[Book a Week 2016 - BW5: February Safari]

I started on this thread in the summer and fell off the wagon when school started so 6 months later... I'm starting up again. I just read Moonlit Garden (free book of the month amazon prime). It was somewhat predictable but I enjoyed it and it was a nice break from the self-help and more difficult reads I've been trying to stick too. I finished Abolition of Man and I loved it. I read it after listening to Circe Institutes "Is American Education a bad Joke" and it seemed to go hand in hand. It was not the easiest book to read and I had to re-read several parts to really get what CS Lewis was talking about but it really cemented many of my thoughts on why we are trying to homeschool the way we are (won't even claim classical haha). I am now reading War and Peace but I'm only 150 pages into an 1800 page book so I think I will be on that book for awhile. I am hoping to watch the mini series but I like to read a book without my images of scenery and characters being tainted by the show. A Passage to India sounds great I will have to add that to my list.

[2016-2017 Out-of-the-Box Planning Thread (Dare I say...with a hint of unschooling?)]

Wanted to add something we started this year that is unboxy... I print up 3-4 prints from a famous artist and put them in places around the house that the kids see often like the fridge, in the bathroom, on our whiteboard and I leave them for 2-3 weeks then change them out. I also pick a composer and play them for the week while we work. It's been a nice way to add artist and composers without actually adding to their workload.

[2016-2017 6th grade plan]

Writing- IEW Medieval and WWS

Spelling - Phonetic Zoo

Vocabulary- CE

Grammar - Analytical Grammar

Reading - Memoria Press 6th gr books sans guides

Poetry - Grammar of Poetry

Math - MM6

History - VPSP MARR w/ Famous Men of Middle Ages

Science- BF History of Science w/ BB Science in the Ancient Times

Extra - Philosophy Adventures

 

We will also be doing a looping arts schedule with famous artist, composers, Mapping the world

With art, Drawing and history crafts

[2016-2017 Out-of-the-Box Planning Thread (Dare I say...with a hint of unschooling?)]

Our year is so boxy next year. I think the older my girls get the more I freak out about just doing our own thing. I do plan on some fun insect and animal studies for my twins who will be in kinder. Far from formal, more like wild kratts and using our zoo membership and maybe drawing at the zoo (one of my twins loves to draw). Since my girls are studying the middle ages next year I also want to go to Medieval Times and maybe do some Knight stuff with my boys. Add in some pirates and hopefully it will be a really fun year. I don't really want it to be super educational just a fun way to start off *school* . I'm thinking also maybe learning a little bit of fencing although with 5yo twins I can see that getting out of hand lol.

[Movies for Middle Ages times period?]

Following since we are going to be in middle ages next year. I started to watch marco polo, the new series on netflixs, to see if it was appropriate and it's a definite no. I read later it wasn't super accurate either. Why do movies about ancient or middle ages have to have so many s3x scenes? There's tons of great movies but absolutely nothing I can sit with my kids and watch.

[What would your ideal Kinder curriculum include?]

Now that I think about it, the *ideal* kindergarten wouldn't be using what we are using . In our house we have a 6th grader and a 5th grader so I have to accommodate all of my kids. If I could though I would spend the day coloring or drawing, nature studies would be awesome and just reading lots of books. Right now with my 4yos I buy lots of imaginative play items and building toys like marble runs, magnatiles, legos etc. They love playing with them and it is so great for their developement.

 

Oh and I love the strewing idea's. Placing educational items at random places that your kids play so that they can discover them.

[What would your ideal Kinder curriculum include?]

This is what I decided for my twins who will be in kinder next year:

 

Logic of English Foundations

Right Start A

MP Enrichment

Some sort of art book

Animal and insect studies (informal, lots of lapbooking for cutting and glueing practice)

[Really interesting experiment on natural vs. other disinfectants. I was surprised at what won.]

I guess I should have read the thread before responding lol.

[Really interesting experiment on natural vs. other disinfectants. I was surprised at what won.]

We had the stomach flu and it spread super slow. Took 2 weeks to go through the house. Dh suggested I wasn't cleaning with a good enough product to kill the germs. I looked it up and from what I read the Niro virus is different from the cold virus and other viruses in its makeup and to kill it you need bleach not antibacterial sprays. I thought that was interesting. I would be interested in seeing the same test with other viruses.

[Are workbooks a time waster?]

I love workbooks. I seem to have some aversion to textbooks. I think it comes from too many years of copying questions and copying various other things that could have been simplified by using a workbook. Most of the workbooks we have don't include multiple choice though. We are using Analytical Grammar, Beast Academy and Math Mammoth. I actually created my own workbook to go with english from the roots up since it didn't have one. Everything in one place, organized, categorized. I've never understood why so many people think all workbooks are bad. You have to evaluate the content, not workbook vs textbook.

[NotebookingPages.com]

I signed up during a sale a few months ago even though I didn't think I would use it much. I actually have used it quite a bit. We have been doing artist studies and I print out a few prints and stick them in places the kids will see. It's given them nice exposure to different artist.

[Your own curriculum]

I also generally put together our history and science curriculum. I use premade curriculum but pull everything apart and piece together what I want. I always say I not going to do it again each year because it is a lot of work but I can never find exactly what I want and after searching and searching I end up putting together my own curriculum.

[Moms with lots of littles, do you struggle with this?]

 

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/school-at-my-house/just wanted to add this also. It's one of my favorite post because it shows me that our house is totally normal. This is my house most days. Add on sick kids and it kinda looks like chaos but we usually can get through most of the work. Eventually it will be easier but right now some days I just have to push through.

[*crosspost* Omnibus or Tapestry of Grace]

I've been looking at both of them also. I love that omnibus has self paced options and an option to do live classes. I'm not sure what the online co ops people talk about with tapestry are but I hear they are inexpensive. Classes with veritas are not cheap although I would say they are priced the same as most online classes. Looking at samples of them I can't wrap my head around tapestry of grace. It just looks very confusing and overwhelming. I keep reading it's like a buffet but being a box checker I have a really hard time with that. I have also read there is a big learning curve with TOG. Doing one of these I would want it to include history and from everything I've read TOG is better in that aspect.

[What are your curriculum plans for 2016-2017?]

Currently my plan is... do more school, learn some stuff. Y'all are all crazy with these specifics at this point! We're barely halfway through this year. :laugh:

 

(No offense meant for anyone who gets joy from planning!)

You should see my spread sheet with our plan for the next 4 years lol. It's more of a goal sheet that will change. I just need to know where we are going and to make sure we cover every branch of science and all history cycles. I realized I had so many ideas floating around about specifics I would like to cover and their are things like poetry that we have never done. I had to write a plan to make sure I could fit it all somewhere. It makes me feel like we are covering what we need to even though I might drop the whole plan when we get to that year.

[Moms with lots of littles, do you struggle with this?]

My kids seem to have a harder time getting back into the routine the longer we are out of school. This year we only took two weeks and we just swung right back into it. In the past we've done 3 1/2 weeks off and it's always been hard to get back on track. We do a co op once a week so we only school 4 days a week, if we weren't in the co op I would plan one day a week of fun stuff or if all my kids were little maybe just take the day off depending on state guidelines. I agree with the others about sick days. The sick one gets lots of cuddles, oj, a nice couch bed, the remote and the rest of us do school. I divide our curriculum up by our school year so I always know where I want to end up and how far I need to get every month. Having that plan helps me stay on track. I'm like you and I need summer breaks. I can't do year round. I just make sure I plan for that break and we've always done fine.

[Interrupting play for schoolwork?]

We work first then play. No TV, tablets or electronics till school work is done. I try and cut up our school day with art and memory work songs so it isn't so monotonous. I also have scheduled playtime while I work with the one on one during math with each of my older girls. I have 2 with ADHD and we need to have structure. My 4yo twins on the other hand only do school if they feel like it. Next year at 5 they will start having seat work. I would say this is a house by house thing. I have friends that do fine doing school whenever. It just doesn't work in this house and for some reason my kids brains seem to leave them in the evening so doing school late just doesn't work. 

[What makes some people born organized?]

I don't know--looking at my room as a child and my house as of a few years ago, I would have said that I was deficient in the organizing genetics. And it drove me crazy. It was like I knew things were not right for me but couldn't do much about it. I went gluten free about two years ago. I don't think it was coincidence that shortly (within weeks?) of the diet change I started to see what I needed to do. It was conscious in that I simply set down on paper what I needed to happen, then timed those activities and scheduled them for the days of the week when I had the time to do them. Clutter didn't magically sort itself, but suddenly I could be calm and methodical in dealing with it. My mood change was pretty dramatic with the elimination of gluten in my diet, which went right along with a number of physical symptoms that disappeared at the same time (GI distress that had been almost constant, temper issues, joint pain and overwhelming inhalant allergies).

So in my case, was I really "born organized" but couldn't function because of food allergy issues? I don't know. I will say that so much of becoming organized had to do with being able to see what needed to happen and then being able to come up with a good plan to deal with it.

This is me! Dh thinks I'm crazy but removing gluten takes the clouds away for me. I feel like I think clearly and my house is much more organzied with about 1/2 the effort I spend when I am not eating right. I fell off of my diet though and I can't seem to get organized enough to write down a meal plan and get the groceries. I know I have EF issues but with a clean GF diet all if my issues seem to go away.

[CC and other curricula]

We do CC along with the curriculum in my sig. It hasn't been a problem. I designed our studies to coincidence with CC so the memory work has helped them memorize the terms they are learning about. It only adds about 30 min to our day to do the memory work and map work.

[What are your curriculum plans for 2016-2017?]

DD 6th Grade

 

Grammar- Analytical Grammar (last 1/2 book)

Vocabulary- Caesar's English

Spelling -Phonetic Zoo

Writing - IEW Medieval book

Reading - Memoria Press 6th grade selections no guides

Math - Math Mammoth 6

Science - Beautiful Feet History of Science and Apologia Physical Science

History - VP Self Paced Middle Ages and Famous Men of the Middle Ages

Philosophy - Philosophy Adventures

Poetry - Grammar of Poetry

 

DD 5th grade

 

Same as above except MM 5 and BA 4

 

Twins Kinder

 

Math - Right Start A

Phonics/Reading - Logic of English Foundations A/B

Science - Evan Moor Animals

History - probably tag along for some medival history maybe some lapbooks on Knights and castles

 

I plan on a loop schedule with composers, famous artist, drawing, history crafts, mapping the world with art and science projects that all my kids will join in on.

 

Changes already and it's not even Feb lol let's see how many changes I end up making

[How far does one really need to go in grammar?]

Just out of curiosity I looked up the common core english standards and it seems like they've added grammar back. I had heard from a friend that's a teacher that the grammar is more intense now. Interesting since I know when I was growing up they had amost completely abandoned grammar. Maybe it has something to do with how poor the kids are writing at college level. I know it's usefulness has been debated. I think in order for grammar to be useful you need to understand it in depth. Just knowing the 8 parts of speech will not help you figure out why a sentence is wrong.

[s/o What DON'T you do that makes your life run more smoothly?]

Clean my house...

Ok sometimes I clean but not nearly as much as I should. I buy paper plates and use them for breakfast/lunch. I no longer make fancy meals, it's pretty much all 30min meal type things. We just don't have the time. I try to remember that I'm home to be with my kids and to homeschool. That is my priority.

[Anyone have experience with Veritas?]

We use the self paced history and I really like it. It always gets done and it helps me spend time with my twins. My girls don't love it but they don't hate it either. They are learning from it and retaining the information. My biggest gripe with veritas press is the 5 year history rotation and it only covers Ancient Egypt, Rome and Greece. We listen to story of the world in the car though to make up for that. I amd just skipping Ancient Egypt since that is what they are covering in veritas press.

Eta: I want to do omnibus self paced also. My biggest concern is 12 Cesar's which is assigned in 7th grade and apparently talks about incest and beastiality. Wilson hill also offers a class called the great conversation which uses omnibus. Some of the teachers teaching at wilson hill broke off from veritas press for some reason and formed a new company.

[Husband wants DD8 to stop reading "garbage"]

I agree with what most are saying here. Let her read. I have assigned reading books that they must read a minimum of 20 pages from a day. Other than that as long as the book doesn't have objectionable material I let them read it. My kids have read junk books (bad kitty series, wimpy kid etc) and then they've read alice in wonderland, Grimm Fairytales and Roald Dahl books. I don't interfere, I don't want them to see all books as schoolish or part of their learning I want them to just be able to get lost in a book. I know sometimes when I'm exhausted a good easy read is so relaxing. Then sometimes I pick up a good classic and really enjoy it. I was a kid that would stay up till 2 am with a flashlight reading books and it was always a mixture or classics and junk.

[I'm a taskmaster, and my 4yo is neglected.]

I have an 11 yo, 9yo and 4yo twins. We are also in CC so we do essentials and memory work. Here is how I've worked our schedule:

 

8am - bible together at the table twins get coloring sheet

 

8:30 - Veritas Press online 11yo, 9yo reads I work with twins (reading books, workbooks or playing, whatever they are in the mood for)

 

9:00 - Girls switch 9yo Veritas, 11yo reads I stay with twins

 

9:30 - Spelling/ Vocab / CC Review girls, twins free play

 

10:15 - Art we do this with everyone, I love having all 4 kids together working in something

 

11:00 - One girl does math while the other plays with twins then we switch

 

12:00 lunch

 

1:00 IEW (twins get 1hr tv)

 

1:30 Essentials

 

2:00 Done with school twins get a nap and I get to clean

 

This is our perfect day that of course doesn't ever happen but I always give the morning hour to the twins, I (pretty much) always do art with all of them and we always switch off for math so the girls spend time with their brothers. There are things we've had to change and cut out because it doesn't work for our family and I've found the best curriculum is one that I have the ability to implement which isn't always my first choice. We do veritas press self paced because it gives me time with my twins. We do art because it is the only thing we can do together as a family.I don't really enjoy nor am I good at art but my kids like it so we continue.