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What are you afterschooling this year?


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What topics/subjects are you working on with your kids after school this year?  We started SOTW 1 this summer so I plan to continue that, maybe just a chapter a week.  I've been doing read alouds after everyone is ready in the morning, before we have to leave for school.  We listen to audiobooks on the way to and from school.  My 8 year old has been asking for more challenging math and hasn't been satisfied with what they're doing at school, so I got Beast Academy 3A to start with him.  Plus piano, TKD, Scouts, etc., so we'll be plenty busy. But hopefully not so busy they get overwhelmed (in which case, we'd cut something out).  What's everyone else working on?

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With my 5 year old I'm just doing skills. My thinking is we'll continue AAS, Saxon math, and the non-busywork grammar part of Shurley English (which is not a lot... like 3 sentences a day and we'd probably alternate that with spelling), then play the rest by ear. I'm not looking to make progress, mostly just not to lose ground. We do make a lot of progress on weekends and school holidays, when school is on I'll be happy if she doesn't forget everything she's every known. (That sounded so wrong.)

 

I don't plan to do any content at all, but I never really have. We listen to audio books and read of course, but that's it. 

 

She only has one activity in the fall so we're good.

 

With my 4 year old, I foresee a lot of  me sitting there listening to her read. We might do some other things too... she has some workbooks and her sister's old Saxon K book. However, she JUST turned 4 so for now the reading seems like enough.

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We'll be joining the afterschooling community this coming year.   My son is going to school for the very first time in grade 4.  

Some of the afterschooling plans we have:  SOTW 3, covering chemistry and in depth study of the periodic table, Beast Academy 4A and 4B,  lots of read alouds and scripture study.  

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Our school offers RAZkid so I will use that to do extra guided reading with the kids. (they do have to read for 15-30 minutes as part of their homework so not sure if it counts as afterschooling but my goal is that once a week I will try to little more hands on with this and do some "guided reading" with them )

 

Math we do Dreambox and Math seeds during the school week and over the holidays we will do Mammoth math. Hoping to teach my daughter (she is going into 2nd) her times tables as I am not sure they do that anymore

 

CTC's Language Smarts more to reinforce the grammar they are learning in school, make sure they understand. My goal is once a week but it may end up being once ever other week as I hate grammar.

 

Spelling- we were using reading eggs skills bank over the summer but school spelling is so intense I may just reserve this for holidays. 

 

history- I read aloud SOTW whenever I can. which unfortunately is not all that frequent (I usually do it at bedtimes, but I often have to finish my own work at bedtime so this doesn't always work out).

 

 

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The only thing I'm sure of is that we'll do math - some combination of review and challenge math, depending on how their schoolwork goes.  And some sort of read-alouds, which all enjoy.

 

The school homework load and extracurricular scheduling challenges will determine how much else we get to.  They have to do a fair amount of reading to meet the AR goals, so I won't add any extra reading except to supplement school subjects or for scout projects.

 

I would like to do some grammar stuff (still waiting to get to the MCT materials I bought), complete some workbooks for vocabulary and content area reading (as a supplement for science / ss), maybe read-aloud SOTW, make occasional trips to the museums.

 

We dropped formal piano lessons with the expectation that I'll take that over, but I need to get disciplined to make it happen.  I am also planning to have at least one of them start with an orchestra instrument this year, so that will involve practice at home.

 

In the evenings, we have swim team, soccer, gymnastics, TKD, and scouts.  They ride horses on Saturdays.  Sundays are reserved for Fun Day after church / Sunday School.  I'm considering adding a paid math class on Saturdays when soccer is off season.  Also looking into volunteer opportunities for Saturdays.

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We are part way through the third quarter of the year here. DS8 is doing writing and MM division 2 and ds6 is doing WWE1 and MM Add and Subtract 2. We are doing gentle history and science plus reading classics and award winning books.

 

I am also trying to work out an emergency plan as due to building work for the last 12 weeks of the year ds8 is going to be in an eighty kid class based in the gym and ds6 one of forty six kids in a classroom that while large usually only has 28 kids in it. ds8 finds a normal size class hard to cope with and the principal thinks the kids will just have to manage as after all working in groups is an important life skill. Well yes but this is not working in a group. I am very worried but I am not going to spend another year putting my kid back together after they screw him up. I am hoping to have surgery so I can take them out of school and go and stay with my mother while I recover.

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For DS8, math is our only requirement, but with Beast Academy this year, and we're going to try Hands on Equations if we have time. We finished Singapore 3 and started Beast 3A a couple of weeks ago and love it! He's also trying a greek mythology course at Athena's online this year, and we're hoping for more science time with our microscope. We use various materials to work on reading comprehension, too.

 

For DD5, we'll keep doing Singapore for math, AAR for reading, and see where else the wind blows her mind...

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We did an (admittedly) insane march through almost all of AoPS PreAlgebra this summer. There may be some topics we trickle back for when there are breaks. Otherwise the Middle School schedule has a lot of homework, and I'm not inclined at this point to pile on.

 

Christmas break, Spring break, and next summer I hope to do AoPS Algebra 1.

 

Bill (moving from "afterschooler" to "break schooler")

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We did an (admittedly) insane march through almost all of AoPS PreAlgebra this summer. There may be some topics we trickle back for when there are breaks. Otherwise the Middle School schedule has a lot of homework, and I'm not inclined at this point to pile on.

 

Christmas break, Spring break, and next summer I hope to do AoPS Algebra 1.

 

Bill (moving from "afterschooler" to "break schooler")

 

Bill - is your child doing prealgebra/algebra at school also?  Are you doing AOPS as a more challenging/in-depth version of those classes?  (We may have to do something similar, so I'm curious).

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Bill - is your child doing prealgebra/algebra at school also? Are you doing AOPS as a more challenging/in-depth version of those classes? (We may have to do something similar, so I'm curious).

He is in an accelerated math program which is going to cover the Common Core 6th Grade and 7th Grade Prealgebra sequence this year (6th Grade). He is only in the second week of school. They have three (thick) textbooks. The report from son so far is that AoPS is harder than what he's seeing in school (which is what I expected).

 

Tonight at dinner he said someting to the effect that the school stuff is sort of like AoPS if you took out all the writing. I said, "you mean if they removed all the deeply conceptual explainations and just left the problems?" He said, yeah.

 

That said, he is fortunate to be in a program with good teachers so he'll get a double dose. I like staying ahead of the curve with the math. And AoPS is a good fit for us.

 

Bill

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Like others, we are emphasizing math (and logic) for DS6. I am doing a few worksheets here and there to review random skills (until tomorrow when he'll have his Saxon placement test) and then we'll focus on Zaccaro Primary Challenge Math, MEP 2, and SM CWP 2, plus Logic Safari. He is also doing Reflex Math daily - his facts are awesome right now, but he lost most of it last time he ended daily practice, and then during the middle of the summer, so I'm trying to figure out what a maintenance dose is.

 

Other things that are important to me (art, music, sports/p.e. activities) are outsourced as extracurriculars. I also try to encourage free reading as much as possible, and try to use any extra free time for playgrounds/active play, playdates, and museums.

 

Today after school was 3 hours on the playground, an hour or so of math, dinner while watching a little "American Ninja Warrior" which inspires him, and dead asleep. Wasn't able to get his reading in. I wish there were more hours in the day.

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I'm new to afterschooling also! My oldest is still homeschooling but my youngest started 6th grade at a private Christian school. I know we will listen to MOH 1 audio in the car. I'm not sure what else I'm going to use just yet. I would like him to stay ahead in math and possibly do Latin or some vocabulary/word roots program Any suggestions?

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My 6th grader has been in school for a couple of weeks now so I have a better idea of what needs to get done this year.

I was hoping she would get to do Social Studies in Spanish at school but it clashed with art, a deal breaker for my daughter. The plan is to do fun afterschool. Right now we are listening to a lot of Spanish singers from my childhood and youth years and we are having a blast learning the songs and obsessing with them! I also got her hooked on a really good TV kids series from my time too. In the summer, we will be formally working on Spanish grammar.

She has a really good math teacher and they will be covering 6th grade math and half of 7th grade math this year. We will do home math three days a week to keep up with fluency mostly.

I will keep facilitating books and anything that she is interested in, but right now, all of her teachers seem to be awesome and I am just going to let them do their job. I was hoping this would be the case since they are part of a specific program within her school and I was aware of them having volunteered/been picked for their professionalism and teaching skill.

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DD8 (soon 9, but in grade 3 by the school calendar): BA up to 4 by December, German, music lessons, and maybe some roots of the English language / spelling bee stuff.

 

DD6 has language at school, but is doing chess, violin, and we will work on phonics since she doesn't get much English spelling at school.

 

Both want to take up another instrument but I'm torn. They have long days at school, and of course we also have sports which I don't count as after schooling.

 

They both love books so I don't really push that... just try to introduce some more challenging reading. We are still reading aloud Little Women.  :o

 

Update:

 

Okay. Both wanted to sign up for gymnastics, so we're on a waitlist. They also want to start ski club.

 

However, we've decided to do more music (30 solid minutes of practice, more targeted). I also need to order Singapore for DD2.

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