CURRICULUM REVIEW: Mike Venezia's Getting to Know... Series

Mike Venezia is the author and illustrator of some really great books for children that we have used over and over again in our years of homeschooling. He is the genius behind Getting to Know, Inc., having written and drawn the illustrations for Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists and Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers. In checking out his website for this review, I notice that he's added a third series, Getting to Know the United States Presidents. And also branched out into DVDs on all three series. Go, Mike!

Here's why we love these books: Intended for students aged 9-12, they're fun and interesting to read, covering the artist's (or composer's) biography, plus a basic explanation of the artist's style (Renaissance, Impressionism, etc.) and numerous depictions of the artist's actual art in the book. (I'm thinking that the beauty of the DVDs is that you'd be able not only to see the artist's art on your television screen, but also hear the works of great composers. Kind of hard to hear music from a little paperback book.)

For instance, in Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists: Mary Cassatt, Venezia tells the reader about Cassatt's background as an American woman trying to break into the male-dominated world of art of France in the 1880s. He briefly explains her meeting with Edgar Degas and his contemporaries Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro, with examples of some of their most famous works (Girl with a Watering Can for Renoir; ballet dancers for Degas) and how Degas became her mentor as Cassatt experimented with Impressionism and grew in style and technique to become one of the most famous artists of the period.

Venezia offers forty-seven titles in his Artists series, everyone from Botticelli to Dali to Edward Hopper.

The books on composers are just as good, with the one drawback that you can't hear the music. So I'm putting in a plug for the DVDs, thinking that, without ever seeing one, if they're as good as the books, they'd be well worth the money. The titles in the Composers series range from Tchaikovsky to Duke Ellington to the Beatles, which I really think is an awesome scope.

These books are paperback, a short read at around 32 pages each and -- here's the best bit -- retailing for $6.95 each at Amazon.com. You also have the option to buy the entire sets at Mike Venezia's website.

In my opinion, these books are can't-miss options for your children. They'd be great combined with Aline D. Wolf's Montessori classic, How to Use Child-Sized Masterpieces for Art Appreciation, which is another little curriculum we've gotten a lot of mileage from.

CURRICULUM REVIEW: Math-U-See Pre-Algebra

Okay, I am still not a fan of the cheesy name of this program, but I simply cannot argue with its efficacy as a methodology. Meelyn and I have started the pre-algebra program and we have both discovered that the manipulatives are pure genius.

Granted, we're not very far in the book; we've done the first week's worth of assignments in the text and both of us have met with success. Steve Demme does an excellent job on the DVD of explaining the new concept the student will be working on -- for example, the first lesson covers addition with negative numbers -- and then the student goes on to do the daily assignment, twenty problems.

Meelyn and I worked separately, sitting on either end of the sofa using a tray table for our notebooks, with another tray table between us to hold the manipulatives. Using the manipulatives was slightly amazing. I don't have a mathematical mind, so doing a problem such as (-11) + (+28) became understandable to my brain and my eyes when I used Steve's method of gathering the colored "bars" to solve the problem.

This problem required the use of three ten-bars (ten cubes in one long, plastic strip), one cube and an eight-bar: one ten-bar and the cube were turned over to their hollow side to represent a negative number, while the other two ten-bars and the eight-bar were left right side up to represent the positive number. I plucked them out of the cardboard case and lo and behold! I SAW THE MATH!

Even better, Meelyn saw it, too.

If you're confused about the "bars," (also referred to as "blocks") click here to get a look at them. We have Starter Set 1 and the Algebra/Decimal inserts.

Math-U-See employs the following approach in all of its levels, taken from the MUS website:

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Math-U-See: Suggested 4-Step Approach

In order to train students to be confident problem solvers, here are the four steps that I suggest you use to get the most from the Math-U-See curriculum:

1. Prepare for the Lesson
2. Present the New Topic to the Student
3. Practice for the Student to Acquire Mastery
4. Proceed after the Student Demonstrates Mastery

Step 1. Prepare for the Lesson
As the teacher, watch the DVD/video to learn the concept yourself, and see how to demonstrate this concept with the blocks or fraction overlays. Also, read and study the examples in the Teacher Manual, along with the written explanations. The video and the Teacher Manual are designed to easily familiarize you with the new material. They are your multi-sensory educational tools. The older and more mature the student, the more useful the video and Teacher Manual will be for them as well.

Step 2. Present the New Topic to the Student
Present the new concept to your students. Have the students watch the video with you, if you think it would be helpful. Older students will benefit from watching the video.

Build: Demonstrate how to use the blocks (or fraction overlays) to solve the problem.

Write: Show the problems on paper as you build them, step-by-step.

Say: Explain the "why" and "what" of the math you are doing.

By using Build, Write and Say (also explained on the video), you are helping the students to use their eyes, ears and hands to learn. Do as many problems as necessary until the students understand. One of the joys of teaching is hearing a student say "Now I get it!" or "Now I see it!"

Step 3. Practice for the Student to Acquire Mastery
Using the examples and the Lesson Practice problems from the Student Text, have the students practice the new concept. Coach them through the building, writing and saying process. It is one thing for students to watch someone else do a problem, it is quite another to do the same themselves. Do enough examples together until they can do them without assistance.
Note: Do as many of the Lesson Practice pages as necessary (not all pages may be needed) until the students remember the new material and gain understanding. Utilize the word problems, which are designed to apply the concept being taught in the lesson.

Step 4. Proceed after the Student Demonstrates Mastery
Once mastery of the new concept is demonstrated, proceed into the Systematic Review pages for that lesson. Mastery can be demonstrated by having each student teach the new material back to you. Let him build the problem with the blocks (or fraction overlays), write it as he progresses through the problem, and say what he is doing as he works the problem. The goal is not to fill in worksheets, but to be able to teach back what has been learned.

Note: The Systematic Review worksheets review the new material as well as provide practice of the math concepts previously studied. The word problems are taken from material the student has mastered in previous lessons as well as the new material. Remediate missed problems as they arise to ensure continued mastery.

Proceed to the lesson tests. These can be used as an assessment tool or as an extra worksheet. Limiting the time on a test is your decision, but be aware that it is often an unnecessary source of stress, especially for younger children.

Your students will be ready for the next lesson only after demonstrating mastery of the new concept and continued mastery of concepts found in the Systematic Review worksheets.
Confucius was reputed to have said, "Tell me, I forget; Show me, I understand; Let me do it, I will remember." To which we add, "Let me teach it and I will have achieved mastery!"

I really enjoyed using this system with Meelyn yesterday, who went from a great fear and loathing of math before we started yesterday morning to an actual tentative feeling of "maybe I can do this after all." She was disgusted with herself for making careless mistakes (writing -28 for an answer when the answer was actually -27, for instance) but I'm not too fussed about those kinds of mistakes, because at least I can see she has the concept. The kind of mistakes that worry me are when a student writes -28 and the actual answer is something like +642. Naturally, I want those careless errors to be cleaned up, but I am delighted to see comprehension. So it was a real treat to see Meelyn teaching the material of that first lesson back to me, explaining it clearly and getting it right.

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What a relief. I don't feel that I need any manipulatives to see a good year ahead.