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End of 12 weeks…need to make changes
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Today we have just completed our first 12 week Term for the school year. (9, 6, 4 year old). We are taking a week break. It feels like we are all loosing the joy of learning and things have become rather monotonous. It feels like we are doing too much, so I am considering scaling back on some things. They go to an enrichment day 1 day/week, so I have four days at home with them. I would love any feedback/encouragement that you might have to give:
1. We’ve been doing SCM Ancient Rome module. For us it feels like more than we need to know about Rome at this age, the spine is really difficult for us to follow. It’s completely over 6 y.o. head and 9 y.o. can narrate well only if the other two are not in the room, which is hard to arrange. I am thinking of just using the picture cards that came with the SCM study and reading a few books that have pictures from that time period for the 9 and 6 y.o. and then reading a few chapter books I found on Rome for the 9 y.o. 9 y.o struggles with math and I’m wondering if it would be wise to spend more time on the basics at this age like reading, writing, math, and just a gentle overview of historical time period and science knowing she’ll cover it in more depth when she’s older.
2. I’m having a difficult time juggling all the different books we have going (which hasn’t been a problem before, not sure why it’s tough now). I am thinking of doing a six week block on history and then a six week block on science just to cut down the number of books we have going at once.
3. Their Dad reads to them from the Bible at bedtime, so I’m thinking of just cutting out what I’ve been doing in the day with them and letting that be the main Bible. We could practice Bible verses/hymn/catchesim questions 1/x week while in the car to church as family.
4. I’ve had 9 y.o. doing: math-daily, independent reading of 2 or 3 books – daily, cursive copywork – daily, spelling wisdom – daily, poetry memory – daily, letter writing – 1x/week, drawing – 1x/week. Seems like too much!
thinking of changing to:
math – daily, independent reading of 1 or 2 books – daily, cursive copywork – 1x/week, letter writing- 1/x week, spelling wisdom – 2/x week, poetry memory – 2x/ week, drawing – optional b/c she takes oil painting lessons each week.
Do you think these changes are okay?
5. 6 y.o. has been doing copywork daily, thinking of switching to 2/week. He does explode the code 2/x week, keeping that, narrating aesop fable-daily, change to 2/x week. He reads to me daily, keep that. I read chapter book to him daily, maybe switch it to say 4 chapters a week so we can spread it out or do it all in one day; poetry memory 2x/week, drawing 1x/week – keep that.
Bless you if you are still reading this.
Bless you for hanging in there for 12 weeks! I felt that our school time was too busy the first week and switched things up by the third week!
I have a 9 year old, so I will address your questions about that. My 9 year old is a strong reader and writer, so what works for her may differ from what works for you. She works on math daily, reads daily (I assign one or two books- about 15 minutes of reading from each), and she writes daily. I began with one written narration each week and the other days were copywork or dictation. As I said, she enjoys writing, so now she does a written narration almost daily. I do dictation one day a week with her. I found it best to assign the dictation passage as copywork a day or two ahead and discuss together difficult words. I purchased a Home Adventures Science Kit for her this year which she greatly enjoys. She works on one lesson each week (about 15 minutes) while I sit by her to talk about what she is doing and to assist as needed. She is working through Emma Serl’s Intermediate Language Lessons at a rate of 3 lessons per week. The lessons are short and engaging, often oral. She learned the States and Capitals last year, so I have her review them (flashcards) weekly. I have also read a retelling of a Shakespeare play with her and intend to do this each term. Bruce Coville’s retellings are beautiful if that is something you are ever interested in. Her assigned readings are either a history book (currently The Landing of the Pilgrims which she is tiring of but she gives Great narrations from this book) science (Christian Liberty Nature reader 4- not a favorite with her but again her narrations are wonderful and I think it stretches her to read something different from her particular tastes which is girls in history) or Literature ( just began Lassie Come Home). If all she did each day was math, reading, and writing, she would still be covering all the basics, so my short answer is Yes, I think your revised plan would be fine,
We also read the Bible together outside of actual school time. I would suggest going outdoors to break up the monotony. We are outside daily, but on Thursdays, we go for a Nature Walk in the afternoon, which I find Refreshing after being inside all morning!
I think your changes sound great. I agree with you about history – let your 9YO read some great books about the time period, to get a feeling for what life/people were like then. Perhaps consider using an audio book as a spine for when you are traveling. Try to choose an audio book that is engaging and at his level or even just slightly above. He doesn’t need to understand chronology or cause/effect events yet. In my opinion a great “foundation” in history is just sparking the interest in stories and people of old.
Bible at night with dad sounds great. Otherwise, perhaps just learn a scripture passage/hymn each week, and spend a few minutes explaining it when you first introduce it to them each week.
Your choices to cut back the daily subjects seems about right. My almost 9YO does math and reading every day. Twice a week he does copywork, music, and light grammar. Finally, once a week he does nature studies and some work for Cub Scouts. He enjoys dad’s literature read-alouds at night and he likes when I assign audio books from Libirxox for him to listen to in his down time.
My 6YO does some sort of phonics daily (ETC, 100 Easy Lessons, reading games with me, etc.). She also does copywork 3x/week, Draw Write Now 1x/week, and our family studies.
(We do religion, history, lit read-aloud, and science as a family, each twice per week, along with weekly art and poetry studies. Also, we have co-op once a week, so we don’t do any schoolwork at home).
Those two have lots of down time, but they enjoys time outside, puzzles, and playing with their younger sister.
It took us a few weeks to find a good balance as well. I don’t use the SCM modules, but here is an idea of how much each of my kids are doing right now. It seems to be enough, without being overwhelmin any of us. DD9 and DS7 are both quite strong readers and both enjoying writing, so they do more writing than might be typical at their ages.
Together:
Daily: Devotional (Hymns, short gospel study passage, Poetry, discuss our current habit), Spanish (in the evening with Dad, since he speaks the language)
Weekly we read aloud 3 literature chapters, 3 history chapters, 3 science chapters, and 1 geography chapter, do an art project, listen to composer selections while we do chores, a lesson from Laying Down the Rails, a nature walk/nature journal time, map work, and family Book of Centuries with two or three entries that I write from what the children dictate. If anything is going to get dropped, it’s usually the nature walk, maps, or BoC, so I’m working hard to make sure e include those.
DD9 – Daily math, scripture memory practice, personal scripture reading, instrument practice, handicrafts and free reading.
– Weekly: One Spelling Wisdom (copywork, then dictation a different day), read and narrate 3 history chapters, 3 science chapters, and 3 literature chapters, one written narration from each subject each week, and 2 blog entries (writing stories or journaling something about her life this week).
DS7 does about the same, except with only one written(typed) narration/week and his books generally have shorter chapters. He is quite young to be doing dictation, but he asked to do it instead of copywork, so we are trying it out.
DS5 tags along, sometimes listening and sometimes wandering away.
We are in our 5th week & we took a 3 day break this week for similar reasons. I needed to regroup and reassess things…mainly in History. We are doing History Module 1. My daughter will be 7 this week. (I have a son as well but, he is only 2). Anyways, a friend of mine suggested dropping history all together since we will always go back to it later on. Or skipping things etc. My type-A brain is not cool with skipping things or going out of order. And of course the thought of all the books I have invested in for this Module. But, it just has not been working for us. I want her to have a love for learning & in this subject area, I’m not seeing it.
For now, here are my new plans for using Module 1… For the Bible reading days, I’m going to print corresponding coloring pages whenever possible. She listens SO much better when she is coloring a picture relevant to the topic. I’m also going to use other sources such as online, The Jesus Storybook Bible & The Child’s Story Bible to read from whenever I can.
We will continue doing Visits to Africa because she does seem to enjoy doing the mapping & the living books such as The Butter Man & Hungry Planet (which, I also won’t read word for word…just let her look at the photos & give brief descriptions etc).
Now, the book Ancient Egypt & Her Neighbors… It goes WAY over her head & her eyes glaze over & I lose her. So, I made the decision to drop it for now. But, I will be showing her the artifact pictures and telling her about them. And I found some great books at our Library… One is an Ancient Egypt cookbook & the other is a Learn to Draw Ancient Egypt book. Since Fridays will mostly only involve looking at the pictures of the artifacts I figured we can fill in with these books.
I’m also thinking of condensing the scheduled Bible days down to just 1 day (we also use Apologia’s Who is God book as our Family Bible Study (we all love it!) so, she will get Gods word every day regardless.
I’m just making these changes so, we will see how it goes. She seemed more engaged the last 2 days.
BlessedMommy, Ancient Egypt & Her Neighbors worked better for us as an audio, but even then it was enjoyed only by my oldest. My then-7YO didn’t care for it. Boy of the Pyramids, though, was a family-favorite last year, so if you have that one you may want to take a look!
Jawgee I do have that one too but, the lesson plans have not mentioned reading it yet. (We just finished week 5). I’m assuming it’s written into the lesson plans right?
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