marmac Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 I am new to this site but read TWTM when I started homeschooling about 6 months ago. At the time I just pulled my kids out of school and this was the first book I read. I LOVED the book and ideas but quickly realized I could not do ALL that. Success in the beginning was just making it through the day with everyone alive lol. I've slowly just started doing whatever I could but I think I'm ready to add a little to our schooling. I don't know what to implement or how so I'm here looking for idea to slowly get moving into Classical but without getting overwhelmed. I have a DS who is 9 and in 3rd grade and my DD who is 7 in 1st grade learning to read. They both do math daily. My daughter is doing 100 Easy Lessons and Reading Eggs. Science is a combo or their co-op, whatever they are into at the time, and Apologia. History is whatever they do in their co-op, I'm not actively doing History at home but have MOH and will be doing that and Story of the World. I just recently had my son pick up Diary of a Wimpy kid to just start reading. So now he's reading that daily. Hey, for us it's better than nothing but I would like to know something better for him to read. I've read the whole book and know certain books go with certain periods but it's all too much to think about right now. I want to start slow. Just add a new thing every week or every few weeks. We have math going, reading going, I'm ok with our science right now, and want help adding "better" reading books and writing. I also want to incorporate audio books. In December I tried having us listen to A Christmas Carol but halfway through we stopped cause at the time I was just fed up with everything. My 1 year old seemed to be ruining any schedule we had at all. Now we try to do our work at a park so my son can run around. That's basically everything we do, I don't think I left anything out. Any easy tweeks I can do to lean us more towards the Classical way would be appreciated. Key word easy. Thanks for any replies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
North Coast School Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Books, books and more books. Surround the kids with books! Your library should be your best friend...plus it's even fun for the toddler. Bring a huge bag, get eveyone their own card and load 'em up. You can even "school" at the library during the school day. If you're lucky, your library will be by a park, a school, or a cool place to walk and you can go there as well. A great way to go is to start reading the Ancients...Greek myths, Roman Myths, the Old Testament. Check out books about Pyramids, mummies, Ancient Rome, Ancient China, maps of the ancient Holy Land (Even if you are not Christian or Jewish, it's fascinating!). Picture books about Anansi the Spider, Aesops Fables, and Fairy Tales. Read out loud if the kids can't read. Have the older ones read out loud to the little ones if they can. Talk about what you read. Draw pictures. Write your own stories. Give the kids some paint and find out what happens. Even the baby can paint with some baby food! Most of all, have fun! Is that easy, or what?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pollo_la Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 It sounds like a good start might just be adding some read a loud time to your day. Maybe 20-30 minutes at lunch time, or in the afternoon when your 1 year old is napping? So, you are in need of some good book suggestions! I would start by looking at what a few different curriculums have to offer for the ages of your children. Some to look at would be... Sonlight My Fathers World Heart of Dakota Also, Old Fashioned Education has links to free books My personal choices for books at those ages would be "The Boxcar children" (all the books in the series, but especially the first 19 by the original author), Books by Thorton Burgess, and Books by E.B. White. I have others too, but that's all my brain came up with right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 You're still just a baby homeschooler. :D It takes time--often, a *long* time--to figure out what works for you. The truth is that the first year you're still learning to be at home together, all day long, and that can be a BIG learning curve all by itself. :-) ITA with doing some things while your little guy is napping; when he's up, do the things that take less focus, such as hands-on history or science. Do audio books in the car, rather than trying to sit in the house and listen. When my younger dd was still napping, I read aloud to my older dd right after lunch. Perhaps that will work for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marmac Posted March 21, 2014 Author Share Posted March 21, 2014 Thank you ladies. You all had wonderful ideas. I think we definitely need to incorporate more reading and books from the library and that seems fun and easy. And I like the tips on how to fit it in. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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