Professor B math Archives - Growing In Grace

Why Classical? and our 2012/2013 curriculum

July 12, 2012Tracy7 Comments

There are many fine ways of educating children. I was homeschooled using largely A Beka and Alpha Omega, a graduate of the traditional schooling method. My husband graduated from public school. And we’ve both done well in life by God’s grace.

When I began homeschooling my children, I really had little idea of all of the different approaches and styles. I began on a traditional road, and quickly fell into a lot of potholes. We could have trudged on I’m sure, but none of us enjoyed those first weeks of by-the-book schooling. Disillusioned, I took a break and re-evaluated everything. I searched blogs and checked out books from the library, one of which was the Well-Trained Mind. It was my first introduction to the idea of classical education, and every part of it appealed to me.

I began researching more about this approach. The more I discovered, the more my husband and I were convinced that this was the path for us. Classical is more than the study of ancient cultures and ancient languages; it’s about a framework and an ordering of information.

In a recent article I read by Martin Cochran, published in The Classical Teacher, Cochran sites an illustration given by Neil Postman in a speech. Postman referred to a new deck of cards which is arranged in a fashion that gives sense to the whole deck. Once that deck is shuffled, however, the order is lost. There is no means of knowing which card will follow the next. Classical education gives order to the vast amount of information in our world. History is studied in chronological fashion; science is studied from the framework of history; modern languages and English are learned from the foundation of the classical languages from which they were derived. Classically educating is laying a foundation and constructing a framework for the facts our children must learn.

Another appealing aspect to this style is the trivium, the three stages of training through which a child progresses: grammar, logic or dialectic, and rhetoric. First, a child learns facts without fully understanding all of the relationships between those facts. Next, as the child nears adolescence, he begins to explore the logic, the relationships of ideas, and the reasons behind those relationships. It’s the stage when a child naturally starts questioning everything. In the final stage, the rhetoric stage, the high school student is now developing an understanding of what he believes and is now learning how to articulate and defend those beliefs. I love this video clip where Michael Horton explains the advantages of the trivium for the Christian faith.

And, thus, we embark on this adventure, fully embracing the classical model for the first time.

2012/2013 Curriculum

History and Bible Curriculum: Tapestry of Grace (history, geography, Bible, art, literature, and beginning grammar)

Anatomy and Nutrition: Anatomy notebooking pages; Usborne’s See Inside Your Body; God’s Design for Life: the human body (borrowed from a friend); Little D’s Nutrition Expedition (free curriculum); My Plate (free printables)

1st grade Core:

A Beka 1st grade phonics/spelling

A Beka 1st grade math, supplemented with Math Mammoth as needed

K4/K5: (Middlest will be doing a blend of K4/K5 this year.)

A Beka K4/K5 phonics

A Beka K4 math (ABC-123)—she’s nearly finished this already; Professor B math and Math Mammoth

She’ll also be participating in our anatomy activities and our Tapestry read-alouds and crafts.

Now, to get my house and my school room as organized as my lesson plans!

Disclaimer: This post contains my Tapestry of Grace affiliate link and my Usborne consultant link. If you purchase your Tapestry materials through my link, I get a discount on the materials that I purchase from them. If you purchase your Usborne books through my consultant page, my 25% commission will be used to help provide funds for down-syndrome orphans awaiting adoption (read more here).

Professor B Math review

July 11, 2012Tracy

Professor B math sets out to “structure the content of arithmetic so it becomes as connected and flowing as a story.” And I must say, I really liked the way concepts were interwoven and presented in this curriculum.

“The program thoroughly structures the content of arithmetic as a developmental, contextual flow (like a story), allowing children’s minds to assimilate its content more quickly (in the same natural way they assimilate stories rapidly) without any gaps in their knowledge.”

Professor B math is a power point curriculum that allows you, the “instant master teacher,” to sit down with your child and work through a presentation together. “Together” is the key, and the slides do not have any sound to ensure that the work is done together. The slides present the new math concept through directions for hands-on illustrations, similar to finger-play, and speech-bubble instruction, “spoken” by the professor bee and read by either the teacher or student.

My preschooler especially loved the finger-play, and as a part of the math story, addition was presented at the same time as number recognition. She would play by making different combinations of two or three (or whatever number the lesson was presenting) with her fingers; by the end of the lesson, the bee was introducing “one and one make two” as the different finger combinations were shown in the slides. It made perfect sense to her, and my three (almost four) year old quickly grasped the addition.

The same was true for my almost-first grader, who was introduced to adding and subtracting by twos in the same series of lessons where skip counting was introduced. He could immediately see the connection between this skip counting and the addition/subtraction being taught.

Once the slide presentation is complete, the student is then given an assignment. Sometimes, the assignment was to continue drilling the material until mastery was achieved. Other times, certain worksheets were assigned at the end of the slide; just open the pdf and print off the correct pages. An answer key for the worksheets is also provided, though there are no testing materials besides the placement tests for each level.

This curriculum is definitely intended to aid the teacher not replace her, and at first, the lack of sound and lack of achievement reports was rather unsettling. It felt like something was missing. But I did appreciate the approach to mathematics, and in the end, as I read the script to my children, it gave the feeling of all of us experiencing math together. I was still the teacher, narrating the lesson and answering questions, correcting when incorrect answers were given, etc. But there was a “togetherness” about the lessons that I enjoyed. I even had my oldest sit in on his sister’s lessons and read some of the script for her; it gave him reading practice and allowed him to review earlier concepts.

Also, the power point was not just text to be read; the lessons are interactive. The professor bee often asks questions for the child to answer or gives directions for the child to do something. My kids loved this interaction, and my oldest even asked me during one lesson how the bee could hear him.

Also, there is a ton of information packed into this program! Each of the three levels covers three grades: Level I (k-2nd); Level II (3rd-5th); Level III (6th-8th). Consequently, I felt that both of my children were adequately challenged even while using the same level of material. I will definitely continue using this as my primary math instruction for Middlest and let Oldest sit in on the lessons as much as he wants.

The program can now be purchased for $40 for each level, plus $13.95 for an accompanying workbook (updated as of 2/2017).

Though the program took a little getting used to, I’d definitely say that the little bee won me over in just a few short lessons. The logical presentation and the “togetherness” were both elements that I really appreciated. Visit the Professor B website and click on “Sample Lessons” to check it out for yourself.

Read more reviews at the Schoolhouse Review Crew website.

Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine.