Trying to decide what to change for the second semester...

[vaquitita]

Overall our year is going pretty well and I'm happy with most things we are using. I'm just feeling spread thin and find the same thing keeps getting dropped every week. :) This is my first year with three students. Between math, English and spelling I'm struggling to get it all in. But I don't want to leave out anything important either. I'm trying to find a balance between being involved as their teacher but not too parent intense. Lol. Can someone look over what we're doing and help me? Either to cut duplicate stuff or find a way to loop this stuff? :D

 

Math- all the kids are using MUS. Theoretically I only need to teach each kid once a week, but my 11yo is nearing the end of delta and he's got it down and I am trying to catch him up so he needs me to teach a new lesson 1-2x per week. My 9yo just started gamma, and it's super easy at he beginning so she's doing 2 lessons per week, tho she will soon be to new material and will slow down to once a week -probably next week. My 6yo is in alpha and he's just picking it up so fast, he's been doing two new lessons a week too. I'm hoping soon to slow him to one a week, once we get a little further in and the review pages contain more than the super simple stuff (+0, +1, +2).

 

English lessons thru literature- my oldest two are doing this. It's a 3 day a week program, but because we're behind we are doing it four days a week for the next three months. For my 9yo the lesson takes only 5-10 min, but for my 11yo it does take longer.

 

Spelling and phonics- here's where I'm really having trouble. When ELTL was 3 days a week that left 2 days for reading lessons thru literature as our spelling program. With us doing ELTL 4x per week, we either only have one day for spelling or I have to do both English and spelling on the same day, making our day much longer. I used RLTL last year with my two oldest and was very happy with it, but this year it's just not getting done. I keep skipping it.

 

With my 11yo, it's clicked and the lists he's doing, mid level 3, are so easy he can almost always spell the words without my help. Not sure if I should just skip forward to words he can't spell? He's also doing dictation this year, so I'm wondering if I should drop RLTL and just discuss rules as they apply to his dictation passage? But will I remember to do it?

 

With my 6yo I was trying to do just five words, half a list, once a week. He reads at a 2-3 grade level, and spells well for his age I think. He picks everything up so fast, I've dropped AAR with him and figured I'd cover the further syllabication and phonograms with RLTL for spelling. He's also doing spelling you see level A. He can already spell all the words in there, but I'm using it for handwriting practice because he really needs that and he already finished his HWOT book.

 

My 9yo... I dropped AAR with her this year because I felt like it and RLTL overlapped too much. But now RLTL is not getting done and she's the one who doesn't have spelling covered somewhere else. She didn't like RLTL last year, but I pushed on with it this year. But I'm feeling more and more like it doesn't work for her. With AAR we drilled phonograms, but new ones were presented one at a time. With RLTL all 75, including all their sounds, are taught up front. She seems completely overwhelmed and now doesn't know even the ones she used to know. She hates the rules because they're not true ALL the time. I'm thinking about switching her to spelling you see. She's actually asking to make this switch. I have level B that she used part 1 of last year, so I could use part 2 with her. It would require me to go over anything new on Monday and dictate to her on Friday, the rest she could do on her own. I think it would take less time each week than RLTL. She is not a visual learner and so much of spelling is visual, I wonder if the color coding might really help her? But then I've lost all syllabication and advanced phonogram work (her reading out loud to me has gotten dropped too) so do I pick up AAR again? Maybe just once a week we could go over the new teaching and read the story? Idk, i feel like I have oo many different optIons here and I just feel bounced arose nod between them. I need o make sure to cover all aspects of language arts, but also want to keep it simple and not duplicate anything. Which combination of these programs will do that?

Edited December 13, 2016 by vaquitita

[vaquitita]

Well that was very long and rambling. I think I shouldn't post these late at night, I'm too muddled. :D This morning I woke up thinking, of course I can't skip any of these. I'm just in a mid winter funk. We are getting way too late of a start in the mornings. And yes, teaching three kids is going to take longer than teaching two. I just need to accept that.

 

The fact RLTL was getting skipped is what made me start thinking about whether it's working. It HAS worked well for my oldest son. But I don't feel like it's working so good for my daughter. I could switch her back to AAR and spelling you see. It would not take less time, but if she doesn't fight it as much it could be easier on me. Which leads me to my 6yo... At the rate he's doing RLTL it will be a long long time before he gets to any reading instruction that he needs (he was in AAR 3).

 

RLTL replaces both AAR and spelling you see, which is why I switched this year. To streamline things. But I'm wondering if the switch was a good one...

[vaquitita]

Drop RLTL and put her back into AAR which she enjoyed ad was doing better with.

 

It really seems as though you have a LOT of different programs that you're trying to work through. So, my breakdown would be:

 

6 year old - MUS, AAR and copywork. That's it. I would keep AAR since it is about more than just phonics.

9 year old - MUS, AAR and copywork/dictation. A year of daily copywork/dictation will do a lot for giving him a good foundation in spelling and grammar. Add those in formally next year after you've gotten things a bit sorted out. You don't need a program for the copywork/dictation, but if it makes it easier for you, then I would recommend Spelling Wisdom from Simply Charlotte Mason.

11 year old - MUS, keep ELTL if it's working. The big thing for him is to make sure you have grammar and spelling covered.

 

Thank you! Sometimes you need a fresh pair of eyes looking at your problem. Lol. I didn't want to have to keep doing English for an extra three weeks into the summer, but maybe trying to catch up is throwing me into a tizzy for the next three months. Put that way, 3 weeks is way better than 3 months. That would certainly take some pressure off. MUS is working well, I'm not changing that. :)

 

6yo- sounds perfect. I'm using spelling you see as his Copywork, though technically he isn't at the Copywork level yet. I was using it for practicing lowercase letters, which are new to him and level a had bigger lines. Tho at this point I'm wishing I had gone with level b because he's picking it up fast and that level has Copywork in it which would help him more. Level a is all words which he can already spell. I think I will go ahead and get him the next level. I can save this book for his younger brother.

 

9yo- well she is doing daily Copywork, but it's in cursive. I can see that the cursive Copywork is not helping her spelling. I probably shouldn't have switched her to it last year, but she wanted to learn. I don't want to totally drop cursive lest she forget. Her cursive Copywork is from ELTL 1 and is quite short, so I think she could do it in cursive plus do print Copywork by using the SUS level B part 2 book I have. It's Copywork, with just the addition of color coding vowel teams, silent e's, etc. I hate to drop ELTL with her because she's really enjoying it and that is our poems, art study, aesops fables, cursive Copywork, and she listens to the stories at bedtime. And it literally takes only five minutes. Sooo... AAR, ELTL and SUS?

 

11yo- ELTL is working. If I drop it back to 3 days a week, then I will have more time to do RLTL spelling with him.

[vaquitita]

Haha now I'm thinking of ways I could tweak RLTL. I could switch to flashcards for the phonograms instead of the chart I'm using. I could review just the phonograms she's used so far and only include the others when they come up in the lists. Forget that, I think she needs to finish AAR. Maybe next year when we pick up RLTL again I will try tweaking it.

 

For copywork I could print some of the eltl copywork each week in manuscript, only doing some of it in cursive. Rather than having her do cursive ELTL Copywork and spelling you see Copywork.

Edited December 14, 2016 by vaquitita

[vaquitita]

9 year old - MUS, AAR and copywork/dictation. A year of daily copywork/dictation will do a lot for giving him a good foundation in spelling and grammar. Add those in formally next year after you've gotten things a bit sorted out. You don't need a program for the copywork/dictation, but if it makes it easier for you, then I would recommend Spelling Wisdom from Simply Charlotte Mason.

 

This sounds so simple, and then when I try to decide what to do about cursive, it gets so complicated. Lol. Because just cause you've taught them cursive doesn't mean they can easily do all their work in it. After a full year of cursive Copywork, with me making her read it to me every time, she can now read it easily. So maybe even the cursive Copywork will help her spelling at this point. Tho because of her not being a visual learner, I wonder if printed Copywork would help more, just like SUS claims.