A beginner

HI Jennifer!

 I’m new here too, although I’m not new to CM. I’m not very familiar with the Abeka DVD system. Is there any reason that you could not drop the majority of the handwriting now? Maybe just have it once a week-and then have some “fun” writing on another day? Fun things like…having him write a note to grandma at the bottom of your letter or add a couple of items to the grocery list on the fridge. Print or cursive-whatever he chooses-I wouldn’t even specify. For next year, why not start him out at square one with having him copy on line 2 what you wrote on line 1 of the notebook paper. As long as your selections are on his level-that could make printing easier for the first week or two, and then he’ll have it down. 

In some ways textbooks/workbooks are much easier than CM because there is a good bit of “fill-in-the-blank” type work. But I do not think it will be hard for your oldest to transition. You might consider adding your favorite thing about CM before the year is out. For instance, if you really love the idea of picture study, you could pick up a book of art from the library and choose a picture once a week or even every other week. You could make this an activity for Saturday if Mon-Fri seem too full already. Then over the summer, you might add nature journals, or vice versa. Adding things in slowly to what you are already doing will keep things from seeming So Very Different From What We Did Before. 

Enjoy the rest of your year :~) Let CM enrich what you are already doing. And feel free to PM me if you want to discuss specifics on how my multiple grades work together.

I wanted to say hello and tell you that I have 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders and we do everything together. We love it.

They listen to me read the same biographies for history and do the same science, music, art, and everything like that. We even do spelling and grammar together. I ask them questions like tell me all the nouns, verbs or whatever and I give them a sentence out of whichever book I’m reading them. I just ask my 5th grader a different question like give me the subject or predicate when it’s her turn to answer. I give them spelling words in the same way or dictation out of what they’re reading.

When it’s time for math my two youngest are working at the same level, but the older one just does whatever she’s on, but they do it at the same time (that gets a little tricky for me, but I have Daddy here at varying times and a 17 year old that can help). So they just read different individual books and when they write, they write at their level.

If I had them separate for much, I think I’d die from exhaustion. I can’t see how we could simplify it any more at all. I have used some Abeka books years ago and even tried the DVD Academy when my 5th grader was in Kindergarten I think. We returned it right away. I just wanted something more like CM, even though I didn’t know about it at the time.

I think your kids will really like the CM way. It will be so refreshing for them–so different than what they’ve ever done.

Don’t worry too much about planning. Just choose what you’ll study for cultures or history and science and how you’ll do math, and then learn the method. It really is so natural and simple.

Read, talk about things, do things, observe things, teach them how to live and work, and let them think.

Best of luck!