one school year.
The most unique part of The Good and the Beautiful’s history curriculum is the 4-year rotation and the broad sweep through history given each year. The history curriculum is described on the website as follows:
“All history courses (Years 1–4) cover ancient history through modern history, but each course stops in different places and time periods to explore in depth. Our testing has shown that it is effective for children to see the whole sweep of history and how it fits together each year. In addition, children enjoy this approach as they can become disengaged when a year-long course focuses on the same time period, especially when learning ancient history.”
https://www.goodandbeautiful.com/pre-k-8-curriculum/history/
As a student “grows up” in this history program, they will repeat Years 1-4, as many as four-times over. Each time through they will use the next level of explorer materials as their student assignments. This process fosters a deep and abiding understanding of the history of both the world and the United States.
History: How It Works
After lunch and before the official history lesson begins, the teacher will read-aloud from a book grounded in the time period the history class is studying. These books may include historical fiction, biography, poetry, and interesting non-fiction pieces. The Good and the Beautiful provides historical fiction selections with each history unit and these books will be the starting point of each unit. As time allows, other read-aloud material will be added.
After the read-aloud period, the lesson will begin as instructed in the open-and go teacher manual. Each lesson is unique as it may include engaging and colorful stories, audio dramatizations, class activities, art projects, picture study, and timeline work.
After the lesson period, the student will have time to complete their student explorer page suited for their grade and ability. Younger students will finish their work in class, but older students may at times need to finish their work as home. Students are also encouraged to play the history board game that goes with each year of study at home for extra review.
Although no formal tests are given, assessments are made through the assignments completed, reviews at the end of each unit, class presentations, and portfolio projects.
Science: What’s Included?
At A One-Room Schoolhouse, we use The Good and the Beautiful science unit studies as our science curriculum. These 21 unit studies vary in length but completing 2 lessons a week for a typical school year students will complete each unit study in four years.
A multi-age classroom style of learning is used in teaching science lessons. They are colorful, hands-on and full of experiments. Although lessons are faith-based, they only cover very basic Bible principles leaving points of doctrine for the parents to teach more in depth.
Units have varied assignments for grade and ability often with special extensions for seventh and eighth-graders. At A One-Room Schoolhouse, students will do each unit study twice during their elementary and middle school years. Once they have completed the rotation twice or reach high school age, students will begin the high school science curriculum.
Specific Unit Studies
- Space Science
- Meteorology
- Water and our World
- Beginning Chemistry
- Energy
- Electricity and Magnetism
- Forces, Motion, Gravity, and Simple Machines
- Marine Biology
- Botany
- Kingdoms and Classifications
- Arthropods
- The Human Body Part One
- The Human Body Part Two
- Mammals
- Geology
- Reptiles, Birds, and Amphibians
- Ecosystems
- Paleontology
Science: How It Works
After the daily lunch period, the afternoon period will start with a read-aloud selection that supports the concepts being taught in science class that day. These books will include selections of fiction, nonfiction, biography, and poetry. After the 30-minute read-aloud period formal science instruction will begin.
Science lessons are filled with experiments, colorful readings, engaging worksheets, and fun projects. Students will develop a solid scientific foundation and be encouraged to take deeper dives into areas of interest.
It should be noted that A One-Room Schoolhouse will not complete the Health and Safety courses (“Safety” and “Maturation and Sexual Reproduction”). We feel that these courses are best taught in the home and encourage our students to do these units with their families.
Finally…
The best part of our History and Science curriculum is our dedication to field trips. Field trips are done once a month and support what is being taught in the science and history unit studies. Visits to a weather station, museums, local historic sights, and even a specialized medical facility are already being planned for the 2020-2021 school year.
What science unit are you most excited to learn about? What time period in history will you be most interested in learning about? Drop a comment below!
What to learn more?
Come on out to our first parent night on February 8th at 4 pm. Click here for more information!
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