Switching to Homeschooling–hoping for clarification

That looks like a beautiful start!  My girls are 7 and 6.  Their schedule is similar, but our homeschool is probably a lot different because they have two older siblings instead of two younger.

My advice would be to not overload her.  Don’t expect every subject every day (we alternate science with history) and allow her lots of free time for playing, creating, exploring, and having fun.  Schedule one of your “extras” in morning reading each day (today for us was literature read-aloud, yesterday was composer study, Monday was geography).  Slow and steady (and with any luck, your daughter will love the literature read-aloud so much that she’ll grab it out of the basket and want to read it herself.  That’s what my 9YO DS – a reluctant reader – is doing right now.)

As for “reading,” there are really two areas that you need to cover:  a reading program (phonics, sight reading, a mixture of the two, whatever you decide) and literature.  With the literature, I read aloud and then before the next chapter I ask the kids what they remember from the previous chapter.  It’s that simple.  We want to expose them to quality literature, great stories, and the intricate language structure of more classic pieces.  Some of my kids really enjoy audio books, too, so we download lots of them from http://www.librivox.org.  (My 9YO just finished with Dr. Dolittle and he liked The Wonderful Wizard of Oz).

Finally, with reading instruction, I’ve done different things with different kids.  I find what works for them and stick with it.  At this season, that happens to be Explode the Code workbooks.  My daughters love them.  With my older kids, who didn’t like workbooks, we did Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons or something like that.  As soon as they were more fluent readers, I would have them read aloud to me each day from a book at their level.  (This week my daughters are reading from Blueberries for Sal and my son is reading from an astronomy chapter book that he is interested in.)

I’ll close by saying that less is more at this age!  If handwriting means copying two words, so be it.  If math means 5 problems, that’s fine.  Work at her pace, within reason, and don’t allow the 6-hour schedule of the public school make you think you aren’t doing enough.  Congrats on your decision and enjoy this season!

Lots of great ideas so far!  I agree that you should start slowly.  You don’t have to cover it all.  We don’t cover every subject, every week.  I’m okay with nature study (or picture study or another other study) every other week.  Just pick a few subjects to start with and slowly add more in throughout the year.

With just a 6yo, history is optional…Picking up a few picture books from the library or reading a Children’s Bible is plenty of history for this age.

Some people only have a couple science lessons per week, but we like daily science.  I’ve found Apologia’s lessons to be best when we work on it every day (for a shorter amount of time).  On nature study days, we usually skip our regular science lesson.  Handbook of Nature Study is a great resource, and you can find it online for free.  We pick an object from the book.  Recently we’ve studied wood frogs, corn from our garden, and clouds.  I usually look around the yard for ideas or glance at the book when they find something interesting.  The lesson in the book is full of questions to get them looking closely at the animal. There is also information for you to read and then share a fact or two if you think it will interest them.

For phonics, I haven’t spent too much time researching CM’s take on it, but I’ve come up with a very inexpensive program for my DC.  Somewhere between ages 4 & 6, I start teaching them letter sounds.  My DC have been reading at a variety of ages.  If they have a hard time picking up the letter sounds, we try again in a couple months.  I’ve covered letter sounds with homemade flashcards and inexpensive phonics workbooks (ETC Primers or MCP K were what we’ve used).  From there, I teach them blending.  I’ll put 3 letter flashcards together or write a simple word on a dry-erase board.  We start with CVC words like CAT or SIT.  Once they get the hang of blending words, I add in the McGuffey Primer.  You can find this free on Gutenberg.org.  New words are added in gradually (and there are a couple sight words as well).  When they finish the Primer, we work on the First Reader and add in some more colorful readers like Frog and Toad, Dr. Seuss,  or Little Bear.  I imagine your DD is already reading, so I’d just continue having her read aloud.

For the literature part of reading, we just read.  Sometimes I have them narrate their readings.  Aesop’s Fables are a great introduction to narration if she has trouble with this.

There is a great video in the SCM library on picture study when you are ready to add this…Sonya makes it very easy (and non-scary) to implement!  For music, just listen to a CD as time allows…we listen to a track per week or I play it while we are cleaning the kitchen.  We listen and sing a few songs during the week (usually a hymn and a folksong).   It’s very easy to go overboard here, but I think simple is best.

I’d give Apologia a try since she’s interested in it…You can always save it for later if it’s too much.  We did the Astronomy book when my DD was that age and she enjoyed it.  I think that book is supposed to be the best for the younger ages.