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What will help me make a good start?
- This topic has 5 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 9 months ago by
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I’m starting with CM for the first time. My daughter is a 9th grader this year. Curriculum has been purchased according to recommendations on this site. I have made a schedule. We will start practicing narration with Aesop’s Fables on Monday to prepare for the fall. What else would help me go full bore more smoothly? My daughter is easy to direct and to take on new habits. Any advice is appreciated.
The best home school advice I ever got was “Start Slow, Then Ease Up”. I have found it doesn’t mean go easy and never require hard things from our kids, but it means to take the transitions slowly, that difficulty should increase incrementally, and that when you (and/or the kids) feel overwhlemed take a step back and evaluate your plans and see if they need adjustment.
When I do new things with my kids I often start with one or two subjects and wait until we feel comfortable with those before adding anything else new. I wouldn’t try to start out in the fall going full bore on anything. CM requires a higher level of thinking than answering comprehension questions, so it may take some time to get comfortable with it and if its overwhelming without relief kids can get turned off to learning. Gentle pressure nudging them in the right direction would be my goal.
If your daughter isnt burned out on school you might want to consider doing a couple (ex narration and art study) of things over the summer to start introducing the new methods so you are more relaxed when starting in the fall.
Another thing you might consider – a staggered start. Begin to add one new thing each week in August and then the first week of Sept (or your chosen start date) add in whatever remains. I usually do this with my crew.
@Tristan, do you have a recommendation on where to start and how to add in? I was thinking reading aloud literature, then add in Math (because it will be mostly review but helping her to get to a mastery level), then history, then science. I really don’t know. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed and don’t want her to feel it.
Ditto Tristan this is what we do! It makes it all go so much easier and with 7 kiddos if someone needs more attention with something they are not all coming at the same time because I just dropped a years worth of material on them.
I think there is no ‘right’ order to add things in. Some years I start with one I think will be a challenge, so we can ease into it. Other years I let the children choose what new subject to start each week from a list of the main ones (history, lit, science, math, etc). What subject do you think will be hardest for you or her? Maybe make that first so you’re only doing ONE thing that first week. It gives you time to get your feet under you before adding in the next (which could be one you think will be easy/smooth, like math, making for a second week with the difficult new subject still having plenty of time and attention available).
One year I did it differently. I planned our daily schedule and started the first few things of the morning on the first week (devotional, math). The next week we added the next two subjects of the morning. And on it went. It gave us a way to build routines when I had mostly younger ones.
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