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swimming-duck

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  1. Members 18 Posted just now Hi. I hope I’ve done the quote thing correctly. I haven’t posted in forever. This came up in a search. I’m combining BYL 5 with Oh Freedom. And also TL 3. I’m just wondering how combining BYL and Woke Homeschooling is going? Have you found it feasible? Any advice on how best to match up the two curricula? In flipping through them, it’s not always evident exactly what’s being studied and/or chronologically where the lesson is. Without having the books in front of me that is. I’ve not bought any books yet, but with combining I feel like I shouldn’t buy everything because obviously some things will have to get cut. Anyways, any words of wisdom? Thank you.
  2. Really great stuff here ladies for me to think about. I apologize as I've not responded to everything. I just started school Monday, so it's hard to find during the week now. But this weekend I plan to look through this more and really try to reflect and figure out what it is I really want to do with this next year!
  3. Oh...and if I don't switch to MP, my plan was to just go ahead with Year Two, but as you suggested Janeway, not do all of it. I already created my curriculum plan which drops some of the AO list. And my plan was to slow the pace as needed while we get through this year. After this year and a few months or so I won't have to work anymore, but I"ll be a half-time student. So I *think* doing school with the kiddos will be much more manageable at that point!
  4. I actually really completely agree with this. We have some craziness going on in our life right now (daddy is a full-time student and working and I'm now a full-time student and soon to be working full-time and school part-time). So I admit that having everything come together in a put together curriculum is appealing to me right now because of our specific circumstances. I am definitely one to drop pieces that don't work. Even though we did AO, I added and dropped things as I felt worked for us. But as a starting point, I'm liking the idea of having something more concrete and all put together for me until we're through this phase of life. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else, but I think it's just maybe how I'm wired to deal with this busyness in our lives!
  5. Oh wow. That's so interesting! I would've guessed it'd be the other way. So what does your child who loves SM use for other subjects?
  6. Thanks so much for all the responses. I only have a minute, so hopefully a bit later I can clarify a bit more. But here's a few things. By late, I meant that he's a late bloomer in terms of reading (which I realize can be very normal). He's close to 9, He'll be 9 in July. MP doesn't start grammar until 3rd grade if I'm looking at their curriculum correctly. It's very much a memorization based grammar program at that age from what I can tell, so the goal isn't necessarily great understanding until later. My DS does great with memorization. We have not done as much with that and he struggles to remember all of the little rules of reading. I wonder if we'd had more of a memorization focus with reading if it would have helped him. But who knows? He may have just needed to grow and mature a bit in order to be ready. MP has a mastery-based approach. We've been using Singapore math, which is mastery based, and he's thrived on that approach. We would keep our math curriculum, but I wonder if he'd do well given that MP is mastery based. The AO readings are advanced, but that hasn't been a problem. At that age, he gets all of his readings read to him and he's not really had much problem with comprehension (except for Shakespeare which is understandable IMO). But we didn't do Year 1 until he was 7 1/2. We're taking a break before Year 2 (or MP or whatever) and just focusing on math, reading, and writing for the summer.
  7. Interesting point Emily. Our math program is mastery based (Singapore) and it's been wonderful for my son. He has a fantastic grasp on it and does well with it. I'm actually thinking he may be in the mastery category rather than the "throw a bunch at them" approach. I think maybe my personal learning style fits in well with Ambleside, but I'm wondering if maybe his doesn't. That being said, AO hasn't been bad necessarily. I've caught him acting out things that happened in the stories on his own and I do see occasionally things he's pulled from the readings in his play. But we also struggle with it a lot - getting things done, narrating, etc...I wonder if a more direct approach where he could get it done and move on with his day a bit easier would be better for him. I don't know. I've considered maybe just trying out the materials in a few subjects if/when I can find funds for that and just see what we think about those things. I do love AO though. I just loved a lot of the readings. There were a few that we dropped, but overall I thought the quality was amazing. I do see the fruit of that in his vocabulary.
  8. I've really enjoyed the literature from AO, but I also find it overwhelming at times. I feel like CM (via AO) covers so many different things at once. I LOVE the idea of the emphasis on all the extras - arts, music, handwork, et...but we struggle to get to any of that. That being said, I wonder if MP will feel too much too soon for us? I'm a huge fan of letting little ones have tons of time for exploring, pretending, etc...and not so much worrying about academics at the younger ages. That being said, my oldest struggles with the basics. He's a late bloomer in terms of reading, but we're getting there. Since reading hasn't come naturally to me, I think the AO approach of letting him absorb grammar and such at younger ages through copywork could possibly be a disservice to him (I think it could work well for a child who naturally picks those things up). So I like the idea of him working through grammar, writing, and spelling and such at younger ages. That being said, if I do MP, I'm considering subbing All About Spelling and All About Reading for my oldest. I may go ahead and try the MP recommendations with my younger when he gets to that and see how he does first (he turns five this year, so I'd probably do the Pre-K with him this year - don't think he's developmentally ready for K). Anyways, for those that switched from AO, why did you decide to make the switch? Did you have a hard time letting go of AO? I admit that I really loved the literature selections from Year 1. That being said, overall my son had mixed feelings on it and dislikes narration (but he's improved). We may not have a choice but to continue AO for a bit anyways because of our budget, but I'm considering maybe adding in some MP resources as we have funds to see how he responds to them. He's great in math and uses Singapore and so we would keep that rather than switch. But I guess it's the basics - reading, writing, grammar, spelling, etc...where I'm a bit concerned that he may not get what he needs from AO. How does the workload compare to AO? He would be doing third grade (I think) although I'm a bit uncertain about that since his abilities seem to be all over the place. It does seem like this approach is more "workbookish". I'm not sure how he'll respond. On one hand I don't think he cares for workbook pages. On the other hand, he breezes right through his math pages and then it's done and he can move on with his day. I almost wonder if he might like something more structured where he can just get his sheets done and move on with his day. As for my youngest, he's very very bouncy and his attention span is not much at all. He's only four. He turns five in July. How much work is the Pre-K? I don't want something that's going to turn him off from learning or be too intense for a five year old. And with AO they wouldn't recommend anything until year 1 (which they recommend between age 6 and 7 depending on the maturity of the child). Another question I have is that I saw in the curriculum packages the books have study guides. I admit that I like the CM idea of not doing that sort of thing and just allowing a child to develop their ideas and relationship to books naturally. I think the reason I tend this way is that I remember studying literature in public school and I hated the classics. I left high school thinking they were boring and awful. I think having everything related to a question about this character or this interaction or that situation killed my enjoyment of the book. As an adult I've been able to reread some of the classics and found that I enjoy them immensely when I get to read them and enjoy the story and characters and reflect on them in my own way. So I don't know about doing that part of the curriculum. I'm still open to hearing thoughts on that though if anyone has strong feelings regarding the merit of such an approach. I apologize if this post is all over the place. I'm just not sure what we'll do and honestly, we can't afford to change much of anything right now anyways. But I thought it'd be good to start thinking about this and learning more about MP. Thank you in advance for any feedback!
  9. On my phone and obviously screwed up the whole quote thing, but in regards to the last comment. Yes, we would feel bad using a chicken for that. We talked about maybe just using a chicken leg or something! I do like the idea though of going through the mummification process with the kids in that way!
  10. And thanks all for the comments thus far. We did SOTW today for the first time after not having done it since 2013! And wow - it really was fun. It's interesting because I remember feeling like it was hard to get through the reading with my kiddo at the time, but he was much younger. And after reading AO selections for nearly a year, I have to say that it feels like the difficulty level is a step down, but not in a bad way. It's going to be a more relaxing read now I think. And hopefully we can just kind of settle into it, learn a bit from the readings, and enjoy the map work and activities. One of the suggested activities was to make a mummy chicken. It looks sooooo fun, but I just can't justify wasting food on this right now! I'd maybe do it anyways, but my son is freaked out by mummies. I have a feeling that our second little one will be all about a mummy project when we do our second pass through the Ancients! It felt good to get back to this book though, as in it feels like the right decision. I still haven't decided how exactly I want to marry them up. I'm nearly through AO 1 and some of the selections we've already read would go more with SOTW 2. So I think we're setting aside our AO history readings for year one and we're just going to go through SOTW 1 and then finish up our AO 1 after we get into SOTW 2. Hopefully by then I'll have a plan other than haphazardly trying to figure out last minute what goes with what!
  11. That sounds like it might be what I'm wanting to do. Did you go through the literature selections and pull them yourself or did you find any sort of resource that matches up the AO readings with the four year cycle? I'd love it if I could find some sort of resource for that!
  12. I know there's been posts on this. I've perished many of them. And several ended with someone saying something like "I'm going to use the four year cycle and SOTW as my spine, but add in the AO books at the right time period" OR " I'm going to use the SOTW four year cycle alongside the AO six year cycle and not worry about time periods matching up" or fill in the blank. Several of those are from years ago. I'd love to get feedback from those who've been combining the programs for years. How have you combined? Did you alter the cycles and/or choose either the six or four year or just do each alongside the other? And has it worked out or did you end up dropping one or feel it was too much? A little background info on us: We are finishing up AO year one. I've really liked it. However, we started SOTW about two years ago and dropped it (I was overwhelmed at the time - had more to do with my availability for homeschooling than the method). I have loved our year of AO truly. We've dropped a few readings, but overall I've loved the selections and having the readings broken up by week for me is AWESOME! But there's a part of me that remembers our very short time with SOTW (we made it to chapter four) and I LOVED the material, activity suggestions, map work. I feel like it was fun and I remember it well. So this positive experience causes me to want to incorporate it even though AO has worked well overall (with a rough period adjusting to narration). And I do feel like ancient history is not very thorough at all in AO's first pass through that time period, which is sad because there's so much interesting history there. So that's my experience with the two. Another note is that while I appreciate the six year cycle that AO does so that you're not rushing through time periods, I feel inclined towards the four year cycle. My body likes to birth every 3 1/2 - 4 years, which means my three boys are perfectly spaced for a four year cycle in that we'd have a new elementary student starting school every time we return to ancient history. So I've wondered if it would work better, but I know some prefer not to combine time periods for all their kiddos as they feel it's more distracting. So anyways, I guess my questions are in the first part of my post. But the rest is there to give you some background as to why I'm looking at the choices I am and how the different options could affect my family. I apologize if there's a ton of typos here. I really dislike typing on my phone, but sometimes I just can't get to the computer!
  13. I did not know there was a name for this. This is my natural tendency. I've always loved the idea of block scheduling, but our plans are always foiled that way. So I'd say we have a messy, unintentional loop right now! I like the idea of structuring this into an intentional loop!
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