First of all, pictures. I know you want them.
Here we are doing our workbooks (more about that anon).
Seatwork done for the day, we do a little passive learning of German with Muzzy.
Which degenerates into people stealing my phone and taking pictures of a bottle of syrup.
Or putting on their bathrobes over their clothes and posing.
And posing.
And posing. (Notice the trucks book and the trucks lined up for classification.)
They've had a great time with school, actually. So you can at least feel better about that.
I'm writing this post in case there's anybody else out there who has purchased the A.C.E. curriculum for first grade, used it for a week with growing dismay, and who is now frantically Googling "how to adapt the A.C.E. curriculum (since the boogers won't take returns)".
First, my problems with the curriculum--because maybe not everybody objects to the same things.
1. Many, many rote drill exercises.
I am actually in favor of rote drill for a few selected things, especially in the primary grades. For instance, I think rote memorization of math facts (2+3=5, the various iterations of x+x=10) is quite useful, and the parts of speech pretty well have to be memorized. But so far A.C.E. appears to want the kids to memorize everything, without explaining the why of anything.
2. Zero critical thinking.
Now, in first grade I'm not expecting the curriculum to ask the kid to explain the claims of Marxism and then to write an essay refuting or supporting those claims. But I would like them to ask questions about a story like "Why do you suppose the wolf was trying to get into the three little pigs' houses? What else could the pigs have done? Why do you think the first pig's house blew down?" Nope. You get none of that. In fact, you don't get the story of the Three Little Pigs or any secular story. Which brings me to
3. Moralism in storytelling.
If any of you know Uncle Art you'll know what I'm talking about. Every single story we've run across so far has a moral to the story. Granted, there is less death in these stories than in Uncle Art's interesting tales (and no one is stabbed with a knitting needle), but there's still a definite sense that Bad Life Outcomes can be directly related to Foolish Choices every single time. Also, Bible Verses Out of Context.
4. Weird phonics.
I am probably bothered by this more than other teachers might be because Miss Boo is reading fluently already, therefore she doesn't need a phonics drill, and Buddy is well on his way to decoding. (We're up to sentences like "THE RAT IS IN THE SACK. THAT RAT IS NOT SAD." Actual example from his reading today.) So reviewing the letter A for them was superfluous, but I figured it was okay to have them do some easy things during their first few days of school.
So for my kids, this is just silly puzzle work. But the teacher's manual that comes with "ABCs with ACE and Christi" (the phonics curriculum) is VERY strict, stern, and insistent. You are NOT to let the kids try to sound out words that contain letters they haven't studied! You are NOT to let them write the words or their names! You are NOT to write words where they can see them that contain letters other than the ones you've studied already!
They also study all the sounds a letter can make before moving on to another letter, instead of concentrating on the most common sound and getting on to reading words. (For instance, A has three sounds. We spent the whole first week on various sounds of A, but without learning any rules like "an e on the end makes a say it's name, as in cake", because we haven't learned E yet.)
To me this is stupid. The point of phonics is to get a kid reading. If I don't let them decode words from the beginning, what is the kid supposed to think phonics is but a very boring game that the teacher likes a lot? It's not very hard to teach the sounds of A, M, T, and S and then let the kids figure out MAT, SAM, TAM, SAT and so on. Otherwise, you're asking the kid to take your word for it that in six weeks we will start reading words. Honest. Now do your phonics worksheet, schnell! No wonder some kids hate reading.
5. No science or history to speak of.
The science workbooks include a lot of penmanship practice, the six days of creation (good), a bit about the five senses (good), more penmanship, a bit about weather (okay...) more penmanship, and finish off with some more Out of Context Bible Verses and penmanship.
Not science.
The social studies workbooks are all penmanship. (The student does read and do comprehension exercises, but still they are multiple choice comprehension exercises. My kid learned how to game the test in two exposures. It's penmanship practice.)
All in all, the A.C.E. first grade curriculum gives you lots and lots of penmanship and counting practice, no literature exposure, no science, and no history, as well has having a bizarre approach to phonics. You do learn how to game a test--i.e., guess which answers the test wants without knowing the material very deeply--but I don't think that's a terribly useful life skill.
How I'm Fixing It:
The thing is, I knew I should have stuck with my instincts. I have loved The Well Trained Mind for years, and it's what I used in Miss Boo's preschool/kindergarten years (and it's why she reads as well as she does). For some reason, though, I got the Homsechooling Jibblies this year. This was first grade, after all, shouldn't there be workbooks? Or something more formal than me reading and saying, "so what was that story about? tell it back to me". I succumbed, and bought the most rigorous-looking program that wasn't $800 that I could find.
Moral of my story: don't succumb to the Homeschooling Jibblies. Or you will get the hollow curriculum.
So what am I doing about it?
1. Fewer rote drill exercises.
This is the beauty of homeschooling. Since I am sure that my child does, indeed, grasp the concept of four ducks = numeral 4, instead of doing a whole page of these I let them get by with half a page. At five years old, Miss Boo doesn't need to sit for longer than a couple of hours per day (another beauty of homeschooling), so this works out fine.
2. Require critical thinking.
This requires that we do reading outside the PACE (that's Packet of Advanced Christian Education, get it? it means a workbook). I'm working my way through Aesop's Fables and other classic stories, asking the kids to do narration of the story, and to think about it critically. They are used to this, because we've been doing it since they were little. (Upon watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarves for the first time, Miss Boo observed, "Snow White is really silly. She's afraid of sticks." Way to not maintain the suspension of disbelief, there, my dear.)
3. I edit the stories and take out the moralism. Because bad things do not only happen to bad people. Since I'm the one reading these stories aloud, I can usually make them funny. (In passing, A.C.E., if you are going to give a character flaw to a mule, make it stubbornness, and not inattentiveness. There's no reason to thumb our noses at all western tradition.)
4. I teach phonics with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. And treat the phonics instruction in the A.C.E. curriculum as a useful game, but I don't take it seriously and I CERTAINLY don't keep the kids from practicing writing their name, sounding out random words we find in the world ("Mama, what does 'T-R-A-S-H' spell?") and other adventures in literacy. It's just stupid to hold them back.
5. I treat the science and social studies PACEs as penmanship practice and teach science and history from other sources. Specifically, from Read and Understand Science and The Story of the World. Apart from this, we will continue, as we always have, to read lots of picture books that are science and history focused, and to watch documentaries.
We will continue to work through the PACEs because I paid for them, dagnabit, and, well, they do need penmanship drill. Sigh.
Now, I can think of some instances in which A.C.E. might be useful to you. It might be useful if:
1. You are a brand-new homeschooling parent with a severe case of Jibblies, who wants to know exactly how you're supposed to structure your day, exactly how to keep records, exactly what order to do things in, etc. The guidance provided is extremely thorough and extremely complete, and the scheduling and record-keeping is easy to set up. But I think it could also be very overwhelming.
2. You are homeschooling eighteen kids at once and need something that lets you not have to do much hands-on teaching.
3. You are in a situation where you need to produce A Schedule, A Workbook, A Test, and An Attendance Sheet to please someone--be it a family member, an administrator, etc. There are people who don't understand that a portfolio of essays is a better indicator of academic achievement than three multiple-choice English tests, sadly. You may have to play to them.
4. You don't really want to teach, but you want to homeschool your kids. (You might consider, however, reflecting that all grownups have to do things they don't like, and studying how to teach, and deciding to pull up your big girl/boy pants and get it done.)
Now, the TLDR version:
Although I'm disappointed in the curriculum we purchased this year--and more disappointed that I can't return it--I'm adapting it to make it work for us. Nevada isn't a high-regulation state, and my kids aren't mandatory reporting age yet anyway, so I can do whatever I want. Just remember, homeschooling parent, that you are the boss of the curriculum.
The kids are loving school and doing excellently, and charging through their workbooks at high speed. They like our read-alouds (at the moment we're doing The Wind in the Willows), and are great critical thinkers when they aren't posing in bathrobes. So we will probably finish early this year, and I'll be moving them along to something more to our tastes.
How's school going for you all?
Cheers,
Breanna
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