Curriculum review

We ( I ) recently made the decision to homeschool our children year round. I felt like it would give us adequate time to really get to focus on work, while simultaneously taking breaks when needed. We don't need a full week off during Thanksgiving or Christmas but we will take advantage of 4 day weeks and take advantage of anytime my husband takes off from work. I think I've written a lot about how I've worked on being a better mom and making teaching a real priority but I haven't said much about the curriculum itself. In this blog post I want to cover all the things I've liked thus far and things that really don't work for us. Aside from that bit about scheduling upheaval from last post.

Me. Eating my feelings and contemplating if I made a mistake taking on Homeschool...

Jr. Kindergarten is very easy to follow. We start with prayer, pledge and then move right into our schedule. I do make sure to do all things listed in the schedule but I usually switch things up. We add calendar time and discuss seasons or holidays right before our literature. I'll throw in a song like De Colores or Months of the Year and then will typically play the song that is designated for the day, if there is one. I'm not sure if I've touched on this before but the prep for this grade is really easy. I set up my books in a magazine holder next to my chair in the living room and grab them as needed. We go over the same books everyday for the week, which makes it really easy to keep track of everything and keep it all together. I do all reading at the same time. I ask questions, I make notes and ask more questions. Some of the prompts are easy to memorize, which means I check my notes less. All questions lead to critical thinking. Writing is a whole different animal but the worksheets are a godsend. I find it really helpful to do them randomly throughout the week. We've been trying to cut screen time and the kids think these worksheets are coloring fun, so it kind makes sense to just keep them around for idle time. Most of the time, I use the worksheets to give them something to do while I'm making lunch, dinner or cleaning. I try to set up reproducible pages, two weeks at a time, place them in a binder and I have them ready to grab for whenever I need them. The kids have their own art/pencil boxes that house their supplies and it helps with keeping them responsible for their own belongings. The kiddos are also allowed to use the box during free time, it's not only for school time.

Clementine laying on the kids' mat they use during reading time

I know children are sponges and I know they learn what we teach them but my son has a delay and my daughter is 3. I wondered how teaching them together would work. I wondered if this would slow my son down or encourage my girl. From what I've seen, my son is an eager learner which is the best kind of learner in my opinion. I didn't know what to expect and I can say that I am so happy and even surprised by how much I've seen this boy pick up. He was able to master counting to 100 in a few days, at the most. He's big into time and days of the week as well as holidays and gets a kick out of reminding me about the time or date, at any given time. Especially at the top of a new hour. Also, especially right before the hour changes, or doesn't and he basically tells me the time all hours and minutes of the day. My daughter has struggled a little but looking back at what we've taught her (NOTHING) it makes sense that she would need a little more repetition. She's figured out most of what we teach her and like her brothers, while shape and color recognition aren't as easy, she sure does memorize everything she hears. If I had to guess, my boy is probably a visual learner and my daughter is a audio learner. And guess what? THIS IS WHY HOMESCHOOL WORKS FOR US. Thankfully, the curriculum wraps up anywhere from 1 hour to 1.5 hours. It's pretty quick and the kids get a lot out of it. I really have enjoyed this time with them. One thing that I would recommend is making sure you have all your books prior to beginning homeschooling. I find that even after I have ordered tons of books off eBay and Amazon, I'm still missing some. Part of that is because after I placed my orders I put the books away and grab them the morning of just to find out I don't have the books and that I) never ordered them or 2) the order was cancelled and I forgot to reorder. Sometimes I find myself in a situation where I'm missing the book we need so I just do the book we read the week before, I also make use of free resources and look up the book being read aloud on Youtube or find a PDF copy that allows me to read the story and until amazon sends me my ordered copy. It probably would've been easier to just order the whole set but I'm cheap that way and also care a great deal about buying used when we can. I think, off the top of my head, there are only about 10 books that we haven't purchased between the 3 grades and they aren't needed immediately. There is a part of the curriculum from the Myself and Others book which gives good life skill and interaction topics that discusses manners and safety. I've used some of that language (Stay close to mom) with my kids when in public and it has been helpful. It's a shorter book and I was missing a book so I just ended up pushing it until January. At that point I hope to have it all organized and maybe add a few little projects or puppets to help explain things to the kids. They really do like play. There is just an innocence that I get to see, a type of sweetness, that I miss when being a busy mom. If homeschool has taught me anything, it's that we are too busy and this has allowed me time to slow down.

Working together to construct a ginger bread house. I just like that we're in a picture together.

4th grade is a different situation. I'm kind of a mess still. We are behind. I don't like how behind I feel. My son is fine now and he'll be fine in the future but damnit, I wanted more for him. I am still working out the schedule kinks and some of it unraveled when I was confused about how to teach Latin. At the moment, our laptop is broken so there went independent Prima Latina lessons on DVD. What I can say now is that we have an idea about how to proceed with any and all of our Latin. He is picking it up fine, he's self taught and the lessons are easy to follow. I had purchased a used copy earlier in the summer when I considered that we might end up teaching at home. It's definitely an older copy and the DVD is pretty outdated but he's been learning fine. He hasn't complained about it and has kept up with whatever the weeks task is for either opening in prayer or addressing teacher etc. I will say right now, I don't know what we'll do when he moves forward. It's hard for me to follow. I'm not sure how I'll keep up and I think I now need to take Latin on my own, to keep up. There is a big push with MP for the teacher to know the material so I think at some point I'll just have to learn. The literature books are good and challenging. American History has touched on Ben Franklin and some other historical figure that escapes me now but it's very one sided. I really want to learn a little more about Native American culture to show all sides of how America came to be. The curriculum is kind of white washed and even with the turn of this new civil rights movement going on around us, there will still be lots of work on my end to show and share more about our American History. The book we are reading for his literature class is good and easy enough to understand but I've noticed some struggles with the vocabulary words. The student book that goes along with it asks questions about vocab and I would like a little more time with him to help him with it. I have been struggling to balance both sets of kids at different ages. I can successfully teach my eldest but his work takes about 2-3 hours of uninterrupted time. That doesn't really exist in our life and family so I've figured out that block time is better for us some weeks. What that will look like is one day on and one day off for the babies. They will have my attention for one hour a day but it might be at different times each day. I will also ask my eldest to work on his own when I'm with the babies. With Latin and Math (also done on the computer) being off this week, we'll end up with Cursive, reading A Cricket in Time Square and Spelling being his focus while I'm with the babies. After lunch he and I will pick up and he will spend a good chunk of his day catching up on Astronomy or Greek Mythology. I'm hoping to be on a real schedule in January to move more smoothly for the remainder of the year.

One thing I like about this curriculum is that we can do most of it without screens. I've introduced Kahn academy for math and we used IXL for a while too. I think they're all fine but I would be interested in tying out the math that is supposed to be with Memoria Press that I didn't want to spend $70 on. My kid likes the computer which is why those aforementioned options work for us but if I really want to limit all screen time next year, we'll have to do a switch. Latin does have DVD's and that needs to be on a screen but it's been really helpful and he usually only does a short slide lesson of 20-30 minutes depending on what I want him to focus on.

So, I guess, that's how home school went for November.

- Renee

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