Second week of new year, more changes, BIG CHANGES

[vaquitita]

The first two weeks went pretty good, the kids mostly enjoyed their work, I tweaked our daily schedule a bit. But I was exhausted. Nothing else was getting done. We have followed AO pretty much as written for the past 3 years and enjoyed it. But the schedule has become a burden. I've been drawn to the idea of the Robinson Curriculum. Math, write, read, done. :D But didn't want to give up AO. But I think i just have to do it. So, I decided to use the AO book list as a master list that the kids will read down at their own pace.

 

We lose the slow, spread out schedule. But as I reworked my schedules/planner for the year,  I realized we've gained so much peace with a 'do the next thing' plan. With my precise schedules of what chapters in which books each week, I *had* to check off those boxes each week. So my focus was more on the content subjects than the 3 R's. The 3 R's we just 'do the next thing'. Easy peasy. With our books set up the same way, I will be able to focus more on those 3 R's and teaching my children. I think I need to focus more on the basics. The kids are doing ok, but there are some areas that need work and now I will hopefully have the energy to focus on those. I don't have to plan every single thing down to the last detail. Fwew, what a relief. Even though I loved making all those lovely lists! :D There is nothing left for me to research and plan and organize and schedule... I guess I'll just have to... teach? focus on my kids? :D

 

Hey, when we have a bad day we can just do math/phonics/write and not be 'behind!'

 

What to read, for my 9yo (who reads well, and can totally handle reading for content now), will now be on his shoulders. I took the year 3 books and divided them into two lists, basically fiction and non fiction, and he will have to read something from each category every day. I'm thinking 30 minutes of reading per day? We'll see how that goes, maybe I will increase it to 45 after the first half of the year. I'm letting go of the AO schedule -if he wants to read more than one chapter? fine. If he reads the same book every day till its done? fine. No more stopping after each page to narrate. He can just come tell me about it when he stops reading. The narrations will be shorter, less detailed? maybe. But maybe it will become more relaxed, and then talking it over will just flow. I think him reading it, him being in control of what to read, and being able to read more at a time, will help get him interested in his school books. He loves to read, he has enjoyed many of his school books, but 'hates' school. I was a little unsure what to do about the longer history spine books, those are spread over several years in AO. For now I'm treating the chapters read assigned to each year as one 'book'. So once he finishes those chapters, I may take that book out of his box because the 'book' is finished. Or not. We'll have to play that one by ear.

 

For my 7yo, I do still intend to read aloud to her, she is still learning to read. I will read the year 1 books basically. Though I have bumped all the D'Aulaire books up to the beginning of the list. But just from one per day, no need to complete year 1 this school year. No need to hurry on to the next AO year, once she is reading well then she can read those books. I'm not trying to fit all 12 AO years into my kids school years. In fact, what we will do after we read through AO years 1-6, is undecided. I'm not exactly sure how I want to handle the history books for her. I'm thinking this year of reading 50 Famous Stories, Viking Tales and the first part of CHOW that AO does not schedule. I'm wondering if I want to just read through CHOW with her and hold off on Our Island Story till she is reading well and  can begin reading it on her own...

 

There are some other things I'm keeping from AO. Poetry, we will keep reading this all together each morning. Though I may sub in some good anthologies I've seen rather than always using the AO selections. Yay for the freedom to do this! We will read from our book list 4 days a week and on the 5th day do our 'extras' all together: composer study (using Opal Wheeler bios), artist study, Shakespeare (I'm feeling a lot of freedom with what we do here too. I found a book called Shakespeare's stories that we will start off with. I have a Diane Stanley bio on Shakespeare we can read.), art lessons (we have not been doing these, which is a shame, the kids love this, but I've been too worn out from our school schedule). We will still be doing nature study. ooh, I may have more energy to put into this again! :D

 

I am so excited about this! Thus the novel. :D

 

[momto2Cs]

I am glad to see you so excited about this! I was always drawn to the ideas behind AO, but the readings felt choppy to me scheduled the way they were. We're much more a stick-with-one-book-at-a-time family. I too have cut back a lot this year, and I feel really good with where we're going.

[mamatohaleybug]

I did something similar a few years ago and it went much better for us! Good luck!

[vaquitita]

We were doing AO history together, rather than in separate years. For better or worse I've decided to keep that because we all enjoy it. Though at our own pace now, not following the AO schedule strictly. Having my oldest read ALL his books would be less work for me, but we all liked the past two weeks of doing history together. So twice a week I will still be reading to both kids. Every other week we'll do extras instead one day.

[Hunter]

The CM schools could not have possibly had each child narrate each reading. I don't know why AO readings are ALL supposed to be narrated. Your plan sounds good.

[Kfamily]

 

I think your plan sounds great! It sounds like a really good way to focus on the skills and yet have more flexibility with the content subjects.

 

 

I was curious about this comment, though.

 

 

No more stopping after each page to narrate.

Were you having your son narrate after every page for all of the scheduled readings for the day?

 

My daughters narrated smaller sections (usually a couple of pages) when they were beginners. Once they were more comfortable they moved to half a chapter. In fact, the book notes I created for CHOW and OIS have a narration break included in them for this purpose. I usually break the chapter in half, roughly. I look for scene changes when I can to make the break more sensible. They can read up to the narration break, narrate orally and then finish the chapter. We do this all in one reading. Once they finish the chapter, they can either orally narrate the remainder or we go with an alternative form of narration such as a picture, written lists, etc. As soon as they could handle it, I moved them to narrating by chapters. It sounds like you have a plan that is working for you. :)

[Kfamily]

The CM schools could not have possibly had each child narrate each reading. I don't know why AO readings are ALL supposed to be narrated. Your plan sounds good.

Children in CM schools did not narrate every reading, but because every reading was narrated by the class, each child, individually, needed to pay close attention, because they never knew which child would be called upon to narrate. Narration is also about training the child to pay close attention during a reading/while reading. AO requires a narration after every reading (and I'm not sure who, in particular, promotes this...I do read and am part of their forums and I have seen it, but I don't really pay close attention to who is saying it...). I think this should be straightened out by them. Generally the idea is to create an atmosphere where narration is regular enough to genuinely build those skills, but could be skipped or missed sometimes. As long as you keep the child uncertain as to when he/she will need to narrate, then you've still continued the expectation for them to pay attention.

[vaquitita]

Were you having your son narrate after every page for all of the scheduled readings for the day?

 

It varied depending on the book, and how pressed for time I felt, but I did have to break it down to small chunks for my son. Narrating seems to be hard for him. I can really see the difference in my next child, I can read her a short 2 page story and then she gives a great narration. With my oldest, if I did that I'd get two incomplete! sentences at best and a repeat of the last sentence at worst. Or a blank stare. Lol.

 

It has gotten a lot better. This year, for better or worse, he will narrate after he finishes reading. I'm going to try to take the pressure off no more 'narrate now' and instead ask 'tell me about your book'. Hopefully he will have more to say, having read a whole chapter and by himself rather than telling me what I just read to him (which can be awkward, I just heard it right?).