Is a more EFFICIENT homeschool possible?

[~blessedmom~]

I was sitting down to schedule out what we'd like to do for school next year....and the list of subjects seemed endless!:001_huh:

 

Does everything have to be separate, or is there a good, effective way to combine subjects? I don't mean unit studies, but more the way of writing a history summary, or spelling your vocabulary studies....

 

I don't know...I guess I'm just overwhelmed at this point, trying to cover all subjects and not have to school around the clock! I will have a 5th grader and a 9th grader next year, and I want my highschooler to start delving more in depth. So I figure I have to combine some things....or leave some things out.

 

Has anyone had success in combining different subjects?:bigear:

 

I'd love to have a more efficient homeschool so we still have time to be a family...not just teacher/ students.:001_smile:

[2cents]

We try to incorporate writing into our science and history. Classical writing (CW or IEW) lends itself to this sort of thing. We also try to study art to go along with the history we're studying.

[raganfamily]

:bigear:

[amtmcm]

DD13 uses "Block Scheduling" - meaning she works on some subjects all at once instead of a little each day. This is pretty efficient and works especially well for writing and science, allowing her to focus and delve in deeper instead of starting and stopping each day.

 

As far as integrated coursework for 9th grade - how about one of the many curricula like Notgrass, Omnibus or Beautiful Feet which combine some literature, Bible and history?

[Guest]

As your child gets older I think it is easier to make connections in their minds and have things "stick" if subjects are more integrated. By this I don't mean only doing writing across the curriculum, or reading literature that goes with the historical period you may be studying. But there are lots of great resources which manage to cross disciplinary boundaries. We adore Muse magazine, which offers a blend of science, arts, technology, and history in nearly every article. A middle-schooler can read chapters from books like "E=mcsquared," which is a historical, biographical, and scientific study of a single theory and its implications. My daughter is currently interested in cryptography, which crosses lines between history (invention and use of codes), mathematics, literature, and science; she's also reading "The Physics of Star Trek," which merges her emerging interest in science fiction and astrophysics. I find that we are gravitating more and more towards these kinds of overarching topics that forge links between subject areas rather than toward ones that separate them. We use these same books and articles for grammar and writing. I have a couple of books by Jeff Anderson, which have kids looking at a particular sentence pattern and then searching things they're currently reading to find similar examples; they then incorporate that kind of sentence into the next piece of writing they do, for whatever purpose.

 

I did not begin to do this for efficiency purposes, though... it's just that both my daughter and I found it vastly more interesting at this stage.

[Suzannah]

I too am striving for a more efficient home school. I'm closer this year than I was last, but we could still improve. DS is in 7th grade and is more independent so I'm able to print out his assignment sheet for the week and he is mostly reliable about keeping up with it. We have some assignments that are once a week (Logic), twice a week (spelling, history), daily (math), etc. We also tried IEW's Thematic Writing US History Vol. 1 this year and it has been great! I'm currently trying to decide whether to go on to the second volume for 8th (it's recommended for high school) or return to CW which I really do like, and oddly enough, DS seemed more comfortable with...we just didn't get much writing done across the curriculum.

 

I made the gamble last year to drop a formal grammar program since we were doing grammar all over the place with grammar, spelling, Latin, writing and copywork (yes, my 7th grader still does copywork...I've seen enormous benefits.) Rather than drop it completely, we added Daily Grams to his "notebooks" (see below) and mid-year started working on another book I picked up called Improve your Punctuation. We'll be testing in a few weeks so I'll let you know whether that risk was worth it.

 

We also started a couple of years ago doing what we call "notebooks" though I think others might call them "workbooks". These are a set of homemade folders I made over the summer containing memory work, science copywork (Italic Science), history copywork (from Julie Shields--Julie in GA here on the boards), picture study (Pictures in Cursive from Queen's), Daily Grams and math practice. At the beginning of the school day DS knows to "do his notebooks" and will spend approximately 5 minutes on each of these. By the end of the year he has memorized many scriptures, poems, rulers, math formulae and scientific principles in addition to improving his penmanship and reviewing grammar.

 

This may actually seem like a lot of work as you read it here. But it has had an amazing impact for such a small daily investment I would highly recommend it for all ages.

 

So, take that for what it's worth. Good luck!

[happymom]

Well, this probably doesn't fit your grade levels but I'm looking to do some combining next year with these for my 6 grade ds:

Life of Fred Prealgebra with Biology-math and science

Winter Promise Adventures in Sea and Sky-history,literature, science, geography and some writing

Edited March 17, 2010 by happymom

[Closeacademy]

To make things efficient, I do different things for different ages.

 

K-3rd:

phonics

reading readers

math

copywork

lapbooks (literature, history and/or science topics)--child-led

 

Starting in 4th:

math

grammar or composition (alternate days)

history or science (alternate days)

spelling

Latin

lapbooks (child-led)--for learning research and writing skills

 

 

Our school day is usually done in a couple of hours. If we feel like doing arts and crafts we do that in the afernoon the same with projects. Experiments are done as a part of science. I used to try and do a variety of subjects and it just makes everyone miserable.:001_smile:

[Ravin]

We use block scheduling for content-heavy subjects. History, Science, Lit, etc. get done once a week. Skill subjects (phonics,math, Latin) get done daily.

[ElizabethB]

I combine spelling with handwriting, but it sounds like you're beyond that point!

 

There is a good spelling/vocab combo, M.K. Henry's Words:

 

http://www.proedinc.com/customer/ProductView.aspx?ID=989&sSearchWord=henry%20words

[TXMary2]

We don't really combine anything yet. I schedule things on different days so we are never doing it all in one day. We do spelling and grammar two days a week and the other three days is vocabulary and writing.

 

My ds13 will be starting 9th grade in the fall and at that point I will combine writing with other subjects - literature, science and history.

[~blessedmom~]

Thank you all so much for your suggestions! I wish I could thank each of you personally, but I am actually busy taking notes!!:bigear:

 

You have some great suggestions....and please, do keep me informed of your successes (and not-so-succeses :tongue_smilie::D ). It's so great to have a sense of community here to bounce ideas around....especially when my hubby's eyes start to roll into the back of his head at the mere mention of "homeschool!":lol:

 

I am off to finalize my notes and to check out your suggestions!! Thank you again...and please, keep them coming!!

[Halcyon]

This is an interesting topic. I have recently begun to notice in our homeschool that my son himself "compartmentalizes" his studies, as in "Next up is writing..." and "can we do Spelling next?" He sees each subject as distinct,and personally, I'd like to work towards merging some of these subjects over the next few years. I think History and writing (with the exception of creative writing) can be merged, I think spelling and vocab, to a degree, can be merged. I think grammar can be merged into spelling and vocab, especially if you're doing lots of copywork a la Charlotte Mason. I think Logic and Math can be merged...thinking aloud here, but thank you for this thread, as it has articulated some of my concerns as my kids grown older. I don't want them to think of schooling as a series of discrete lessons, but begin to see it as more of an overarching building, with strong pillars.

[mariposa]

Well, I just posted about having time on my hands, so I guess I'm pretty efficient! I think that the best thing for me has been organizing things out into 3 categories:

1) What the student can do independently

2) What each student needs to be taught by me (or will need help completing)

3) What we can do together as a group

Once that's figured out, i just make sure that it's set up so that while I am teaching one child, everyone else has something productive to do. Also, when we do a subject together (for example, history), I have something afterward for each child to do at their grade level. For example, my 2nd grader writes a couple sentences about this history chapter, my 1st grader writes copywork about the chapter, and my preschooler colors a picture. Yes, this takes some time to set up ahead, but it pays off for me in the long run.

Anyway, I don't know if this really helps much, but feel free to ask more questions. It's so tough to get things organized well and I do think that each person finds their own way to make it work!

Sarah