Jim Burke has created a Common Core Companion for you, too. This time positioning the grades 9-10 standards alongside 11-12, it's every bit the roadmap to what each standard says, what each standard means, and how to put that standard into practice across subjects. Jim clearly lays out:Key distinctions across grade levels Different content-area versions of each standard Explanations of each standard, with student prompts Content to cover, lesson ideas, and instructional techniques Glossary and adaptations for ELL students

    It traces the history of classical education and describes its modern renaissance. The book also highlights the distinctive elements of the movement including its emphasis on teaching grammar, logic and rhetoric (the Trivium), and the extraordinary achievements of students who are receiving a classical education. It explains the benefit of classical language study (Latin and Greek) and integrated learning through a study of the great books of western civilization. The booklet is written in a colloquial and informative style, with anecdotes, diagrams and charts. This book is recommended to parents just beginning their examination of classical education.

    At the age of forty, with no particular musical background, he took up the cello. His touching and hilarious account of his passionate second career demolished the myth that one must start an instrument (or a sport, or a language) in early childhood, and will inspire any reader who dreams of taking up a new skill.

    In this thought-provoking book, the author presents a compelling case for why contemporary American educators are the greatest generation in history. He carefully explains why current national reform policies have failed and presents specific steps policymakers, administrators, and teachers must take to transform American schools to meet student needs in the 21st century.

    For too long, parents and teachers have focused on identifying and “fixing” kids’ weaknesses to improve academic performance. Passionately written and informed by Fox’s twenty-five years of experience, Your Child’s Strengths turns that flawed paradigm on its head. Fox’s strengths-based philosophy provides the tools to prepare kids for the future in a world that demands greater adaptability and creative thinking than ever before. Your Child’s Strengths will give parents and teachers the tools to discover strengths in three main areas: Activity Strengths, the tasks that make you feel engaged and energized; Relationship Strengths, the things you do for and with others that make you feel valued and competent; and Learning Strengths, the unique ways we approachand understand new information. All three strengths work in tandem. Pairing inspiring firsthand accounts of success with practical workbook tools and an outline of the award- winning Affinities Program Fox has implemented at her own school, this much- needed book is a user- friendly guide for parents, teachers, and administrators that will improve individual performance and an indispensable road map for young people and society to a future that plays to strengths.

    Today, students are taught an encyclopedia of subjects but they are not taught the basic skills of learning: to discover, to reason, and to apply. They are not taught the trivium.Can you homeschool in a classical style without compromising your Christian principles? Classical education must be sifted through the critical screen of the Scriptures to be transformed into a Biblical model.Can you homeschool in a classical style without buckling under the burden? There is only so much time in the day. For every subject, and for every age, we have a workable plan which leaves you free to breathe. You can continue to use other approaches to homeschooling within the framework of classical education.Some of the distinctives of Teaching the Trivium include:--an emphasis on reading aloud to your children--studying logic from ages ten through high school, rather than using it as a one or two year supplement--ancient literature from a Christian perspective -- is it really necessary to read Homer?--choices in language study, with an emphasis on Biblical Greek--why INFORMAL math or grammar before age ten may be a better choice--how to give your children the tools they need to teach themselves--how to homeschool in a classical style without buckling under the burden--a workable plan for every subject and for every age which avoids homeschool burnout -- there is only so much time in the day--how to continue using other approaches to homeschooling within the framework of classical education--homeschooling is not alternative education -- homeschooling was here first

    From Simon & Schuster, Teaching Your Children Joy is the next great work from Linda and Richard Eyre.Filled with invaluable know-how, this easy-to-follow guide from the authors of the #1 national bestseller Teaching Your Children Values presents practical advice for teaching children how to take a joyful, positive, and optimistic approach to life.

    In Montessori, Angeline Stoll Lillard shows that science has finally caught up with Maria Montessori. Lillard presents the research behind eight insights that are foundations of Montessori education, describing how each of these insights is applied in the Montessori classroom. In reading this book, parents and teachers alike will develop a clear understanding of what happens in a Montessori classroom and, more important, why it happens and why it works. Lillard, however, does much more than explain the scientific basis for Montessori's system: Amid the clamor for evidence-based education, she presents the studies that show how children learn best, makes clear why many traditional practices come up short, and describes an ingenious alternative that works. Now with a foreword by Renilde Montessori, the youngest grandchild of Maria Montessori, Montessori offers a wealth of insights for anyone interested in education.

    One of the most progressive and imaginative people in British education today he has hitherto kept a low profile. This book accompanies a three part television series to be screened on BBC 2 but differs from it significantly.There is a crisis in the British education system. Year on year GCSE and A Level pupils post better exam results, with more students achieving top grades. Yet business leaders and employers complain bitterly that our schools are not producing people fit for purpose. What we have become is a nation 'Over schooled and under educated'. Far from being locked in an ivory tower, a bastion of privilege, Mr Little has used his time as a teacher and headmaster to get to grips with fundamental questions concerning education. He wants to produce people fit to work in the modern world. How do children absorb information? What kind of people does society need? What is education for? Not only is the author one of the great reforming headmasters of our time but he has planted Academies in the East end of London, founded a state boarding school near Windsor and yet is a passionate advocate of single sex schools.This book is not a text book for colleges of education- it is a book to enlighten the teaching profession and just as much for anxious parents. The book is simply arranged under topics such as authority, expectations, progress, self-confidence, sex, crises and creativity.Tony Little thinks it is time to ask some fundamental questions, and to make brave decisions about how we make our schools and our schoolchildren fit for purpose.

    But rarely did any teacher tell us how to write fiction--they simply urged us to write a story. But how is that done? Angela Hunt has been writing and teaching for thirty years, and she has boiled plotting down to the basics in thirty pages. Not only will you come away knowing how to plot, you'll be able to point the important structural points in movies and other books you read. It's all about the skeleton, Hunt says, and every working story has one. (A condensed version of this lesson was originally published in A NOVEL IDEA, a collection of writer's tips and techniques by published novelists.) Enjoy this writing lesson for a fraction of the cost of attending one of Angela's writing classes--your writing will never be the same.

    "We all have need to be trained to see, and to have our eyes opened before we can take in the joy that is meant for us in this beautiful life." Charlotte Mason ~~~~~~~ "Composition books and blank journals are readily available at every big box and corner store, available so inexpensively as to be common and ironic as we reach that digital dominion, the projected 'paperless culture.' Shall we despair the future of the notebook? Is the practice an anachronism in an age where one's thoughts and pictures, doings and strivings are so easily recorded on a smartphone or blog,and students in even the youngest classrooms are handed electronic tablets with textbooks loaded and worksheets at the ready? Or is there something indispensable in the keeping of notebooks without which human beings would be the poorer?" THE LIVING PAGE invites the reader to take a closer look in the timeless company of 19th century educator, Charlotte Mason.