I'm Tara Guy, your child's Foundations tutor for the upcoming 2012-2013 school year. A little bit of my background: I am married to Boyd Guy, who is the art director at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, where he is also completing his masters and preparing to start his doctoral work next year. We have one daughter, Sara Claire, who is 6. Sara Claire is entering her second year of Foundations, and she is involved in dance, art, & science lab classes. We are members of Edgewater, where my husband teaches the adult men's Sunday school class and I co-teach the 4 & 5 year old Mission Friends class. We volunteer as a family each month at a nursing home/assisted living facility in our neighborhood with our life group through Edgewater. We are huge Saints fans and try to make at least one game each year.
I am so excited about this upcoming year! I think we're going to have a great time in Foundations, and I can't wait to dive into this wonderful material with all the students!
Your participation in class is critical to making this year a success. We're working together as a team to guide and instruct our children. That being said, here are a few things I will need from you this year in order to make this the best year yet:
1. Since we only have a few hours together, the pace of the class moves pretty quickly. I will need parents to step up and take care of preparatory and behind-the-scenes work in class. This includes, but it not limited to,
- Passing out and collecting paper for art
- Passing out and collecting pencils when needed (art, geography, science lab, etc.)
- Making sure the tracing paper is taped to the maps before geography
- Filing papers, drawings, etc. in each student's folder
- Timing our subjects for new grammar (can use the stopwatch on my iPod)
- Playing songs for timeline, history, etc. when needed
These are all things I will need the parents to jump in and do together. Please take initiative to see what needs to be done, because I can be scatterbrained sometimes and won't think to ask someone to file papers or collect pencils.
The timing for new grammar is important, as CC requires only 4 minutes be allotted for each new subject to be introduced.
This year we are doing geography a bit different than your children did in previous years. As we prepare them to move into Challenge in a few years, we need to start honing the skills of being able to draw the world and its features from memory. So this year your students will be switching from tracing/coloring with dry erase markers on the laminated maps to tracing and labeling the places with tracing paper and a pencil. This is something you can carry over into your home study to help them learn geography.
2. This year our class will not be doing snack time. I know, I know - let the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin. :) Our campus has decided to limit the snack times to just the younger classes. So please make sure that your children have a filling, nutritious breakfast that will carry them over till lunchtime. Please do not bring a snack for them to eat in class, because this will cause a distraction for the other students. We have swapped the times of lunch & recess this year, so your students will get to eat lunch a half hour earlier than last year.
3. I have copies of the presentation schedule (with topics), history sentence hand motions, and timeline motions I can distribute to you. To get the presentation schedule and history sentence hand motions, simply send me an email (so I know you are getting these blog posts!) and I will email them out to you. The timeline information is copyrighted, so in order to send those I need to see that you have bought the cards (just like with the Veritas Press cards last year). You can bring a card with you to class and from there I will send you the hand motions.
4. Further on the timeline cards, we will be covering the new cards released by CC earlier this year. CC has said that families can continue to use the VP cards if they choose, but those will not be covered in class.
5. Please refer to the CC Handbook on the use of cell phones and electronic devices in class (if you did not get a copy of this, let me know and I will email you a copy). Please refrain from using your phones in class. If there is an emergency and you have a call you must take, please step into the hall to answer the call. Part of the reason CC has this policy on phones is because we only have a few hours together and the material moves quickly. When adults are distracted by texts and emails, it slows the class down as a whole.
Now, for the fun stuff. :)
1. Are you on CC Connected? If not, I highly, highly recommend you sign up. There are hundreds of fantastic resources, printables, games, etc. that CC parents have put together and uploaded for anyone's use... for free! Some of the ideas I use in tutoring are ideas I've found on CC Connected. You can also download all the audio we use in class (the timeline song alone is worth signing up for CC Connected!), and watch tutorials on all the memory work. I believe the price is $6 per month. If you haven't yet signed up for it or are having trouble getting on, let me or Simone know. And if I use anything in class that I found on CC Connected, I will post here the file name and author so you can find it and download it for your personal use.
2. I have compiled a pinterest board of CC Cycle 1 ideas I (or other CC parents) have found. Sorry, it's not organized by subject, but you can scroll through and find different crafts, projects, books, etc. to supplement our CC memory work. You can also search pinterest for CC Cycle 1 to find other boards other CC parents have created.
3. Do your children love lapbooks? Wisdom & Righteousness has made some wonderful lapbooks that cover all the Cycle 1 memory work, plus the extras in fine arts & science experiments. A Journey Through Learning has also made some lapbooks that supplement this year's memory work.
I think that's everything I needed to say for today. I cannot believe summer is over and we're starting another year. Time is flying! On that note, I'm going to go pack my gear for tomorrow, and I'll see you all in class bright and early!
(Oh, and we're meeting in room 107.) :)
Thanks so much!
Tara
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