When we started homeschooling, I didn't really have a schedule we followed. We worked, we played, we lived. If something interesting came up, I (more than once) chose fun over school.
That could only work for so long...if it even was working at all. Luckily, about October of our 1st Grade year, I changed and made school the priority. I was only short changing Reese by setting aside our work. I wasn't really teaching him any good life habits either. Sometimes, work is necessary...even if you have to choose it over something fun.
I'm a list maker, a box checker, a schedule setter. So my first attempt at making a schedule was to recreate what I did as a teacher.
9:00 Start school
9:00-9:30 Math
9:30-10:00 Spelling
And so on.
Well...lo and behold...homeschool is not like teaching a class full of 22 wiggly kids who all have to be on the same page at the same time, following the same pace. Some days, Math needed more time. Spelling went quickly. We were hungry in the middle of our studies and needed a break.
So for 2nd Grade, I went with a loose schedule & it worked perfectly. Here's what works for us:
We begin our school morning by 9:30. Reese likes to sleep, & I hate to wake him up early. He is the world's slowest eater, so breakfast easily takes an hour to eat. Some days we start before 9:30, but in general, we are at the table, breakfast eaten, teeth brushed, bathroom cleaned, & ready to go.
Notice how I left out "get dressed." My only requirement there is that you wear something to school. Boxers. Pjs. Clothes. It matters not to me. Just cover yourself :)
From 9:30-12:00, we work together. Subjects don't have a time frame, but they do follow an order.
We begin with our calendar & daily things like reading the temperature, saying the Pledge, & solving a few quick Math warm up problems. Every day, we: count money & make change mentally, identify number patterns, solve a word problem, create 3 math equations that equal the number of the day, tell time on an analog clock, review facts, & write the full date.
After our warm up, we dive into Math. Reese completed Saxon 3 last year, & the writing almost killed us. This year, we are using Teaching Textbooks, which is a computer-based curriculum. It looks to be very thorough in it's explanations & problems. From what I've read, it is behind other programs if you simply compare grade level to grade level, so Reese will be starting with Teaching Textbooks 5 (which is supposed to be similar to a 4th grade level). I will supplement with lots of games...he loves to sit on the floor with Mom & play...I love that he's learning!
After Math, we grab a snack if we're hungry. Then, Reese spends about 30 minutes reading aloud to me from a chapter book I have chosen. These tie in to our history lesson usually. He has great comprehension, & we continue to work on fluency. I am impressed with the words he is able to figure out using phonetic rules!
The rest of the morning we do Spelling, Grammar, writing/narration/dictation, Bible study, History & Geography, & Logic Problems. I do my best to vary the subjects so we are doing something light (history, Bible, Geography) in between the heavy brain work (spelling, math, logic problems).
We break for lunch at 12:00, and Reese usually takes a full hour to eat lunch. I always wonder how much he would get down if he only had 20 minutes to eat at school?
One o'clock starts our afternoon, which usually is just Science. This year, I will also incorporate a "fun" reading time, so both he & I are comfy and reading to ourselves. Sometimes, he's able to whip through his morning work & we fit Science in before lunch....which means we are done for the day at noon. Other days, we have a few things left over from the morning & we work on that after lunch as well as Science.
It really helped to ditch the minute-by-minute attempt at scheduling our day.
How do you like to schedule your day? Do you prefer no schedule?
How do you eat an elephant? ONE BITE AT A TIME. Homeschooling is the same way. How in the world do you help shape your preschooler into a successful adult? One step at a time!
Friday, June 24, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
I watched him walk away...
I took Reese to his first day of summer camp today. It's just day camp. But it is the longest stretch of time we have been apart.
Other than the 3 days my Mom stayed with him when he was a toddler so we could take the older kids to Universal Studios, we have not been away from each other for more than a few hours.
This week, he is gone for 7 1/2 hours each day.
I am excited for him to have a blast being a boy outside...shooting bb guns, kyaking, swimming, practicing archery, going on a treasure hunt.
It felt strange packing a lunch and drinks. What if he is hungry? At home, he can have food any time his tummy needs it. What if he runs out of drinks? I may have packed a tad more than necessary.
It is good that I signed him up for this week. He is 30 minutes away. He is having a blast, I am positive. I am learning to let go a little.
These are all good things!
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Falling Into A Classical Definition
Jeff & I had never talked about homeschooling...it just sort of evolved.
Before we were married, I taught 1st grade. I went to school to be a teacher. So once Reese was of Preschool age, we both agreed that sending him away to "learn" was not for us. Once Kindergarten rolled around, it just seemed like a natural extension to stay at home & work together.
In Kindergarten, we started with Saxon Phonics K only. No formal math. No formal anything else. My main goal that year was to get him reading the Bob Books series. Saxon Phonics is what I used when I taught 1st grade, so I was already comfortable with the program. Things I loved about Saxon:
*The teacher's manual told me exactly what to say during the lessons. It made the whole process very parent-friendly.
*The daily activities were short enough to hold Reese's interest.
*Using letter cards to move & spell sounds and words made a huge difference. We didn't have to focus on pencil skills, we could focus on the task at hand.
The rest of our Kindergarten year was spent exploring our city, baking, playing games, seeing friends, taking nature walks...just really exploring our world. It was the perfect pace & I'm glad we eased our way into schooling.
For first grade, I wanted a more scheduled curriculum, so we did another year of Saxon Phonics, & added most of the Sonlight curriculum to the mix. This included Horizon Math 1, History (Ancients), Science, Bible study, Geography, Reading, Handwriting, & Spelling. Our days were modeled somewhat like a classroom setting. We have a school table. We have a flag & say the Pledge. We try to stick to our schedule. I suppose we are closer to "school-at-home"-ers than anything else. It works for us, so that's what we do!
Second grade brought some changes. I stuck with Sonlight for another year, which covered our History (Medieval/Early Renaissance), Bible, Writing, & Reading. I also added the following: Sequential Spelling Book 1, Saxon Math 3, multiple logic books from Mindware, Science (Magnets, Astronomy, & Birds studies), & Grammar (Language Lessons for the Very Young). I found, though, as the year went on, I was changing almost 100% of what Sonlight had laid out for other things we liked better/worked better.
I had decided to go at it on my own for third grade, planning-wise. After three years of homeschooling, I feel confident in my curriculum skills.
But I still didn't feel like I knew where this road was going. I knew where I wanted to end, but how on earth were we going to get there?
So, I checked out every homeschool book I could find in the Flower Mound library and have been reading. And I finally found a method that jives with what I believe, how we work (mostly), & makes sense to me.
Thanks to the Well Trained Mind, I now see we have actually been following a Classical Education model the whole time. To simplify, a Classical Education is broken down into the Trivium, 3 stages of developmental study. We're currently in the Grammar Stage.
Grades K-4 are the Grammar Stage, and focus heavily on memorizing facts, & exposing children to the story of everything! Science, history, language....it all has a story! It's not that I expect Reese to retain every minute detail, but (as the book says) it's the planting of those seeds in his brain. You know how, if you see a particular actor in a movie, all the sudden he seems to be in lots of movies you've seen? Or if you go look at a particular model of car to buy, & then you seem to see them everywhere? It's the same idea. Expose kids to great stories like the Oddesy, Beowulf, Robinson Crusoe, & Moby Dick. Read them aloud together, get them familiar with the story, & then when it comes time to digest the story later in schooling years, it won't be so intimidating because, Hey! I know that story!
It gives me comfort to know where this road is leading. We won't follow the Classical model to the letter, but that's the beauty of homeschool. I can tailor it to be however we want!
It's like we've moved into this amazingly well-built house, with time-tested strength in its structure. It's up to us to decorate however we like!
Before we were married, I taught 1st grade. I went to school to be a teacher. So once Reese was of Preschool age, we both agreed that sending him away to "learn" was not for us. Once Kindergarten rolled around, it just seemed like a natural extension to stay at home & work together.
In Kindergarten, we started with Saxon Phonics K only. No formal math. No formal anything else. My main goal that year was to get him reading the Bob Books series. Saxon Phonics is what I used when I taught 1st grade, so I was already comfortable with the program. Things I loved about Saxon:
*The teacher's manual told me exactly what to say during the lessons. It made the whole process very parent-friendly.
*The daily activities were short enough to hold Reese's interest.
*Using letter cards to move & spell sounds and words made a huge difference. We didn't have to focus on pencil skills, we could focus on the task at hand.
The rest of our Kindergarten year was spent exploring our city, baking, playing games, seeing friends, taking nature walks...just really exploring our world. It was the perfect pace & I'm glad we eased our way into schooling.
For first grade, I wanted a more scheduled curriculum, so we did another year of Saxon Phonics, & added most of the Sonlight curriculum to the mix. This included Horizon Math 1, History (Ancients), Science, Bible study, Geography, Reading, Handwriting, & Spelling. Our days were modeled somewhat like a classroom setting. We have a school table. We have a flag & say the Pledge. We try to stick to our schedule. I suppose we are closer to "school-at-home"-ers than anything else. It works for us, so that's what we do!
Second grade brought some changes. I stuck with Sonlight for another year, which covered our History (Medieval/Early Renaissance), Bible, Writing, & Reading. I also added the following: Sequential Spelling Book 1, Saxon Math 3, multiple logic books from Mindware, Science (Magnets, Astronomy, & Birds studies), & Grammar (Language Lessons for the Very Young). I found, though, as the year went on, I was changing almost 100% of what Sonlight had laid out for other things we liked better/worked better.
I had decided to go at it on my own for third grade, planning-wise. After three years of homeschooling, I feel confident in my curriculum skills.
But I still didn't feel like I knew where this road was going. I knew where I wanted to end, but how on earth were we going to get there?
So, I checked out every homeschool book I could find in the Flower Mound library and have been reading. And I finally found a method that jives with what I believe, how we work (mostly), & makes sense to me.
Thanks to the Well Trained Mind, I now see we have actually been following a Classical Education model the whole time. To simplify, a Classical Education is broken down into the Trivium, 3 stages of developmental study. We're currently in the Grammar Stage.
Grades K-4 are the Grammar Stage, and focus heavily on memorizing facts, & exposing children to the story of everything! Science, history, language....it all has a story! It's not that I expect Reese to retain every minute detail, but (as the book says) it's the planting of those seeds in his brain. You know how, if you see a particular actor in a movie, all the sudden he seems to be in lots of movies you've seen? Or if you go look at a particular model of car to buy, & then you seem to see them everywhere? It's the same idea. Expose kids to great stories like the Oddesy, Beowulf, Robinson Crusoe, & Moby Dick. Read them aloud together, get them familiar with the story, & then when it comes time to digest the story later in schooling years, it won't be so intimidating because, Hey! I know that story!
It gives me comfort to know where this road is leading. We won't follow the Classical model to the letter, but that's the beauty of homeschool. I can tailor it to be however we want!
It's like we've moved into this amazingly well-built house, with time-tested strength in its structure. It's up to us to decorate however we like!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)