Sam- age 10
Language Arts
First Language Lessons 4
IEW Fun and Fascinating
All About Spelling
Reading a variety of Chapter books.
Math
Teaching Textbooks 5
Foreign Language
Latin for Children A
Charlotte- age 7
First Language Lessons 1
Writing With Ease 1
All About Spelling
Phonic Pathways
Math
Math-U-See Beta
Together
History
SOTW 1
D-Aulaire titles @ bedtime
Science
Apologia Astronomy
Burgess' Animal Tales
Christian Liberty Nature Reader Book
2
Literature
Readings to be determined by interest
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Year 4 assessment
We made a lot of changes last year. I suffered a rather severe case of burnout and needed to make some changes. Sam discovered a few resources that appealed to him. I split the kids to better suit their individual needs.
All in all it was a good year. I will probably regret missing ECC with Sam as written although we did read some of the resources.
This next year, I want to simplify my planning. I will be entering graduate school and will need to keep my planning time for our homeschool to a minimum so that I can focus on my own studies. Right now, I am spending time each week.....
-on Donna Young to write out the next week's lesson plan
-Reviewing SOTW's activity guide to pull out resources and activities
-sorting through LLATL to gather supplies, books.
-etc.
I would like to eliminate the lesson planning, and the gathering of supplies.
It has been working well keeping the kids separate. This is allowing Charlotte a little more time to mature before adding her into the mix with Sam. Her -often funny comments- were distracting for Sam and would add a lot of time to our school day. Right now, I work with her on skill subjects during the day. We read through stories during the evening before bed. This way she can add all the comments she wants without adding to the length of the school day. This has worked out exceptionally well for her. Sam has the ability to "do schoolwork" and save the "tangent" comments until later in the day. I find that I am much more willing to chit-chat about whatever connections that they are making with the material while cooking dinner or watching the kids outside then I am during the schooltime.
So what do we do for next year?
Somethings are keepers and somethings are not. Teaching Textbook is a keeper. Spelling Power is a keeper. Story of the World is a keeper.....if I don't have to do the planning. LLATL is not a keeper although the concept is good. I like a resource that I can do in 4 days without compromise.
Some other thoughts.....I enjoyed MFW 1 and Adv since the planning was done for me and it could be individualized through the use of the bookbasket. MFW 1 was a really good year for Sam as a review of phonics and to provide a year for maturity. Hmmm.....I already have CtG and MFW 1 purchased from last years convention.
I spent sometime reviewing these resources. ILL is the recommended resource for English from MFW. PLL was not a good fit for Sam when he was younger. ILL looks similar to LLATL with the types of exercises but without a 5 day a week schedule. We could work through this in 2 years. CtG looks very interesting for Sam. I could always keep SOTW as a bookbasket reader for him to add to the program. MFW 1 would be a nice review of phonics for Charlotte. I really enjoyed using it as a review during 2nd grade for Sam. Charlotte does not have Sam's speech issues so she would probably progress through the writing portions easier than he did. I had also started WS 3 with Sam last year but decided to wait a year to allow his ability to get words on paper to catch up with his thought processes. He has made great strides this year in writing ability. I can see English from the Roots Up really being something that Sam would enjoy.
I'm starting to ramble.
I also reviewed my thoughts when I first diagnosed myself with burnout. I thougtht that the problem was that I become a "check the box" homeschooler. Maybe that is true. However, I also stated that the resources that I was using prior to my funk was WORKING for the children. And they were working for the children. If I had just ignored my funk, and kept on working through the program as written, it would've worked for the children. However, I might have been more willing to quit and move onto something else. Something else like returning to work fulltime. It is the downside of working on graduate school and planning my career. So, I cannot say that I regret doing some other things for this past year.
This still leaves the question, "What do we do for this next year?"
All in all it was a good year. I will probably regret missing ECC with Sam as written although we did read some of the resources.
This next year, I want to simplify my planning. I will be entering graduate school and will need to keep my planning time for our homeschool to a minimum so that I can focus on my own studies. Right now, I am spending time each week.....
-on Donna Young to write out the next week's lesson plan
-Reviewing SOTW's activity guide to pull out resources and activities
-sorting through LLATL to gather supplies, books.
-etc.
I would like to eliminate the lesson planning, and the gathering of supplies.
It has been working well keeping the kids separate. This is allowing Charlotte a little more time to mature before adding her into the mix with Sam. Her -often funny comments- were distracting for Sam and would add a lot of time to our school day. Right now, I work with her on skill subjects during the day. We read through stories during the evening before bed. This way she can add all the comments she wants without adding to the length of the school day. This has worked out exceptionally well for her. Sam has the ability to "do schoolwork" and save the "tangent" comments until later in the day. I find that I am much more willing to chit-chat about whatever connections that they are making with the material while cooking dinner or watching the kids outside then I am during the schooltime.
So what do we do for next year?
Somethings are keepers and somethings are not. Teaching Textbook is a keeper. Spelling Power is a keeper. Story of the World is a keeper.....if I don't have to do the planning. LLATL is not a keeper although the concept is good. I like a resource that I can do in 4 days without compromise.
Some other thoughts.....I enjoyed MFW 1 and Adv since the planning was done for me and it could be individualized through the use of the bookbasket. MFW 1 was a really good year for Sam as a review of phonics and to provide a year for maturity. Hmmm.....I already have CtG and MFW 1 purchased from last years convention.
I spent sometime reviewing these resources. ILL is the recommended resource for English from MFW. PLL was not a good fit for Sam when he was younger. ILL looks similar to LLATL with the types of exercises but without a 5 day a week schedule. We could work through this in 2 years. CtG looks very interesting for Sam. I could always keep SOTW as a bookbasket reader for him to add to the program. MFW 1 would be a nice review of phonics for Charlotte. I really enjoyed using it as a review during 2nd grade for Sam. Charlotte does not have Sam's speech issues so she would probably progress through the writing portions easier than he did. I had also started WS 3 with Sam last year but decided to wait a year to allow his ability to get words on paper to catch up with his thought processes. He has made great strides this year in writing ability. I can see English from the Roots Up really being something that Sam would enjoy.
I'm starting to ramble.
I also reviewed my thoughts when I first diagnosed myself with burnout. I thougtht that the problem was that I become a "check the box" homeschooler. Maybe that is true. However, I also stated that the resources that I was using prior to my funk was WORKING for the children. And they were working for the children. If I had just ignored my funk, and kept on working through the program as written, it would've worked for the children. However, I might have been more willing to quit and move onto something else. Something else like returning to work fulltime. It is the downside of working on graduate school and planning my career. So, I cannot say that I regret doing some other things for this past year.
This still leaves the question, "What do we do for this next year?"
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