Anyone Else Switching Things Up Mid-Year?

[kathy_overman]

I realized some things just are not getting done and I need to change things for the rest of the year.

 

My DS 7th is not doing Vocabulary, French, Science and only a little history.  This is the same every year!  These are the courses he does not love.  Every year I try something new and the same things happens - he loses interest after 1 month.  We then limp along at a snail's pace.  Well I am so OVER this pattern, and want the work done.

 

Part of the problem is that I that I don't make him get it done.  The battle become too big.  This is on me to change.  So I need programs that are very easy to make sure they get done.

 

I just ordered Memoria Press Ancient History and the History of Medicine  - they are challenging, a little dry and tedious but very easy to implement.  The lessons are small enough to hold his interest and when I have to, I can do the reading with him.  Yesterday, I ordered Vocabulary Workshop, which I love.

 

I also just dropped his online writing class and am switching back to WTMA Expository Writing.  He took the Intro class last year and loved it.  He does not love his writing this year, and it is important that he LOVE writing.

 

For DS 8th, I also ordered Vocabulary Workshop, and also changed his online writing class. He too lost his love of writing and will go back to WTMA.  I also signed him up for WTMA Geometry to get me out of his math!

 

I am excited and fee like these are plans I can stick to.  I hope these changes help hold me accountable for holding them accountable.  My goal for the weekend is to clearly define what has to be done on a daily / weekly basis.  I hope writing this holds me accountable. :closedeyes:

 

Anyone else changing things up?

[lanalouwho]

I am changing things up for the same reason. I am no good at being consistent. It's not a huge problem now when my oldest is in kinder, but I want to focus on building better habits. If we can get good routines in place now, then later it will pay off.

So I just finished reworking our schedule and will implement it next week. I finally got around to ordering Shiller kit 1 so that will be our new math. We switched to Progressive phonics a while back, and we are sticking with that. We still like our other curriculum choices when we actually get around to doing them. So creating habits and having a good attitude will be our primary focus for a while. I need it just as much as the kids do.

 

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[....]

Yeah, December/January is always the time where I reassess what's working and what isn't.  My two teens started new classes in January, because we were trying a semester schedule this year.  But, we had planned for those.  I'm adding more living math for the 9th grader.  

 

The biggest change is the 3rd grader.  She started the school year with Five in a Row volume 4 and it was just too easy for her/not the right level.  So, she unschooled most of the semester.  For January, she said she wanted to try Beyond Five in a Row (I happened to have that here), so we are giving that a chance.  The last volume of FIAR was supposed to be OK for 3rd grade, but it wasn't for us.  She's an old 3rd grader (she missed the cut-off by a couple of weeks), so maybe I should start thinking of her as a grade ahead, because grade recommendations for curricula seem "off".  I may eventually grade skip her, because it's bothering me.  I think in some states, she actually would be in 4th grade.

[HomeAgain]

We just switched to a hybrid of unschooling and semi-Classical.  I turned over violin, math, science, and reading to the 6yo and sit down with him each day and ask him what his plan is for those subjects.  If he needs me, cool.  If not, he'll do it on his own.  We still do history, handwriting, and dictation/spelling together. 

 

So far, it's going well.  We're both breathing easier. :)

[MyLife]

The only thing we are switching is geography and adding in more math.

[KarenNC]

We had the planned switch of most classes due to changing semesters for dual enrollment, but have made a couple of adjustments. In DE, we switched from doing her last needed lab science this semester to doing world civ, because the lab science is not offered at the local satellite campus. I am still transporting her as she won't have her license until this summer, public transportation is not realistically available, and I don't drive in icy conditions. I didn't want to take the risk of having to get her 35 min or so away in the winter (our bad weather is usually in Jan/Feb), when we could stick to an afternoon class at the campus 10-15 min away. We'll do the lab science in for the fall.

 

As the only class left at home, we had originally intended to complete the first two semesters of Art Reed's four-semester plan for Saxon Advanced Mathematics this year and do the rest next year (dividing it into "geometry with advanced algebra" and "trigonometry with precalculus"). After much discussion about her goals and considering options, we've decided to go ahead and complete her geometry after she completes lesson 60 in a few weeks (the point at which Mr. Reed says the geometry portion is fulfilled), try for the College Algebra CLEP exam, then do statistics in DE next year. Math has always been her most challenging and time-consuming subject. She is headed for a liberal arts degree of some sort (history, theatre, writing, sociology, gender studies, and political science are currently on top of the list), and we agreed statistics will probably be more helpful than calculus in that situation. She will have 4 math credits for high school--algebra 1, algebra 2, geometry with advanced algebra, and statistics (with this one as DE credit), and possibly an additional credit that the schools she's considering will take (college algebra).

 

This will give her the opportunity to do another DE class in the short spring session rather than summer session if she wants, so that she can attend the writing camp she wants at one of the colleges she is considering, have room for an additional DE class in the fall, and possibly make her new goal of finishing her AA by graduation. If she finishes her AA, her ASL classes (goal is to go through two semesters at the 200 level) will be folded in and have a greater chance of being accepted as fulfilling college graduation foreign language requirements at more of the schools she's considering than if they are evaluated individually. We're finding that ASL is accepted as fulfilling admission requirements at most schools, but not the graduation requirements since many don't offer ASL either at all or to the level they do other foreign languages. At this point it looks like she won't jeopardize her freshman status for scholarships with the AA as long as she completes all the work before graduating high school, but we're triple checking that.

[melmichigan]

With Landry closing we are doing a lot of switching up. 

[desiree77]

I was studying civics with my 3rd, 5th, and 8th graders. 8th grader is now doing it in her own and I'm doing geography with everyone instead. I just couldn't stomach the subject material in conjunction with this election cycle. (And I thought I was being so brilliant to study civics during an election year)

 

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[MinivanMom]

We are making several changes to our schedule, just a few little things to try to help our days run smoother. I switched the piano practice times of two kids, because I want the dawdler to practice first. And I moved history, science, and art to Friday for my elementary kids. It makes Friday longer (and funner!), but greatly simplifies Mon-Thur since we can focus on just the basics (reading, writing, math, & French).

 

I also let my 6th grader drop Logic. He just wasn't quite ready for it, and his workload was too heavy. We'll come back to it next year.

 

Last, my oldest is adding in a Linguistics elective. She got excited over some offerings in the Great Courses catalog over Christmas, and somehow we wound up putting those together with some other resources to create another class for her. 

[reign]

I think I rethink things every two months lol. Once winter comes I usually decided to do a lapbook or two. I don't know why, but once January hits it's lapbook time. My kids love it! I'm over that by the end of February.

 

Right now we are taking a Beast/MM vacation to work on a c-rods book about perimeter & area and cement some fraction skills.

[Jess4879]

History and science get left so often here too!  I started making up experiment kits, and that has helped, but it's still the first thing dropped if we run short on time.  :( 

 

I think the only change we made was to grammar.  We dumped Winston Grammar and are trying Easy Grammar.  I have serious grammar issues.  About a month ago I added cursive practice back in for both of my oldest kiddos and we also added in Key To books for my oldest who needed some extra practice with fractions, decimals and percents. 

 

I've been having a case of the "we aren't doing enough" blues, which is typical for me around this time of year.  I usually make a list of what I feel we need to do more of (it's usually very, very long and detailed) and then I set it aside for a bit.  In March, when the sun starts shining again and the snow starts melting I pull out the list and end up crossing out most, if not all, of it.  :)

 

 

[WistfulRidge]

For Mr. Inquisitive I switched science at the beginning of December. The one we were using was just too many experiments for my prefers independent/workbook/reading based work kid. We're much happier with RS4K and documentaries/online videos. I also added in a geography workbook because I realized we'd been sorely lacking in that area and just today I ordered a new spelling because I had to concede that the spelling we had been using was still too much teacher involvement on the day-to-day.

 

For Mr. Engineer we've taken (another) break from OPGTR. We spent a good portion of right before Thanksgiving to  now watching "Talking Words Factory" and have slowly started working through Progressive Phonics this past month. That's clicking more than OPGTR was - or at least, it's less overwhelming. This kid... it's not that he can't read or is really even having a hard time with it (in fact, I totally suspect that he can actually read a great deal more than appears when we're "doing school") but he gets overwhelmed by it easily and is definitely showing a huge perfectionist streak. If he doesn't "get it" the first time he tries than he simply doesn't try and descends into a repetitive "I don't know. I don't know. Just tell me. I don't know." state. I'm thinking I need to look into word lists for him to memorize alongside doing phonics so that he has that bit of confidence to help him/fall back on.

 

Everything else is working well for us, which is a relief :)

[beka87]

No changes for us...I'm keeping it light and laid back till March, after which the hyperemesis pregnancy will be over and I'll feel compelled to change up all kinds of stuff. :)

 

[2_girls_mommy]

We have some semester changes, mostly with electives though. 

 

My 9th grader finished one semester of Logic. I had planned on Traditional Logic II this semester, but found we had enough going on with other electives that we don't want to drop, and we need to drop something. So one semester of Logic will be enough. 

 

For Latin, she was working mostly on translations last semester from her workbook and doing some online practice. This semester we are putting a higher focus on a more well rounded study getting ready for National exams in a couple of months. So we added in daily review together and with the online app. We are rereading mythology and working on geography and other things all on top of her translation work.  We are getting back together weekly with our study group which gives her an extra curricular Latin Club on top of her credit class.

 

Our co-op doesn't have a place to meet right now, so we are in a transition mode there. We are still meeting together in a temporary place for two core classes only. So we will be doing more art and music at home that dd12 was getting there. DD14 had two classes there last semester too that she doesn't now, so she will now join in with dd12 for art and music at home and pick those up for the three one half credits that she finished. 

 

She went from way too many: 

Latin

English

Algebra

Chemistry

History/Great Books

Logic 

Health

PE-outsourced 5-6 hours a week or more in her sport.

Extra curriculars: Girl Scouts, journalism class, volunteering

 

To:

Latin

Algebra

English

Chemistry

History/Great Books

art/music elective 

PE

extra curriculars: Girl Scouts, Latin club, volunteering

 

I think this is a much better balance. 

 

 

[Guest]

 

 

For Mr. Engineer we've taken (another) break from OPGTR. We spent a good portion of right before Thanksgiving to  now watching "Talking Words Factory" and have slowly started working through Progressive Phonics this past month. That's clicking more than OPGTR was - or at least, it's less overwhelming. This kid... it's not that he can't read or is really even having a hard time with it (in fact, I totally suspect that he can actually read a great deal more than appears when we're "doing school") but he gets overwhelmed by it easily and is definitely showing a huge perfectionist streak. If he doesn't "get it" the first time he tries than he simply doesn't try and descends into a repetitive "I don't know. I don't know. Just tell me. I don't know." state. I'm thinking I need to look into word lists for him to memorize alongside doing phonics so that he has that bit of confidence to help him/fall back on.

 

Everything else is working well for us, which is a relief :)

 

We just switched from OPGTR too. I feel we gave it a good try, but it's just not doing it for me. He loves Bob Books so I've switched to Teaching Reading with Bob Books, and wish I had done it sooner. The price can't be beat, that's for sure! and it works with what he already likes, but gives me the comfort of a guide. Anyway, hopefully this is our last reading program. PAL was just too much work for me and too much skipping around, OPGTR just never clicked for us either- I can't even put my finger on why, so maybe this time is the charm! 

 

On a happy note we are still (finally) in the swing of RightStart after sticking it out with everyone's advice here, with no plans to switch there! :) 

[arliemaria]

We are switching things up a bit too.  We had gotten too lax.  We were going through testing with the public school.  That has been fruitless except for getting our testing done for free.

 

My husband created a new record keeping spreadsheet in Google docs and we are feeling better seeing our current hours and YTD hours.  Today they picked up a new book and read about Beebe-Barton Bathysphere.  So interesting!  I never learned about these things in school.  For some people this is a season of slump but for us this is a season of renewal and productivity.  

[displace]

We are restarting homeschooling after a public school trial. A loooooot of changes. :). I'm spending the first few weeks figuring out our schedule and making changes as needed.

[Aurelia]

Changing math, switching from TabletClass to MUS after getting several recommendations. Trying to ramp up writing, but I think it might be too much. I should have started with the 5-paragraph essay before trying critical reading & writing. Oh well. I've been realizing that DD was doing WAY too little writing, so I've had to add more. Also, I'm trying to make sure we make more time for French and art. We're already on the second semester of the year and just started lesson 3 of the first book of Ecoutez, Parlez.  :ohmy:

[Ruthie in MS]

We are switching things up this next semester, which will likely be in March after baby arrives.

 

Dd12:

* More real typing practice and possibly an introduction to Microsoft Word.

* Possibly dropping Total Language Plus but adding in my own reading comprehension and literary elements.

* Also adding in more logic with Daily Word Puzzlers from Schoolhouse Teachers.

 

Dd10:

* Beginning ballet lessons (she's really excited about this).

* Going to be more consistent with science and adding in more living books, videos and picture examples.

* Adding in an Extreme Dot-to-dot workbook (for fun)

* More multiplication and division drills

* Cursive copywork. Not sure how I missed adding this to her first semester.

* Logic: Daily word puzzlers by Schoolhouse Teachers

* Little Language Arts course by Schoolhouse Teachers. I didn't think she was ready for this when we began in the fall.

 

Dd5:

* More consistency with her lessons in general.

* Delaying learning to read until fall or shows more signs of readiness.

* More games (math games, file folder games, handwriting games, logic games, etc)

* Adding in FIAR to our days

* Beginning ballet lessons (another happy camper)

[KrissiK]

Math. My two oldest (at home) have been doing Teaching Textbooks. Found out before Christmas DS has been gaming the system, so I switched him to CLE. He hadn't learned a thing with TT and placed 3 years lower in CLE. Then DD decided she wanted to do "math in a book", too. So, I gave her a placement test for CLE and she placed in 3rd grade math in CLE, even though she completed level 5 in TT. Sigh. She's technically a 5th grader, too.

[egao_gakari]

We added D(step)S11. Things had started looking up for him at the charter school near the end of last year, so we kept him there. Beginning of December he approached DH that he's gone back to having very dark thoughts when bored at school, including making plans for when/how to slip out of the building without being caught. DH decided it was best to pull him out immediately rather than waiting for winter vacation, and we let him hang out with DH for about a month, just doing whatever DH happened to be doing that day (he's off season from work right now). In January we started him with mostly the same classes as D(step)D9, except for writing, logic, vocab, and math.

 

So far, the only thing that hasn't worked at all has been history. With DD9, I started with the SOTW/Kingfisher combo and she hated, hated, hated Kingfisher. We switched to OUP. I don't find OUP very interesting, but DD9 liked it, especially since we did it as a read-aloud rather than silent reading. DS11, though, finds OUP the most ridiculously boring thing he's ever heard. Listens to the read-aloud, can't remember a single thing about it. If it were just him, I'd have him read it by himself since he's much less auditory and a very fast reader--I think that would solve the problem. But there aren't enough hours in the day for me to teach him and her separately, and she takes the same amount of time to read a page of OUP independently that he would take to read a chapter. SO, I reworked history once again, and now it looks like:

-Read aloud from SOTW and do the coloring page, review questions, and map work

-DS11 reads related Kingfisher passage and makes list of facts (he doesn't mind Kingfisher)

-Meanwhile, DD9 comes up with a narration about part of the chapter

-When DS11 finishes his Kingfisher work, he reads a Horrible History until the time is up (doing Groovy Greeks right now)

-When DD9 finishes her narration, she reads a You Wouldn't Want to... (doing Greek Athlete, Greek Slave, and Alexander's Army right now)

-They each have a timeline, and they fill in the dates from the independent reading

-DS11 has to do a project every few weeks.

-When applicable, I include primary source study from the OUP primary source volume, or art history videos from Khan Academy. Every once in a while we'll choose a related movie to watch outside school hours. (DH was letting the kids watch movies I would consider way too old for them long before I came into the family, so we're going to try watching 300 when we get to the SOTW chapter about the Wars of the Greeks. DD probably won't watch it, but DS is super excited about it.)

 

We've only been doing it this way for about a week, but it's definitely working better than OUP so far.

[PeterPan]

Yup, we usually change things up each semester and for summer term. When dd was young, we also did May Term. I don't really do that with ds. 

 

On the accountability and plans, sure, weekly and daily lists are good! And yes, I like things that come pre-structured. Now I have ABA workers, so I look for things that are structured enough that I can hand them to the worker and get them done in "do the next thing" fashion. But being able to outsource things, that's awesome.

 

As far as what we're changing? We've been trying to work on handwriting since summer, and it's not going well. We're adding PT to work on retained reflexes. I think I'm going to add the BJU online science, a couple grades bumped up, because it should fit him. We're finally going to begin history in earnest, but it will be split between the three of us (me and two workers). Sounds crazy, but it should actually work! One likes activities, so the chicken mummy stuff goes to her, haha. I like the cognitive, so I'll do that. And the other worker likes read alouds and social thinking, so she'll do that. 

 

I think we might add in some art too, but I don't know how it will go. Don't know till we try. It's the Creating a Masterpiece videos. I kinda think he might be ready, so I'm excited to try. :)

[Elizabeth 2]

Keeping:

MM 3 and 5.

FLL 3

WWE 2, but we skipped ahead a few weeks since DS was arguing about it. It was too easy, but he's doing better. With the broken arm however, extended writing lessons are paused for another month. So we have a built in buffer. (Omg it is so boring! I don't know if I can handle Level 3 next year.)

IEW-SWI A. For my reluctant writer DS10, this has proved helpful to get him in the habit of writing, but I think we may change to something else next year. (Any thoughts?)

 

History- read-aloud SOTW 1, with Kingfisher, maps, and timelines for DS10. We have many public and home library books on the topic and they devour books so I just grab what we are studying and they make the connections. Horrible Histories in particular have been a hit lately. My brother didn't realize they would be so helpful when they bought the entire series for them five years ago.

 

Swimming lessons: DS10 just made level 2. He loves it. DS8 has a cast for another month, so we will see about different outside activities him.

 

Change:

Does buckling down on school count as a change? We did well in August and September. October and November we spent most mornings out in the woods, reading the afternoon away. December was a break. Time to get some habits back. Also, I've found afternoon school works better for the boys. DD3 doesn't bother them as much and they have less need to expend energy.

 

DD3: Getting her preschool materials out and doing them regularly after breakfast, then play time for all until afternoon studies for big brothers seems to work better.

 

Removing formal science for DS8. DS10 loves it, so I am pushing him to finish the book. However, I require two non-fiction books read per week, with a verbal narration. Plus, Bill Nye and Magic School Bus. Considering they got me through much of my freshman college science classes, I think it's plenty.

 

Computer Studies: Two birds, one stone. DS10 needs a direct, daily incentive. if all other things on his list are completed with a good attitude, he has computer time. Last week he made 3/5 days. I'm hoping it continues.

It also enables me to add math review, grammar, and computer programming through Khan Academy. He's doing much better with these than with books and *its on the computer*.

[Guest]

Math. My two oldest (at home) have been doing Teaching Textbooks. Found out before Christmas DS has been gaming the system, so I switched him to CLE. He hadn't learned a thing with TT and placed 3 years lower in CLE. Then DD decided she wanted to do "math in a book", too. So, I gave her a placement test for CLE and she placed in 3rd grade math in CLE, even though she completed level 5 in TT. Sigh. She's technically a 5th grader, too.

I'm sorry- been there! I wish I had known that about TT before we started it, I could've at least watched out for it better but I was distracted by small children and assumed those 100's were accurate! We ended up going to CLE afterwards as well. You might end up being to accelerate through some units. The order taught is different so they may not be as behind as you think. When we switched I bought everything from the 500s-800's and we just started going through. If she didn't know it we worked it out. If she did know it we flipped through until the next thing she didn't know. She ended up being at level on time. Just wanted to share that so you don't get too discouraged!

[Garga]

I've long thought that curriculum should last only half a year.  I get soooo tired of our routine by right around now.  It would be great to finish a semester of World History and then switch to a second semester of World History, but one that's an entirely different format from the first.  (Same with math and science and all the rest.)

 

But curric isn't sold by the half year and I can't afford to buy two curric's for each subject each year.  :)

[J&JMom]

We dropped Spanish for my 8th grader.  Never could find the time nor enthusiasm.  He will take it when he goes to public high school next year.

 

We switched from Envision Math to Teaching Textbooks for my 6th grader. He wasn't retaining skills and was slowly becoming lost.  TT has daily spiral but not as intimidating as Saxon (which is next on the list). He has always had difficulties in math, but loved the video component of Envision. Envision has limited review so he would forget stuff moving into the next topic.  We have used the TT program for 2 days so far and he loves it.  We shall see.

 

Otherwise, everything else is moving along as planned. 

[myfantasticfour]

Boy, are we ever!

Despite finding a lot of wisdom here over time, my initial leanings were more unschooly, which alternated with fits of fearfully attempting to emulate schoolish methods and materials. I also realized over time, that my kids differ greatly, and my oldest is not like me or my secondborn; we both enjoy and benefit from "whole-to-parts" learning in many areas, and she (my oldest) is like her father, and perhaps most people, in that "parts-to-whole" works best for her.

 

This winter, I had an epiphany about cultural literacy. I had been sent a set of the H.D. Hirsch books "what your X-grader needs to know" by a well-meaning relative, once, and after looking at them, dismissed them as an arbitrarily chosen "bucket of facts" and got rid of them.

 

But then I read his original book on cultural literacy, and had to rethink my premises and conclusions. Though I had initially reacted to his "what your x-grader needs to know" series as exactly the kind of legalism he warns against in his earlier work, I couldn't get around the argument that meaningful scholarship cannot be pursued without background knowledge, and that attempting to remove all bias, also removes all that is interesting, pertinent, or memorable, about anything.

 

Examples of this can easily be seen in Common Core Reading Comprehension passages and questions, from standardized test prep workbooks.

 

At any rate, realizing that my earlier denunciation of Hirsch may have been hasty, led to other questions about what I was doing, and why, with homeschooling.

The worksheets and the language arts textbooks I used, produced the same result in my daughter that they generally produce in school kids: they kept her busy, producing a pile of paperwork to prove she had done the material, but she couldn't speak intelligently on what she had studied, nor could she write well.

 

In other words, not much of it actually stuck, and she wasn't making connections or synthesizing the information at all, so it was an exercise in timewasting on both our parts.

 

This led me eventually back to buying the new 4th-edition TWTM book, and then to purchase Writing With Ease.

I'm right now wrestling with a course of study for the coming semester, and whether I ought to replace my beloved Ecce Romani (whole-to-parts, and I love it, but my daughter hates it) with one of Susan Bauer's recommendations, pricey as they are.

 

At any rate, my shake-up is in deciding rather suddenly to learn more about TWTM's classical approach, including plans to purchase SOTW: Ancients, and Writing With Skill, for starters, and going from there.

 

[....]

I've long thought that curriculum should last only half a year.  I get soooo tired of our routine by right around now. 

 

This is why I did subjects by the semester this year.  We did some stuff July-December and new stuff January-May.  A year is too long for us, too.  I noticed this year that the less time we had to do something, the more productive we actually were.

[UCF612]

Mostly we are sticking with our plans. We did drop Wayfarers. Instead we are just doing SOTW and a writing activity after the reading. Science we are doing a hodgepodge of science kits and books we already own. I've created a rotational schedule for science,art,geography and any extras. I plan out 4 weeks at a time.

[KT7673]

We have a few changes:  My DS9 and DS8 changed from spelling with AAS and no grammar to LOE Essentials Edition 2 for both.  My DD6 is pausing MFW 1st grade phonics and working through Progressive Phonics books.  She needed extra practice of blends. All the kids go to a 1 day a week homeschool academy that has a class in science in the fall and history in the spring; therefore, we focus on the other at home.  We changed from using MOH 2 and 3 audio for history, to using BF Geography to look at Geography and Science.  We added Sing Song Latin in December because they were begging to learn latin.  My DS9 decided he wanted to finish IEW Bible Heros as fast as possible; therefore, he is doubling the speed to finish in March.

[Zinnia]

I am teaching 2nd and K. We were doing heart of dakota,but I am so bored after week 18 of pilgrims!! I just switched us (back) to five in a row. Ironically, I did the exact same thing two years ago with another Second grader. I thought this year would be different because different kids. But nope. Still can't handle 30 weeks of pilgrims.

Edited January 21, 2017 by Zinnia

[Another Lynn]

Well, I didn't think so... but apparently I'm wrong.

 

Dd wants something more than the relaxed way I am doing things so I am printing samples of TOG, MFW and HO and working up a more fleshed out version of my own thing with SOTW and other resources I have here already.

 

We will try each for a week and then make a decision about how to handle the rest of our school year.

 

Sigh. She is the last kid and I took a 4-year break from homeschooling when she started school, so she doesn't remember when we used these programs in the past. I am trying not to let my stress-level from that period of our lives color the way she is seeing these programs.

 

I'm ready to chill, she wants more.....  More it is.

 

I can relate to this even though I haven't had a school break.  My youngest and I just discussed more of a plan for the rest of this year because we were getting a little too loosey-goosey with her content subjects.  Glad to know I'm not alone!  

[boscopup]

Major changes here. Two of mine are doing virtual public school as of last week. My 7th grader is doing Algebra 1, Civics, Geography, and Language Arts through Edgenuity and Life Science through Plato. My 2nd grader is doing grade 3 math, LA, literature, social studies, science, and PE through Connections Academy.

 

My 4th grader is still homeschooling, but I'm focusing more on writing. We're working steadily through Writing Skills Book A by Diana King. He would be doing virtual school also, but he is in the process of getting evals done (scheduled for April), and he'll need an IEP, so special ed suggested waiting on virtual school. He's continuing with his regular math. He is also sometimes watching his younger brother's videos.

 

With toddler mayhem and likely autistic child with possible dyslexia needing more one on one, I needed to outsource my 7th grader especially. He's getting pushed more than he previously was, and he's not getting upset with me asking him to write more. Win win. At the end of this semester, I'll decide what to do next year, and whether to try to do virtual with my middle son. He really wants to go to school, but I don't think he could handle it. And with virtual, he can work ahead in math as always while getting services for writing, plus any accommodations needed in the future will be documented now.

 

All this is definitely not what I imagined at the beginning of the school year. [emoji38]

 

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[KrissiK]

I'm sorry- been there! I wish I had known that about TT before we started it, I could've at least watched out for it better but I was distracted by small children and assumed those 100's were accurate! We ended up going to CLE afterwards as well. You might end up being to accelerate through some units. The order taught is different so they may not be as behind as you think. When we switched I bought everything from the 500s-800's and we just started going through. If she didn't know it we worked it out. If she did know it we flipped through until the next thing she didn't know. She ended up being at level on time. Just wanted to share that so you don't get too discouraged!

Lol! I would have been suspicious if he had been getting hundreds all the time. I knew better than to expect that. But his grades had been passing 80's and 90's with a few 70's thrown in there for good measure. I don't think he cheated on all of them, but a majority.

 

Thanks for the encouragement, though. He's struggled with math all the way through his education, so this is nothing new.

[ondreeuh]

My 9th grader is on a semester system, and he finished up Algebra and Earth Science in December. So for this semester he is doing Geometry and Biology - and will keep working on those in the fall.

 

We totally switched English - from trying to do a textbook full of short stories to doing real novel studies. I finally found guides that I like - Novel-Ties. We just finished 1984, and will read 4 or so more this semester.

 

He is doing several classes this year that are just 1-semester courses. He finished Civics, Logic, and Teen Leadership, and has started Forensic Science and Psychology.

 

Pretty much the only thing that hasn't changed is PE, and he's just logging hours of physical activity for that.

 

My 3rd grader had some things switch after the first quarter (just grade levels of science & grammar), but we are staying on track. I am going to cut out some things to simplify a bit, though. He does better with fewer transitions.

[Peaceful Isle]

I switched things up in December for my seventh grader. We butt heads a lot with our personalities, so we switched from mom lead curriculum, to all online. I know it's not as good, but my dd and I now have a beautiful relationship, and she is still learning. Win win.

We used to use curriculum like apologia science, essentials in writing, voyages in English, beautiful feet, story of the world, etc..

We now use a combo of Acellus and time4learning. She has to do what the computer teacher says, and answer their questions, take quizzes, and she does it no problem.

 

I also switched up my dd14 as well. She was trying to rush through her subjects, and was making poor grades. Now she is on pace, going a lot slower, using different curriculum, and making beautiful grades. Another win.

Edited January 30, 2017 by Peacefulisle