Well, that day has finally crept up on us. The day when summer comes to an end and it's time to break open the school books. As a child and even now it is always hard to do that when the weather outside is so perfect and sunny still!
I thought with the age of a new school year, it would be nice to change things up a bit and give the blog a new look. Give me your opinion...do you like it, hate it? :)
Well, our first official day was wonderful. We only had a few problems...(for those who don't know I had packed up all of our school supplies and books) such as the frantic hunt for pencils first thing this morning! There was the typical delay with handwriting with my son but I think it will get better there. All in all, we got all things completed that I had scheduled and with some of our curriculum still packed away, we made due very well!
The main thing I fudged on was art, I just had it as part of our English which has an enrichment exercise to do an illustration for the Caterpillar poem we're memorizing.
Here is our schedule. I don't adhere to it strictly but I do try to keep close so that we are sure to get all subjects included.
8am- morning prayer and pledge of allegiance
8:05am-meeting book (Comes with our new Saxon math curriculum...includes calendar and weather recording work)
8:20am- daily studies (address/phone/shoes/character)
8:30am-DS math (DD handwriting)--we use saxon math now and a handwriting workbook from walmart but that is packed away so I'm printing things off to work on)
9:00am- DD math (DS handwriting)
9:30am- english/ grammar--First Language lessons for the Well Trained Mind
9:45am- english/spelling--Spelling Workout
10:00am- snack break/choral reading
10:15am-DS reading (DD look@books)
10:30am- DD reading (DS look@books)
10:45am- weekly reader
11:00am- history--previously Story of the World but while packed away I'm using both an elem. history book for 1st or 2nd grade in addition to the weekly reader election series.
11:25 am- science--We're using a elem. science book for 2nd grade and we are going to use it as a basis for doing lapbook work. We also have the supplemental science packet that comes with weekly readers.
11:50am- Bible lesson-- Our Disciple land workbooks are packed away so for now we're going to work on memorizing Bible book names, there are two wonderful youtube videos that have old and new Testaments in seperate videos.
12:00pm- lunch break
12:15pm- m/tu=art w/th=music - this is going to be a mix...monday will be art crafts, tuesday will be an art appreciation. Wed. will be music fun time and thurs. will be music appreciation. (We will have more or less time for this each day depending on the rest of the schedule as well as the weather, etc)
The art appreciation I have no guide for yet, I may just make it up as I go along or go through my own college art book from before and have them look at pics that corelate to what time period we're studying in history and attempt to duplicate the styles. I'm not sure yet!
For Music appreciation I found a wonderful set of DVD's from Netflix called the 'Young People's Concert' and we're borrowing them to watch for it. It's an old black and white series but very in depth.
12:30pm- exercise tape---possible...I'm debating this one. I might include it or not. If I do, we have some cool videos like Dancing with the stars and kids karate type videos. I might use this as a backup for rainy days, but I'm undecided yet.
1:00pm- p.e. outside (if weather perm)
She read them three books (and was dressed as mother goose). I asked how many visitors she had had today because we were the only ones there and kids were passing us by and she said 0! We were the first! I hope she got more before the end of the day!!!!! I was so proud of my kids though because she first asked them 'do you all want to hear a book' and they enthusiastically said 'yeah!' (which, if you've read the post about my ds you would understand why that was shocking!).
The kids were really into that and (big surprise) no other kids were.
~~~...I want my own children to get a good education and be prepared for life's challenges and college. I've read some of your comments and I'm interested to know about the curriculum you use and how well you think it prepares students for the future.
July 24, 2008 9:03 PM
~~~Hello there,
The local Christian school here was a consideration for a moment but we thought the same as you. I am sure there are those that push the students and challenge them but our local one doesn't. My husband even knows first hand because he attended it once upon a time. And I remember from my high school experience that students who went there said it was 'so much easier' than public school.
Now, last year I admit that I tried to make things easier for my son. I even switched curriculum mid-year because he didn't like it. We were using Abeka for English and it was great. I loved it and it seemed fairly challenging but he didn't like it. So I changed to Switched-on Schoolhouse (SOS) by Alpha Omega publishing. It's a computer program and of course he liked it better but it was 3rd grade (that's what level they start at) so it was a little bit more advanced for him.
I decided to do the Classic curriculum style for my daughter and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I shouldn't just give my son 'the easy way out' because he wants it. So this year they are BOTH going to be doing Classic English. For this I bought the book (you can probably find it at your library) called the well trained mind which gives you a detailed explanation and guidance for the classical program. There is also a book for English called "First Language Lessons for the Well trained Mind". It goes k-2 and we're using that this coming year. I want a challenging program that will give them a good thorough basis for education.
For math I switched too late because Math-U-See wasn't for us. A lot of people love it but I don't like that it only focuses on one thing for a long time. We were working on addition for so long without even getting into subtraction and he had FORGOTTEN how to subtract just from last year. I didn't like that personally so this year we're going to give Saxon math a try, it's one of the best math programs.
I believe that if you challenge your kids, they will often be able to match your challenges. Sometimes it'll be too much but you (as the parent) know your child better than anything and know how to adjust for them.
I am hoping that as the children get older that by high school they will be able to dual enroll in some college courses to get the feel of it and help be more prepared for full time college work.
Plus, a side-note...homeschooling does provide real life experience. You can add a class of teaching your children how to balance a check book, work the family budget, manage a household, etc. This provides a foundation for learning how to deal with real life. I'm saving that for a few years down the road when they're more stable in their math skills.
They also learn how to manage their schedule by getting their household chores done, their school work (which students do become more independent with as they age) their hobbies and extra curricular classes, etc. It teaches them to realize that if they don't get those things done that it leaves less time for play time. Just like in real life 'work before play'.
I hope I answered your questions. If not, or you have more, feel free to post. :)