True Confessions

We have yet to read a Shakespeare play or study Plutarch.  I do have plans for Shakespeare, and we are currently studying his poetry & selections of the plays during our poetry time.  However, a full play still scares me!

I am terrible about getting through read alouds.  It’s not unusually for us to only make it mid-way through a read aloud.  I’m working on making RAs a priority and we just finished one book yesterday, which I was thrilled about!

I have a different schedule every other week.  It’s become a bit of  a joke with my DC.  However, I love having the variety in our days and I generally just move around a subject or two, so it’s not a huge deal.

Like other CMers, nature study here is hit or miss (often miss).  We tend to get in more outdoor time in the spring & summer with gardening & fishing.  However, nature journals and nature lessons aren’t very consistent.

Most of my DC hate to sing.  Hymn studies, folk songs, etc. are a struggle.  They don’t mind listening to them, but they hate singing.  I have two DC that will sing along okay, but the other two just mumble the words no matter how much I encourage them.

I’ve been struggling with the method of just reading and narrating our lessons.  In the last year or so I’ve found I prefer teacher guides that include discussion questions.  Being a very introverted person, I’m terrible about facilitating narrations.  Having some sort of guide helps me better discuss the readings with them.  Before they’d just mention a point or two from the story, and I’d call it good.  I really need something in front of me that helps me be a better teacher and reminds me which points need to be covered.  Even if it’s just a list I’ve written out that says things like review the previous chapter, write new names on the board, find locations on a map, etc.  I think some of you are better about including these things naturally, but I need a bit more help here…especially when I get distracted by my younger DC.  Having an outline or guide to follow makes our lessons much more enjoyable for all of us.

Ah….the is refreshing!

I also don’t do Shakespeare. I try, I look at the stories and then give up. And I don’t know who Plutarch is, either. 🙂

We live in the country and don’t do formal nature study. We just look things up a lot when they find something they are interested in.

I don’t do formal science (my oldest is 8.) I don’t use sticky notes with spelling.  I use videos a lot. I hate manipulatives and shudder at the idea of letter tiles with Delightful Reading.

We’ve never done composer study and (horrors) I don’t like classical music. 🙂

History, GASP:)  It’s usually the first to go if we have a hectic day/week.  It’s just not my favorite subject, and when you are older you have to look most of it up anyways.  I can’t imagine being in elementary school (or even middle school) and caring about the names of Greeks/Roman leaders, dates, etc.  I remember being horrified when we hit SCM Module 5, after cycling through the first 4 modules, where suddenly history was assigned 4 days a week instead of the one or two from the ancients!  We are starting Module 5 again for our second round now, and I won’t follow the guidebook schedule at all.

No composer study anymore, did that the first couple years but dropped it.  No Shakespeare, maybe in high school.  Memorization fell off as well.  Kids love art study so at least that’s still once a week, poetry is easy to read at lunch on Fridays.

Twaddle!  Minecraft!  Two things I always said we wouldn’t have, then I couldn’t keep enough books on the shelf for the kids, or books that motivated them to read, so tons of twaddle and semi-twaddle are read in our house daily.  They also love living books though, and enjoy the school books (not spines) so are getting exposed to good literature, so the twaddle is justified, right?

I’m sure there are many more I can think of but don’t want to:)

If I confessed all my homeschool sins I would probably be kicked off the forum! Haha

I don’t read aloud enough although I love books & so do my kids.

I don’t think I have ever finished a single curriculum or book (not read aloud-but like a devotional book or experiment book).

I am sidetracked easily & end up not finishing school, not starting school on time, or (more than I want to admit) not doing school at all.

I have 2 Tupperware boxes full of barely used curriculum. The grass is greener you know…

I am great at planning & organizing but can’t stick to either.

My kids are incredibly messy. I stink at habit training.

I hate all manner of craft projects. See above.

Despite my shortcomings these kids are growing & learning. And I love this crazy life.

And I am glad I am not alone.

I love this thread!! Ok here it goes! Lol. We are more of a unit studies family with CM thrown in. I have used Five in a Row now for 5 years and we love it! We do incorporate narration, copy work, dictation, written narration and living books for science and history. This year my oldest is using ULW and SW. We both really like it.

We don’t follow history in any order, just whatever comes up in our units or peaks our interest. However, next year my oldest will be doing Am History using SCM module.

My oldest has always loved art, so artist study has been easy for us. Composer study not at all. Hopefully, next year I can pull it together.

Both of my girls learned to read using Explode the Code and Bob Books. Not CM at all.

My oldest has been a reluctant reader. Although, she read very early. She’s 10 soon to be 11 and just in the last month has started to read on her on. A friend turned her on to Judy Moody! GASP… now she LOVES to read!!!

Both of my girls love nature. We live on a lake in FL that is a swimming lake, so we have plenty of nature, but the nature journals never get done!

Shakespeare and Plutarch have never been done. Maybe in middle school.

Latin or any foreign language has not been done. I would like to do Latin, but I just can’t seem to add anything else.

Some weeks narrations are hit and miss.

We are slow at read alouds. We do them at night before bed and it seems like it takes us forever to get through a book.

No hymn study or folk. We do listen to plenty of Christian music.

I think that is it! 🙂

So I use my children’s interest in Thomas and Friends to help teach them character.  “Thank you.  You are a very useful engine!”  “Don’t be a troublesome truck!”  Hey, Charlotte and Thomas were both from England, right?  And I kind of like watching it with them.  We have the trains and tracks, too, so there is creative play in that.

We have done Shakespeare, but only because a local company has a free annual performance.  We spend about 6 weeks preparing ahead of time.  The live performance to look forward to makes all the difference for us.

I used to love composer study, but haven’t done a good job with it the past few years.  I think we got one in last year, but not for a full 12 weeks.  I am still planning to get Shumann in this year.  But we play classical music in our free time in the background.

We used to sing hymns for school, but I think I got burnt out on doing it daily.  So now I just play one or two hymn CDs on the weekends in the background while we work or play.  I like Alan Jackson’s 2 Precious Memories CDs.

I wish I would have played more math games or any board games with my children when they were younger.  I can’t fit it all in though.

In any one day I do not have a clean house, homemade meals, and a full day of school done.  I usually get two of the three though.

We are still working on the same old habits for years now: Attention, obedience, and regularity.  But we are making progress.

Sometimes I get all caught up in school planning and make the mistake of thinking acedemics are the most important aspect of life.

@wings2fly

I have done several things over the years to add CM into Five in a Row. Both of my girls are using FIAR, but my older one I’m having to go a little more in depth with her this year.

Copywork:

I use our FIAR books for copywork (my oldest is using SW/ULW) but with my youngest her copywork comes from our FIAR book that we are working on.

Narrations:

They narrate from the book we are working on. This year my oldest is doing written narrations from the book she is working on.

FIAR lends itself to rabbit trails, so we have done lots of those. History and science mainly. I’ll use those rabbit trails for narrations, written narrations, copywork, etc.

Artist Study:

A lot of the FIAR books take place in a certain time period or country. I’ll just pull an artist from that time period or country.

Geography:

Most books takes place in a country, state or area of the U.S. so, we will study the country and cultural aspects with books from the library.

There is a Bible supplement that has Bible verses, stories, etc that go with every book. I’ll use that for Bible and sometimes copywork.

There is also a cookbook that has dishes you can make that go with each book. If a book takes place in France, you would make a french dish.

As far as poetry, foreign language, Shakespeare and hymn study you can easily add them in.

HTH! 🙂

fellow CMners, you all are going to feel all nice and fuzzy all over after this post. I have been know to only serve 2 meals a day and had cereal once for breakfast, lunch and dinner and told my children they only had to bathe twice a week during the winter! OK gasp! Also, we just returned from 28 days of traveling to the west coast and back and our school usually is completed by june 1st, so we can dedicate our time to gardening and outdoors, but we’re in the middle of the 3rd quarter. My boys cut and split firewood and skipped school this very week. I’ve been known to cut school short to clean the house and get ready for guests! God’s grace is enough for me and I know it is for you too…!( I’m planning to school on rainy days this summer and I may tutor a child just to ensure that we get our schooling done! The parents said i could use whatever curriculum, as long as we need to complete it anyway>

One plug: I love, love (xoxo) poetry. We use a 100 poems every child should know.( my grandfather’s poetry book from school) So, on our trip west from NYS, my children 14yob,10yog, 7yob, and 10yo niece, recited for elderly groups in mcdonalds, relatives and strangers alike, at the grand canyon, in gift shops and motels and hotels across America.
This is what Ive learned about doing this, my niece knows almost all 3 out of 4 since we recited them so frequently and also people had their faith renewed in my childrens’ generation and many people responded emotionally to our recitations, tears, hugs, sincere thanks for taking the time to give them something to smile about. I encourage you all to try this. we recite to our insurance agent, bank tellers, florists, church congregations, mailmen, garbage men and they walk away smiling and I feel they have been greatly encouraged. Enough poetry!

We did also, listen to 9 great living books on audio, which provided over 7000 miles of enjoyment. Thank you public libraries!
Thanks, Martha