2_girls_mommy
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Posts posted by 2_girls_mommy
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I say yes, you are overthinking some parts of it. 🙂 On do you start now, break for summer or do light summer then pick up in the fall full force, or put it away, do fun other things for now like reading/writing/unit studies/free sources/games/whatever, then start at the beginning from the fall is totally up to you. Personally I lean towards starting it fresh in the fall if we can. Plenty of times we pick up where we left off, but that is generally because we didn't finish, not because we finished early then started a new thing. It is just always nice to start at the beginning when you can to jump start a year, IMO. Plus at the end of the year, it can feel fresh to do something different and fun to round out the end of the year as the weather warms up.
On what cycle, what curriculum to use for Bible for you that is totally up to you. Do you do SOTW, Ambleside Online, MFW, or any other? It doesn't really matter. You pick what looks good to you. I have often looked at Ambleside Online and thought it seemed like such a nicely planned out curriculum and that it might be nice to use it, to stay on a schedule rather than our loose WTM studies sometimes. But in the end, I started with SOTW and have continued through four year cycles, because I have kids of all ages, so I wanted to continue my odd with what we were doing because we had done it so long. The next one only makes sense to do have done her alongside the same thing because they are only a couple of years apart. So when I folded the youngest in (ten year age gap,) it just so happened that we had just finished a cycle and were to due to start a new cycle her first grade year, making it perfect to do the 4 year cycles all over again. I have experience with SOTW. I have done it so many times through and love it. Even though I sometimes want a change, it is just easier to stick with what I know is good and what I know how to use. You don't have to stick with things though. You can really try something then switch. I just am not a big switcher once I have started something. You aren't locked into the whole of a child's education by what you start in 1st grade! On the other hand, consistency is nice, so you wouldn't want to jump around every year.
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I can't answer your exact question because I haven't done it. But was going to suggest looking at Memoria Press' Christian studies. It uses the Golden Children's Bible for the reading, and can be used as your reading curriculum or just use it for Bible only. That is what we used around those ages for a year or two.
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My 2nd grader will do mostly what her older sisters did many moons ago:
Math: Rod and Staff
L.A.: Rod and staff phonics, spelling, English, reading (just the readers, no workbooks for reading,) reading SOTW books at her level and listening to SOTW recomendations.
History/Art: SOTW vol. 2 w/A.G. The projects in vol. 2 are some of my favorite for art, so we will do many. We'll read the Usborne Internet Linked Art History book (I don't know what it is called off the top of my head!) Might pull art lessons from Drawing with Children, and Arty Facts Science activity books to go with other lessons, seasonal projects, etc.
Science: WTM style Earth and Space: Usborne First Illustrated Encyclopedias as spines, rounded out with Arty Facts books, lessons on geology that I have, Magic Schoolbus, and lots of hands on and field trips.
Music: using SchoolhouseTeachers music theory this year. I will look through them for something and use What Your 2nd Grader Needs to Know and WTM suggested books and CDs.
enrichment co-op, girl scouts, dance classes, hopefully some in person library classes by then, but if not will continue to do their monthly take home kits and occasional zoom lessons.
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PE and sports is another idea you could research. (Although I am not sure what you are doing? Trying to make money or doing an assignment?) The laws are different in each state about how much or if at all that kids can compete in sports in public schools or in any extra curriculars. In my state, it is all or nothing. If you homeschool there is no access to any services in the public schools. Our state organization's stance on that is that is ok. We do what we do. You do what you do. We don't want services because they usually come with strings, and we like our independence.
But that does mean that there have to be private schools that will accept homeschoolers in some team sports or opportunities for student athletes in other leagues. So that may be something for you to look into. How to help pool information for that.
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Yes, Third Form is very intense. I have only had one student ever that was able to really self teach it. I have taught it in co-ops and to my own kids for a few years. It is much more than an introductory look at Latin like the First and Second Forms. The plus is they will greatly understand English and grammar after doing it, and hopefully that applies to other languages after.
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7 hours ago, Servant4Christ said:
Thank you! I was hoping you'd see this thread and respond. I have 2nd grade English and spelling already and was really trying to figure out first grade stuff so I can start buying backwards in curriculum. I used CLE with my oldest and switched in third grade. I really liked CLE's learning to read program but not their language arts and there doesn't seem to be a good way to separate them. Wouldn't be a big deal if they used the same phonetic symbols as R&S, but of course they don't. May I ask what you use for reading beyond grade 1? I like the concept of the BNRS, but not their nonresistant stance which presents itself in both their reading and history programs.
We are very WTM. So we just move into real books that line up with our SOTW and WTM lit suggestions, no workbooks or anything. The R&S English is so good. My kids did it all the way into high school, and mom brag, my odd got a perfect score on her reading and English sections of ACT 🙂 I think a lot of that was her Latin and her R&S grammar. This time around I have the 2nd grade Bible readers that I picked up used, so I plan to have dd7 read them when she finishes grade 1 reading. But I will have her use them for read aloud practice.
So her 2nd grade is lining up as finish R&S 1st grade reading/phonics/worksheets (because we only do a couple of lessons of each a week. We don't do these everyday because we do so much other reading and writing) then move into the 2nd grade phonics, 2nd grade English, 2nd grade Spelling, and just the readers, no workbooks whenever we finish those up- so basically the whole LA line up, just no reading workbooks, extra worksheets, and no handwriting. I did their handwriting before, but do not like it.
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Rod and Staff phonics stands alone. I have used it with all of my kids. It is over 1st and 2nd grade. In first grade I have often used the reading program, just because I like it as a starting to read place. But in 2nd we ditch the reading program and do just the phonics and the English. In 1st grade R&S the spelling is integrated with the phonics program and what little intro to grammar there is is in the Reading section and the additional worksheets. But in 2nd grade, all parts are completely separate and you can choose just which you like and pair with anything else. I hope that is somewhat clear.
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So you are looking for what teaching issues we may be having, as in what is lacking in the homeschool programs we use vs what issues we may be facing because of the current pandemic?
As far as problems with materials, I put together my own program from homeschool publishers, library resources, homeschool curriculum websites, and books from my own collection. I don't really have any big issues or gaping holes or trouble finding materials to meet the needs of my kids. I think there is a lot out there, almost too much to sort through, lol.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any specific issues. But when I have them I resort to my well worn Well Trained Mind or to these or other boards and look for a starting point. I think homeschooling's roots come from homegrown sources, and others have already dealt with any issue that I may have, and so all I have to do is ask who else has dealt with this.
If you are wondering what issues we face because of COVID, as a long term homeschooler I probably have more resources than people who started just because of the pandemic as far as an established network of homeschool associations. Newbies need help getting connected with local resources like their state organizations and support groups more than anything. And a lot of homeschool things got put on hold because of the same reasons everthing else in the world did, making it harder to find the groups that are usually there. As we get back to somewhat normal, people will need to know how to network together for activities, classes, renting spaces for groups, how to access testing and whatnot in their areas.
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So for us, I never shop Aldi on a Sunday, which it looks like you are talking about Sunday as well. I find after people have shopped all weekend, by Sunday night, things are very bare. I was out at ours on Sunday and couldn't get cat litter. We had just had the two weeks ice and snow storm and roads that were unpassable, so the weekend was an extremely busy one as people were finally able to get out after the thaw. So yes, shelves were pretty sparse looking everywhere. I was at Walmart over the weekend too. But cat litter was the only thing I was completely able to not buy.
Our stores have been closer to normal over the winter, but in general, just have less all of the time. There is less seasonal inventory everywhere, which means there is almost none left by the time of the holidays and for after holiday sales which is what I shop yearly. My shopping routines have been a constant learning curve over this past year.
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Yes, if you have to give a course description you just write that English 4 or whichever included xyz course and these texts and assignments at home and indicate that the final grade was assigned by you.
I wrote detailed course descriptions for my dd applying to selective schools. It wasn't even required for the school she eventually went to, and I probably won't have to include them for next dd. I had some courses where dd got the grade completely from the outsourced class like when she took concurrent enrollment courses or an online math class. The rest of her courses that may have issued grades, were only part of my curriculum and were not her full coursework, and I indicated that in the course descriptions. Mainly, I started each description with where the grade came from. This was a course taken from an online provider, xyz, and the grade given is the grade issued by them. Then, here is the syllabus they provided. If it was a class of mine that included another course, I said, this was a class that included an online course, these books, these assignments, and the final grade on transcript was issued by our homeschool.
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Teaching took a back seat to high school counselor for awhile,honestly. Not that I stopped teaching. I did most of high school hands on and with co-ops with my older, even more so with my next. But I knew how to put together my curriculum, record it, work with my kiddos. I did of course re read The Well Trained Mind and added the Well Educated Mind and at least the first few chapters of every book my kids would be using like the History of the Ancient World and so forth to understand how they worked and to set up my expectations.
But like others, I needed to learn how to make sure my kids got everything they needed to get accepted in my state for college. I had to learn how to get them registered for ACTs, PSATs, driver's ed, and signed up for our state's instate tuition program. I read other books aimed at homeschooling high schoolers into college like Debra Bell's and any others I came across. They all assured me I could do it. We did use the Well Planned Day's Four Year High School Planner which has a list for each semester of things to do as well outside of just classwork which helped keep me and my dd on track with to dos. I put deadline dates on my calendar to keep in mind because there was just so much new information constantly.
But the teaching? Honestly, it was just a carryover from what we had always been doing. I didn't suddenly change how I assigned work.
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We all have a different laptop, whatever was a Black Friday sale the year we needed them. All do the jobs they need to do. We aren't picky, and we have had no troubles with any of them.
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OP, yes, I would continue math in some way, either by using another curriculum for the rest of the year as PP says, or by just going forward in the next book and breaking at summer. The latter is what we do. My current 1st grader is on lesson 20 of her 2nd grade math curric, but not even a third of the way through her 1st grade LA program (because we do other things for LA besides the one curriculum. ) So when we break for summer in May she will have summer break in which other learning takes place (summer camps, swim lessons, vacations, summer reading program at the library, lots of free reading and crafts, gardening, etc,) Then in fall we will start where we left off in each, not worrying about the grade levels. I have done it that way all along with my kiddos.
We never do a textbook or curriculum as written straight through in one grade level. Not because they aren't capable, but because we do other things. We don't just work straight though an LA curriculum. We do unit studies, contests in the community, co-op projects, seasonal things, all mixed in throughout the year as we work through our curriculum. But in math, we just keep moving forward doing a lesson a day on the days we are at home, slowing down as needed, but staying consistently moving forward in one curriculum, finishing when we finish, skipping review at the beginning or end of a text if it comes at a time that we haven't taken a break and don't need it.
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I just wrote the list on the whiteboard daily. I never had time to type up detailed lists, lol!
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OP, yes, Letter of the Week, the first link in Lori's list is a great resource. I have used it a few times. I just preprinted the whole thing and hole punched and put into a book. Then I checked out library books weekly, printed coloring sheets for the activity (sometimes we glued things, painted, or did other hand on things with the printouts too.) And I printed out any poetry links to go along.
Then the activities were pretty simple. We did the index card color words which I have used with all of my kids, and then did all kinds of activities from the lists, never all of them, just whatever I wanted to.
But I also did themes like she gave on animals, holidays, and other seasonal things. For that age it is so easy to google for a short lesson plan and craft for most of those things.
Another idea that I have done in co-op twice is unit studies on Dr. Seuss books. That is lots of fun. I have a Dr. Seuss preschool calendar, so I taught calendar stuff with that as a circle time each meeting time, then we did activities for different books each week. All lesson plans and printouts were found free.
If you do a list and do some of the preplanning in the summer as suggested, it is pretty easy. When we did animals, I would do like bats and owls in October. We did apples and harvest things in Sept. Then in November Thanksgiving topics like Native Americans for our area or learned about the pilgrims or whatever, then December was reindeer studies and Christmas studies and crafts, I would just get a library book or two on each topic, look for printables. and so on.
One idea is to pay for a Subscription for schoolhouseteachers dot com. As a member there are so many preplanned out classes on there for this age to pick from.
Or you do the Scholastic learn at home subscription. They offered a couple months of it free last year when the lockdowns started, and my then Ker loved it. We worked through the Pre/K lessons and into the 1st/2nd grade free ones and she was very sad when it wasn't free anymore. They are set up like a little unit a day around science and social studies topics. Each lesson had a book they read to the student, a literature story, very good titles, then a non fiction story on the topic, then a short film, online game activities, then movement activities each day. Then there was a list to free online links that would have crafts, games, and other fun websites on each topic. I would just skim the list and look for a craft and an easy online game she could do. I did not love the online game/learning activity for each lesson, the vocabulary, but I think I just don't like online learning in general. It is kind of easy to just click around until you get the right answer, but eventually mine figured out what they were asking and could do them the right way. She really liked these activities, and it required zero planning. The movement activities and crafts involved basic household items. Some of the links to craft things might require a printer or not as handy items, but you can pick what you want to do in the extra resource section.
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32 minutes ago, Pintosrock said:
I liked FIAR, but couldn't get over the cost. Highly recommend Wee Folk Art. We also did Weekly Virtual Book Club for kids. Same intent as FIAR, but free and someone else creates the ideas for you!
https://m.facebook.com/groups/159517497822475/?ref=group_browse
I was like how is FIAR expensive. I have found used copies of the guide so cheaply several times and then used the library or our own collection for the books. But I just looked up the starter packs, and it is pretty high if you don't find it all used!
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1 minute ago, Meadowlark said:
Yep- those are scheduled in the MP curriculum. We did the Tiner Medicine book last year (super interesting) and my 7th grader is doing Biology this year as part of the Trees study. I won't do that same path for my next group of kids. I want to go general in grades 5/6 and then heavier in 7/8 (probably with online classes) because they are headed to public HS. Live and learn I guess.
The Medicine book was my favorite Tiner book by far!
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On 2/11/2021 at 12:57 PM, Momto6inIN said:
I'll lament too. I like to go to convention every year if possible. It's just such a good time to get away with hubby and introduce him to my world for a day or two and get his perspective on things.
This year I've invited 6 or 7 hs moms I got to church with to an overnight retreat in a lodge just outside our small town. We're going to listen to podcasts, each do a presentation on our favorite curriculum, and submit discussion questions about issues we're having. It's not the same, but it's better than nothing!
I love this idea. I may suggest this to our homeschool group leader as an idea. Our state association has a similar mom's weekend, but it is pretty expensive.
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I haven't actually ever seen the science, but was just going to say, if you are using it as a spine, then I think anything can work that covers what you want to cover. I am using a CLE My Calendar Book with my 1st grader. It is kind of our spine for her current science. It has her recording something different each day each month of the weather and doing a graph at the end of each month. This month we have springboarded off of it to do a unit on precipitation using other books and project that I shave here that we like. Of course, she is only in 1st grade, so not the same thing at all. It is just my only experience with CLE.
I have used those very plain Tiner books that Memoria Press sells as spines for elem/middle science using Well Trained Mind style notebooks and experiments and science fair projects and enrichment at co-op. I would not call one of those books a full science, but they served fine as a starting point.
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I am more the "this is what we are doing, suck it up type," to an extent. If child is really struggling, I will add or tweak things, but rarely have I every switched around a lot.
In K with one, I got tired of daily tears using the same math I had used for the previous child in K. So I put it up and used an off the shelf Walmart colorful workbook for her with lots of coloring and cut and paste and we did some math through literature units I found a long time ago I think through the free lessons with the Core Knowledge Sequence online. The next year I moved her back into the tear causing math, and she was ready to handle it then. In middle school when she was still struggling with basic facts, we slowed down the progression, added in some hands on methods for different learners from some special ed books I had bought, but basically kept moving forward in the same curric. She is now in high school, and is getting Algebra, though later than some, and still plans to get through Algebra 2 before she graduates. My first had no troubles in math. I never switched her around. My ydd has no issues in 1st grade so far. So the only reason I played around with the one, is because she has some learning differences. When the odd got grumpy about math, it was kind of just a get er done kind of thing, since she didn't struggle.
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Agreeing with the others. It doesn't matter what grade level it says, if they are doing it in high school that is their high school English comp. (within reason here, not a 1st grade book for a neurotypical student.) I have used Rod and Staff grade 7 English with one of mine as part of our high school English. She used a workbook that says 9th grade English in 10th grade. Those are the materials I chose as part of our curriculum. I created the course, using the appropriate materials. (7th grade R&S as grammar review is far more English grammar than I ever got in a public high school, lol. )
So just keep moving him forward, giving him his credits each year.
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On 2/2/2021 at 3:55 PM, ALB said:
There are no hard and fast rules here! It really just depends on what you and she want from it. My dd has through all 4 forms and Henle I and II. She will keep going through AP Latin and has no desire to add a modern language to that.
My ds went through Second Form and then moved on to Spanish. He dreaded Latin and wanted something that felt more immediately practical. That was hard for me because I have been so committed to Latin and have learned it right along with my kids.
I think the ideal would be to do both a modern language and continue a classical language to some degree, but that's not going to be realistic for everyone. If you just want vocabulary, there are other ways to accomplish that. Probably the most useful Latin vocabulary to know are the prepositions and how they combine with verbs to vary the meanings. Obviously, the further you progress in Latin the more vocabulary you will have.
This is very similar to my two!
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2 kids with two different goals.
First kid did Latin from grades 1-11, dabbled in Spanish her senior year, took National latin exams through level 4, and went into Latin in college, skipping the intro level and doing an advanced Latin her first semester of college, and now is taking Intro to Italian in college. She did the entire Form Series starting in 5th grade with First Form. She did Fourth Form w/Henle 1 over 8th and 9th grades. She competed in the National Exams 1 in 8th grade, level 2 in 9th grade, so I gave her Latin 1 and 2 for getting through Fourth Form. Then because we were familiar with the Form series, we moved into Henle 2 for 10th and part of 11th grade, then did part of Henle 3 in 11th grade for Latin 3 and 4 credits.
Next kiddo did Latin from elementary school also, but we took a different path for her because we were working with a group in co-op that had different needs. So she did Latina Christiana 1 in 4th grade, Latina Christiana 2 in 5th grade, so started First Form in 6th grade. We worked through 9th grade and got through most of Third Form before she decided she didn't want to continue with Latin. So I gave her a Latin 1 credit, and she has taken Spanish in 10th and 11th grades for her 2 years of high school language in the same language. If she had done First through Third Form in 8th grade and up I probably would have just given her the 2 credits of Latin, but I didn't want her to go most of high school without language study, so we moved onto Spanish. She will not be going into languages in college.
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I'll lament with you, just because the age of live state conventions may be drawing to an end. I have homeschooled about 14 or 15 years now. I have gone to convention all but maybe twice in those years. I volunteered in some form for most of those, and was on the committee for convention for the last two years. I LOVE everything about our state convention. We were scaling back last year anyway as attendance has gone down so much with curriculum available online and in stores. Then Covid happened and our new, smaller scale convention was closed This year, one hasn't even been planned, going to all virtual.
I have been attending a few of the free virtual conventions over the past year. The workshops are nice and interactive. But it is NOT the same. We had student art contests, student expositions, student groups performing music, vendors giving freebies and having all kinds of live demonstrations and games and giveaways, etc. And just being in a place with so many homeschoolers was a place to connect with friends from all of our different homeschool groups and past groups and friends. I am really sad that this is pretty much gone for us.
I will probably attend one of the bigger ones out of state just for the sake of the speakers in person and getting to look at things new since I still have many years ahead of me. But the cost does not make it something I need to do every year, for sure.
How to Actually Get Through the Textbook in a School Year?
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
This is very comforting, as we have never finished a text, lol. I just didn't put as much research into it to see what others did. I just figured we did as much as we could and that was all we could do, and left it at that. Some books we have gone straight through. Others I have picked and chosen. Some were co-op or online classes where they did the assigning. Makes me feel better to see the amounts covered in the above syllabi though. We usually do more than that. 🙂