Springing Towards Summer Classical/CM Style

[MyLittleWonders]

Who is still here? We are slowly finding our rhythm after Miss K's birth. I've been messing with how I have school organized in files and think I like the changes I've made. Now I am doing it all by subjectinsix week increments. I love having everything photocopied and filed but need the flexibility of it not all being together by week.

Right now we are working through LfC A. We will not have it finished. By the end of our year (mid June) but that is okay. We are also doing well with IEW, so I am going to soon order the TWSS DVDs for me to watch in my free time. I am pretty sure we will have SOTW/HO Ancients done as well as the astronomy portion of Earth science completed. We are doing biology next year but I thnk a colleague of dh's is going to write it with me (he is a biology guy). So as of now I'm not going to buy any curriculum.

Oh, and ds#3 and I just started All About Reading. It has only been a week, but we both are enjoying it. It is a well thought out program, and though he knows most all his letters and sounds, AAR is also focusing on rhyming, syllables (through oral language games like "which word is longer" and such), and other pre reading skills.

I think we have just under eight weeks left of our year. I am working on finding the energy needed to finish strong. How is everyone else doing?

[Momma Aimee]

ok I had a totally selflish reason for searching for this new thread.  :)

I finally made my choices for Kindy (blush) and kinda hoped people might give me feed back :)

http://scribinglife.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/our-chosenkindergarten-curriculum-final/

we are a classical family -- but due to SN challanges for DS1 -- we are keeping desk work at a min and going slow.

[ocelotmom]

Subbing :)

[Momma Aimee]

any BTDT Kindy moms feel like shareing your daily / eekly routine/  i am pretty sure i have the materials chosen, now to fit the "timeing" together -- I am all ears. 

[kittywitty]

I'm here. My 6 yo is doing Kindy. She's on RS Math B for about 20-30 minutes daily, OPGTR one lesson every day (some longer ones we split into 2-3 days), FLL 1 about 1 lesson a week, IEW poetry memorization daily, AAS level 1 daily, and she does science & SOTW with us. She has a beginner geography book we do sometimes, too. I would recommend Mudpies to Magnets and working on verbal logic, too.

We've been doing stuff around here. We had about a month off after I had ear surgery but now have a rhythm. I am officially in love with Rafe Esquith and have incorporated a lot of his ideas, too.

[MyLittleWonders]

Aimee - ds#3 is not yet K, but here's what we did with the other two, and plan on doing the same with ds#3 (some of which he already does). Math is about 15 minutes (Singapore Essential Math and then Miquon). All About Reading is about 15 minutes. HWOT is about 5-10 minutes (more like 5, but sometimes I can stretch him to 10 LOL). Some days, there were/are Kumon-type activity books (especially when they want to do school but nothing formal), and the attention span for those is about 10-15 minutes as well. Usually science, history, and memory work is doing altogether, though I don't expect the K kiddo to actually "do" any of the activities. 

I have found (and ds#3 seems to be the same) that I can get about 15-30 minutes in one sitting. So, when the older two are doing Latin, ds#3 is usually eating some fruit or running around playing. When we get to reading/math (the other two alternate so I can get math lessons taught), ds#3 will start math. Then, I'll do reading with him while the other two are working independently. Usually by then, he is ready for a break. 

His next block of school is after lunch, where he'll usually do some HWOT or some of the pre-ETC books, and usually an activity book of some sort (mazes, tracing, cutting/pasting, dot-to-dot). Again, he lasts about 20-30 minutes, and then his day is gone.

Our regular schedule is 2, 2-hour blocks with the other two. So, ds#3's K schedule will be 2, 30-minute blocks (which is what it is right now), through about December. Next January, the goal is to start working towards either 2, 45-minute blocks, or 3, 30-minute blocks. Basically the goal is to slightly lengthen math, include AAS level 1 with AAR, and have him either participate with science (at his level though the same topics), or do some logic or LA activities. 

I'm not sure if that all made sense ... basically what I am doing/will be doing with ds#3 through next year (he'll officially start K in July) is based on what I did with the older two, especially ds#2. (Ds#1's K year was more of a free-for-all at times as I had an intense newborn/infant and a 2 1/2 year old who was doing speech therapy 3 days a week.) Hope that helps ... at least as far as you can make sense of what I just wrote! 

[MyLittleWonders]

Originally Posted by kittywitty 



We've been doing stuff around here. We had about a month off after I had ear surgery but now have a rhythm. I am officially in love with Rafe Esquith and have incorporated a lot of his ideas, too.

I hope you are all healed up! And now I need to google Rafe Esquith! 
 

[kittywitty]

OMG, I love him. I do. Read Lighting Their Fires, Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire, and There Are No Shortcuts. I even emailed him praise and he responded within 2 hours with a very humble and nice letter. I about cried. To me, he's kinda like the Supreme Master of what education should be. He and SWB could rule together.

[MyLittleWonders]

Oh, he sounds like a good guy! Thanks for the title recommendations. I'm going to check our library system to see if they have any. Otherwise, I might have to get them on Kindle for the iPad. 

[Momma Aimee]

thanks

 

Originally Posted by MyLittleWonders 

Aimee - ds#3 is not yet K, but here's what we did with the other two, and plan on doing the same with ds#3 (some of which he already does). Math is about 15 minutes (Singapore Essential Math and then Miquon). All About Reading is about 15 minutes. HWOT is about 5-10 minutes (more like 5, but sometimes I can stretch him to 10 LOL). Some days, there were/are Kumon-type activity books (especially when they want to do school but nothing formal), and the attention span for those is about 10-15 minutes as well. Usually science, history, and memory work is doing altogether, though I don't expect the K kiddo to actually "do" any of the activities. 

I have found (and ds#3 seems to be the same) that I can get about 15-30 minutes in one sitting. So, when the older two are doing Latin, ds#3 is usually eating some fruit or running around playing. When we get to reading/math (the other two alternate so I can get math lessons taught), ds#3 will start math. Then, I'll do reading with him while the other two are working independently. Usually by then, he is ready for a break. 

His next block of school is after lunch, where he'll usually do some HWOT or some of the pre-ETC books, and usually an activity book of some sort (mazes, tracing, cutting/pasting, dot-to-dot). Again, he lasts about 20-30 minutes, and then his day is gone.

Our regular schedule is 2, 2-hour blocks with the other two. So, ds#3's K schedule will be 2, 30-minute blocks (which is what it is right now), through about December. Next January, the goal is to start working towards either 2, 45-minute blocks, or 3, 30-minute blocks. Basically the goal is to slightly lengthen math, include AAS level 1 with AAR, and have him either participate with science (at his level though the same topics), or do some logic or LA activities. 

I'm not sure if that all made sense ... basically what I am doing/will be doing with ds#3 through next year (he'll officially start K in July) is based on what I did with the older two, especially ds#2. (Ds#1's K year was more of a free-for-all at times as I had an intense newborn/infant and a 2 1/2 year old who was doing speech therapy 3 days a week.) Hope that helps ... at least as far as you can make sense of what I just wrote! 

[craft_media_hero]

Hi! We're back.

Dd and I have been back to doing regular lessons again this week, and we're starting on the 6wk cycle, too MLW. I've been thinking about totally re-evaluating everything for next year, but for now we're sticking with our same core stuff: HWOT, so close to finishing Miquon Blue, EFTC instead of FLL (just seems more concise, less repetitive, and I wanted to get to the sentence stuff in EFtC before FLL got there), Singapore (went back to some skipped stuff from 2A to shore up), then AAS 2. That's our exact rotation, and it's working out great! We do all of that in about one hour of seat work in one chunk then break and garden and snack and life stuff, then come back and quickly do SSL (just reviewing and singing for now, not really writing in the book or using the cd) and a little music time at her little 4-octave piano. Then lunch, bike ride or errands (been getting in LOTS of nature time, and I so so so want to get Handbook of Nature Study coz I think she's ready for more focused learning with this), then home and quiet reading time, try to draw, model, etc.

She received a computer from her charter school! So she's been doing time on Paint and Poissonrouge, found a free typing program, Latin Flash Dash, etc. Oh, oh!  Rosetta Stone Greek I is coming!  Though we've only been doing Latin lately, I still feel so torn over possibly cutting one classic language . . . I am trying to really really streamline things, but I think we would miss Greek too much if we cut it, but cutting Latin is really not something that I want to do either. We thoroughly enjoy both languages so much! I've thought about alternating weeks of one lang then the other, but would we forget too much and spend too much time reviewing to get back? Probably. Maybe Latin daily and visit with Greek a couple of times a week.

So here are my huge updates:

DD is reading so well! She has absolutely taken off! <sidetrack>I scored a huge lot of Great Illustrated Classics on ebay, and she started in on The Wizard of Oz today and just doesn't even pause or trip up at all. It's pretty awesome. When I opened that box of books, I really felt like I had made such a wise investment in my child's literacy for so many years to come--no regrets! </sidetrack>

She's writing sentences! This is huge for us. She has been such a painfully reluctant writer, and I haven't pushed it. It's really amazing to see her writing abilities blossom--we're not there yet, but I can see . . . paragraphs in the near future 

I'm graduating!  YEAH! May 15th--I will have my BFA in Studio Art and Art History. I am soooo glad that this is almost over.

And guess what, I'm not doing anything this summer. Yep.

[MyLittleWonders]

CMH - Congratulations on your upcoming graduation!!!  And it sounds like your dd is doing awesome too. 

I am having so much trouble finding our groove. We hit it for a few days and then I run out of steam (going to bed earlier would be helpful I think). Then we flounder a few days doing the minimum, and then somehow we have a good spurt again ... but nothing with consistency. We have six weeks of school left. I think we can finish science and history (gosh I hope so); I know that we will take Latin and our other subjects into the new school year in July, and that is okay. But, I'm not thrilled with taking more and more of those subjects into the new school year. Plus, I worry that what we are doing right now in Latin and language arts is just getting by without truly learning them. 

That said, I am trying to find the balance between streamlining for my own sanity and doing all that I want to do! LOL Math is going well. The older two boys do Singapore 4x a week, and then on Fridays, ds#1 does Life of Fred (which he loves unless I make him read the chapter), and ds#2 does Miquon. Latin is going well (though we are going to need to spend a lot of time on our 4-week break reviewing vocabulary, declensions and conjugations). Language arts though ... I love IEW and I think once I buy and watch the TWSS, I'll be able to teach the boys even better using it. But, I also love the Sentence Composing book. Both are really good for my boys because it gives them real-life examples of how to write rather than expecting them to pull it out of thinner air. That said, we all love Michael Clay Thompson's books too, but more for the story rather than the actual writing instruction. I've realized the writing lessons/activities are way too open-ended for my boys. But, they love listening to the books being read and have picked up quite a bit from them. I question the need for the vocabulary books because we are doing Latin already, and I am not a huge poetry fan, so that book is often over looked. We still have about 35 sentences left in Practice Island, and I would like to reread Grammar Island and Sentence Island to really dig deeper into the parts of speech/parts of the sentence. But I'm not sure if we should stick with it on a whole. I know I'm not ordering it yet for next year (the Town level). This next year we are going to work with IEW, the Sentence Composing book (I'm not sure if we'll get to Story Grammar yet), and rereading Grammar Island/Sentence Island while working through Practice Island. But I think after that, I might spend the rest of the next school year getting our grammar mostly from Latin, as well as working through Drawing Sentences (both by diagraming them and also doing the 4-level MCT analysis with them). But even with that, I'm trying to figure out how to do IEW and Sentence Composing at the same time. I'm thinking I'm going to have to alternate ... a couple weeks of one and then a couple weeks of the other, or maybe every other week. We don't have enough time in our school day (nor do I have enough energy in a school day) to do both every week. 

[Momma Aimee]

congrats Media_Hero!!!!!

[Thyme Mama]

HI! I am gearing up to start K this fall for our oldest. She turned 5 in January. I have been casually researching homeschool methods the past few years and nothing had really jumped out at me as THE way, until I discovered Charlotte Mason. While I don't ever agree with any one person's philosophy 100%, Charlotte Mason's ideas are nearly exactly how I've always envisioned how I want to homeschool.

Anywho, I picked out a ton of exciting (to me) curriculum from Rainbow Resources. Then I discovered Winter Promise. WOW! I really like it. I know everyone says it's a bit overpriced. I tend to over-think everything and I was driving myself crazy coming up with schedules and and and......... Something about WP just struck a chord with me.

So here is what I have a goal of teaching/learning this our very first year of homeschool: (Yay!)

WinterPromise Animals & Their Worlds

WinterPromise Hideaway in History

WinterPromise Journeys Of Imagination

WinterPromise Ready To Learn

Alpha-Phonics

French

How To Use Child Sized Masterpieces

History of Music

RightStart Mathematics A

Nature Study

Bible Study

Character Study

Homemaking Skills

Copywork

Narration

Of course, many of these subjects we have been working on for years already, such as Bible Study, Character Study, Nature Study and Homemaking Skills.

The challenges I am facing as my children's primary educator this year are:

1. We are very actively looking for a home to purchase in an area 1 hour from our current home. We could move at any time.

2. We have a 3 year old and a 10 month old underfoot.

3. Our house is very small, and I am finding it a challenge to eek out a refreshing area for our studies. We will be doing much of our schoolwork outside, so that will help, but we also have the distinct challenge of #4.

4. My husband is home all day.

5. We are on a tight budget. I must find nearly all of our curriculum used, which has actually been going well so far!

6. I am in midwifery school.

I have found some very exciting free resources online that have helped me greatly. As I mentioned above, I over-think things and end up completely burnt out. I have really been enjoying Charlotte Mason Help.com. Lindafay's words of wisdom are a salve to my frazzled, frantic nerves.

What curriculum are you using and what are your challenges this year?

[Jennifer3141]

Craft, congratulations on your graduation!! I think you're pretty freaking awesome.

[MyLittleWonders]

Originally Posted by kittywitty 

OMG, I love him. I do. Read Lighting Their Fires, Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire, and There Are No Shortcuts. I even emailed him praise and he responded within 2 hours with a very humble and nice letter. I about cried. To me, he's kinda like the Supreme Master of what education should be. He and SWB could rule together.

Okay, I am loving Rafe Esquith's books (well, book ... I'm reading Light Their Fires right now)!!! Thank you so much for mentioning him; he is what I needed to get past these doldrums that have been weighing me down. I checked the book out from the library, but I think I'm going to buy it and Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire on the iPad so I can read them whenever I need a pick-me-up. 
 

[kittywitty]

Thyme- You have your work cut out for you! My dh is home for the summer, but will teach one class mid-summer. NOTHING gets done here with him home. sigh.

Craft-congrats!!!

MyLittleWonders- I'm glad you're enjoying it. I so love him. I am also having streamline issues. For instance, I have IEW, Classical Writing, FLL, WWE, MCT, Bravewriter, and Editor in Chief. Overkill much? But I can't figure out which ones to drop. I'm kinda skeered to.

[MyLittleWonders]

Originally Posted by kittywitty 



MyLittleWonders- I'm glad you're enjoying it. I so love him. I am also having streamline issues. For instance, I have IEW, Classical Writing, FLL, WWE, MCT, Bravewriter, and Editor in Chief. Overkill much? But I can't figure out which ones to drop. I'm kinda skeered to.

I thought I was in a bind! Though dh mentioned this weekend that he really, really likes FLL for the boys and would I consider adding it back in! So, I think after a full year (well, a little bit more than that, but we haven't been 100% consistent) of MCT Island, I think I'm going to do FLL 4 with both older boys together. If I can do things with the both of them, and then just have to do K with ds#3 (and keep the baby entertained), things might get done. So now, our L/A is looking like this: IEW, Sentence Composing, FLL (plus finishing MCT Island), AAS (I don't think we'll get through level 7 this next school year as I just backtracked them to level 3 for another round of reinforcement), and literature (done in WWE style - we finish Mr. Popper's Penguins and are now reading The Moffats). 

I've decided that writing has to be part of our morning block, so I think we'll go Latin, math/reading (the boys alternate reading with math lessons), and then writing before our break. Then we don't have *all* of our subjects that require a lot of writing together at the end (and I can ensure that they are getting grammar through Latin, math, reading practice, and writing instruction every day in case we don't make it to our afternoon session!  ). I'm trying it out for the last few weeks of this school year to see what I think. Speaking of which, I have five weeks left scheduled, but I think we'll only get four of them done (the fifth week is really busy as ds#3's birthday is in the middle of it, and we have family from Norway coming to stay with us a few days at the end of it - I'm just thinking we won't get much done that week LOL). 

[MyLittleWonders]

Thyme Mama - dh is home here during the summer and it makes things interesting. Last summer we were able to find a decent routine, and though he is a teacher by profession as well, he and I definitely do things differently! Plus, the kids don't see him as "teacher" dad but rather "playtime" dad, so that can be a bit of a transition around here. I'm not familiar with Winter Promise - are they unit studies? Have you worked on a daily rhythm/routine? Will your dh be helping teach or is he not available for helping you but will potentially be "in the way" at times of you teaching the kids? 

And to answer your question, my challenges this year are figuring out Language Arts!  Seriously, though, my biggest challenge is always wanting to do/planning more than we can actually get around to doing. There is so many great choices out there that I let them get in the way of doing what I want to do ... rigorously educated my children without being slaves to the curriculum. Though I tend to combine ds#1 and ds#2 in most every subject (except math), I have an upcoming Kindergartner, and will have a mobile baby next year (plus weekly or every other week [biweekly or bimonthly, depending on which definition you use!] therapy for her). Fall is usually pretty good for us - the boys play baseball, but it's much more relaxed than in the spring. But once February hits, it gets really nuts around here and I start streamlining more. 

[kittywitty]

Why does she have therapy, MyLittleWonders?

Our baseball here stops before July but soccer starts. Three teams. I can only imagine how horrible our schedule will be this fall! Right now we have softball, baseball, Tae Kwon Do, 3 different gymnastics classes, 3 piano classes, and violin when our teacher recovers from surgery!