Anyone Back to School and want to share how it's going?

Here is how our week has gone so far.  For those who are new here, I’m Tristan, momma to eight children ages 14, 10, 9, 7, 6, 4, 3, 2, with baby #9 due this fall. We have always homeschooled and while not strictly CM in our studies we practice many of the principles, including living books, short lessons according to age, narration, etc:

Monday went well.  Kids started back with History Revealed (we talked about the Children of Israel). We do this as a family, so younger kids are right there in the mix as we read and discuss. We also picked back up Math U See. I have kids doing Algebra 1, Epsilon (fractions), another Epsilon, one 2/3s of the way through Beta (subtraction), and one starting Alpha (addition).

Kids from Joseph on down started science with The World of Plants from the God’s Design for Science series.  I have to say I really like this series because it is so simple/straightforward.  We can easily build on it with activities (they include these or I can come up with some), living books, and nature study. I picked up a stack of plant related books at the library and I read from these most days or the kids grab one to read when the mood strikes.

Makayla started One Year Adventure Novel.  She’ll be doing this 3 days per week.  I think once she gets into a groove with it she will do really well but the beginning of anything new is a bit overwhelming.  She asked me to watch the dvd portion with her today, which I did.

Oliver picked back up with All About Reading level 1 and surprised me because he was able to read some words without sounding them out first. Progress!

The older four also started reading their first literature title for the year.  We are focusing on biographies first.  Makayla started Unbroken about Louie Zamperini, Olympian turned WWII fighter turned captive.  Joseph, Emma, and Daniel are trying out the Who was? series.  Joseph picked George Lucas, Emma picked J. K. Rowling, and Daniel picked Neil Armstrong.  The younger three will then each do a project that involves writing about their person. It could be a report, a lapbook, a poster answering questions about them, etc.  Makayla will not, as she has a full writing curriculum.  I am, however, having each of them narrate to me what they are learning as they read.  Makayla and I will go into more formal discussions as she is older than the other kids.

During this day the younger boys did a mix of activities from playdoh to coloring to playing with cars, etc. They snuggled with various siblings to listen to readings. They got out the magna tiles and built towers.

That was it for Monday.

Tuesday/Thursday is our lightest load for now. Kids had reading from their literature book, copywork/cursive depending on age, and math. We made a trip to the library this morning too. Makayla had training as she is now a library volunteer so the younger 7 children and I had the run of the children’s department downstairs for an hour. Loved it!

Wednesday is today! It is nothing earth-shattering, an ordinary morning, but these are the things I want to remember.  Our morning started as usual.  I woke up at 6am and hopped in the shower.  Joseph was awake by the time I was done.  Makayla got up with her alarm at 6:30am (we’re working on adjusting her to an earlier wake up time for Seminary).  At 7am I got the rest of the children up.  Everyone ate breakfast, got dressed, and did their chores.  After a child finishes their chores they are free to play until school begins, and often they do just that.  However they also have the option to begin working on some of their individual school subjects to get them finished earlier in the morning.  Today several children chose to get to school work, so I spent time helping those who needed it.  At 8:45am we officially begin school with family subjects.

Today that meant starting with history.  Our history at the moment is also doubling as scripture study because we are in Old Testament times.  Today’s lesson focused on the 10 Commandments.  I divided the kids into two teams and they took turns trying to name the 10 Commandments from memory.  They did pretty well and I wrote them on the dry erase board as they went.  Then we read them in Exodus 20: 1-17, each person reading a few verses around the table.  Makayla read Matthew 22: 36-40 aloud to us and we found out that when Christ came he taught that there are two commandments that are most important, that all other commandments fall under.  Those are to love God and to love others.

I gave the children a paper with the 10 commandments listed.  They cut them apart and on a notebook page they sorted the 10 commandments under the headings of the two great commandments: Love God, and Love Others.  We discovered that the first four commandments fit under loving God and the fifth through tenth fit under loving others. They glued each commandment into place under the right heading and put that in their notebook.  I passed out a page that they could fold into a ‘cootie catcher’ that had all 10 commandments for them to try and remember, then open the pocket to see if they got each one right.

At this point Makayla split off to work on her own and I gathered the rest of the children to the couch for science.  We talked about how scientists divide living things into 5 kingdoms based on broad characteristics.  We focused on a comparison of two main kingdoms: Plants and Animals.  We played a game where they had to sort characteristics onto one of three charts.  The characteristic was either just true of plants, just true of animals, or true of both.  It was fun and simple.

After this the children worked on whatever individual assignments they had left in the day.  I helped as needed.  That included working with Oliver on reading – he read The Gum from his Run Bug Run reader – and he is doing so well!

We took a break for snack at 10am and then work continued as needed.  Once everyone was done I turned on an episode of The Magic School Bus on dvd called The Magic School Bus Goes to Seed.  It focuses on plants and how they make seeds, which seemed appropriate as our science focus is plants.

I pre-read a lot of our books (esp. for my oldest child) but not all. I don’t worry about watching to see how easy it will be to narrate, I trust that whatever the child can tell me from the chapter that mattered to them will be enough. So, right now I’m pre-reading Unbroken a few chapters ahead of my oldest so we can actually discuss the book. On the day to day she narrates to me but every so often we will have a more socratic discussion about the book overall instead of narration.

God’s Design for Science lends itself well to unit study type learning because each book is themed. So in the life science series we’re working through this year (3 green books) the division is this: Plants, Animals, Human Body. That means 1/3 of our year we’re on the same overall unit (Plants currently) and each lesson over the weeks builds on our knowledge of that big topic.  In the blue earth and space series we did last year the division of the 3 books was: Our Planet Earth, Weather and Water, Our Universe. You can choose any book from any set (4 color sets, the other two are orange for chemistry and ecology, red for physical world (physics and technology). So we could do a red book, a green book, and a blue book in a single year if we wanted to. Each book has about 3 weekly readings/lessons. In a single lesson there is a beginner reading for younger kids that really simplifies the topic, then the main reading for elementary ages, then an older kid section that builds on that main reading if you’re working with a 7th/8th grader in the group too. Each lesson includes activities or experiments or research you can do. It is a lot less dense information wise than an Apologia Elementary text, for example, which works well with my young mix of ages. The older ones in the group (4th/5th) can take it further when they want to. And because each lesson is short we can easily add living books. Which we love to do!

Good for you setting a timer! I know I have to pay attention to varying the activities, especially when we do something like history where we’re going to take longer than is ‘good’ for my younger kids. So we’ll read in one room, move to the table for another part of the activity, get up and act out, write on the board, make something, etc. We can do it all right in a row this way usually, but it is broken into different components that allow for moving around and using different parts of the brain. And sometimes I just dismiss the younger ones if the middle and olders want to keep discussing.

We’ve had that happen before – history time period fatigue.  Move ahead!  You’ll come back around again later.  Just jump right into explorers and trust that you’ll come back to middle ages in a few years refreshed and ready to go.