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What are you doing this year?
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Now that we’re a month or more into the year and we’ve (hopefully) gotten the kinks worked out (or are closer to it), maybe we can share what we’re doing?
We quit! 😉 For a while.
Our baby, expected in Nov., came early. She is doing very well and got to leave the hospital when I did. God has been so good to us and we are so thankful. The name we gave her means “living, breathing grace.”
Oh, and school… my sister finished the week’s work with the children along with homeschooling her own three. She’s awesome! I had planned to get the whole first term in before baby’s arrival and take off all of Nov. if we wanted. So we have plenty of time to take a break and then get back at it later. Will just need to start by wrapping up the first term. 🙂
Congrats Bethanna! That sounds like a wonderful distraction to have. 🙂
We are sticking with the basics. One science and one history/geography lesson per day, scripture memory plus 1-2 enrichment studies per day, and 2-3 individual study items per day.
Math: MUS plus some mental math problems to work on math facts
Language Arts: R&S Penmanship, Cheerful Cursive, or I Can Write Cursive (one book per child). Spelling Wisdom for oldest 3 DC. McGuffey Reader twice a week for younger two and typing practice for older two. Oral & written narrations. Family literature readings and indpendent history/science assignments, mostly using SCM’s reading lists.
Science: Outdoor Secrets/nature study, Physics Workshop kit, and Memoria Press’s Book of Astronomy. Apologia General Science for 8th grader.
History (3 days per week): 1st term of American (SCM Stories of America, Guerber’s Thirteen Colonies), 2nd term D’Aulaire’s Greek Myths, and 3rd term Famous Men of Greece
Bible: We are reading through the Bible in 2 years and started last spring. This was our family devotion, and I’m counting it as our Bible study this year as well.
Geography (2 days per week): The 50 States & Where to Find Them
Enrichment: Scripture Memory (set #2), LDTR for Children, Hymns for a Kid’s Heart, MP Art Cards, Shakespeare in 3 Steps (As You Like It)
Handicrafts: Term 1 is watercolor, term 2 is clay sculpting, and term 3 is crochet. We’ll also add in some Paper Sloyd or Compass Drawing once a week.
Latin: Visual Latin for oldest two, Prima Latina for middle DD, youngest DD is listening to Prima Latina words, but skipping the writing portion. I’m going through Henle 1 on my own with MP’s guides, although I haven’t pulled it out since August.
Mother Culture: I’m re-reading For the Children’s Sake and hopefully getting around to reading Consider This.
We switched all big kids to Saxon math and ADORE it!! We are doing Classical Conversations with all 8 kids this year. We started slowly last year, adding kids as I could handle it.
We are doing IEW Medieval History Based Writing, IEW’s poetry memorization program, lots of fine arts, Shakespeare and Hans Christian Anderson. We aren’t doing any hymn or folk music study this year. Just music theory and composer study.
Congratulations Bethanna!
We are mostly doing what we set out to do so far. We do morning basket all together for scriptures, art, civics, music, hymns, grammar, etc.
10th grader is doing MUS Geometry, BF Medieval History, Veterinary Medicine (online class), Apologia Biology (2nd half of book), Herpetology (reptiles), The Power in Your Hands (writing), reading a literature list I created and discussing them with me. Next semester she’ll be done with Biology and add in Criminology.
6th grader, 5th grader are doing MUS Zeta, BF Medieval History, literature, writing (currently using Write Shop Jr. D for fun, they like the activities), nature study. They will add in science 2nd semester. The only thing we’ve not been consistent on is spelling.
3rd grader is doing MUS Delta, BF Medieval History, literature, writing (Write Shop Jr. D too), nature study. He’ll add in science 2nd semester too.
2nd grader is doing MUS Beta, BF Medieval History, All About Reading level 2, copywork, writing (oral narration that I write down), nature study. He’ll join the rest for science 2nd semester.
Kindergartener is doing MUS Alpha (slowly – we plan to take 2 years), living math, BF Medieval History, some alphabet/beginning phonics, copywork, nature study. He’ll join the rest for science 2nd semester.
The younger 3 boys (age 4.5, 3, almost 1) are being little boys, no formal lessons. 🙂
Congratulations to Bethanna!
I’ve been waiting to share as I was fine-tuning the last of our plans, but we’re doing a mix of Classical and Charlotte Mason, and using some nice vintage texts. My children are grades 4 & 1:
So combined subjects:
Bible: we do Bible at the breakfast table, where we review our catechism lesson, read a Bible history lesson, do our hymn study, and pray a decade on our Rosary. We also have what I call our “Virtue” reading – we own several of the William Bennett “For Children” books, so we read daily from those.
Memory Work: I am having them work on poetry, Bible verses and prayers this year.
History: we are reading random selections from start to finish – so everything from ancients to modern, we narrate these readings. My goal is to just keep it light, read, narrate, and create a timeline.
Music: we are working through Story of the Orchestra this year, as well as learning piano
Nature Study/Art/Picture Study/Poetry: this is all combined into one resource: Exploring Nature with Children, which we are absolutely over-the-moon loving. Each week we take a nature walk, read fiction and non-fiction books (which they also narrate) about the weekly topic, read poetry daily that ties into the topic, look at art, create art, and other activities etc… We also take a once a month field trip to our local science center.
Journal: three times a week I have them write in their journal. Anything goes – this is uncorrected (though I do go through and use their misspells for spelling work), and the topic is their choice, though after a field trip I normally have them write about it. My son normally writes a full page, my daughter normally might write one short sentence, or sometimes just draws a picture.
Literature: so besides the virtue stories, history and science read alouds and poetry, we also have a fun family read aloud that we read aloud from after supper. This is just for fun and we do not require a narration. It’s just to let them hear great and fun literature. We’re currently reading Little House in the Big Woods. Then, we also do what is called “Shared Reading” – this is basically just reading practice for both children. We spend about 15 minutes daily where they take turns reading aloud to each other. We read a lot here, lol.
Individual Subjects for Grade 1:
Math U See Alpha
Canadian Catholic Reader – First Reader for phonics
Copywork and Dictation – I use words/sentences from her phonics lessonIndividual Subjects for Grade 4:
Math U See Gamma/Delta (finishing Gamma then moving into Delta)
C.C. Long’s Lessons in English
Wheelers Graded Studies in Great Authors – we’re using this for copywork, dictation and spelling. I will be having him spend a few days copying the sentences (which follow spelling rules), then the fourth day I’ll do dictation, then the fifth day we work on his spelling journal, which is where he enters correctly any misspells I noticed.So that’s it for us! It sounds like a lot, but we spread it out: Bible takes about 30 minutes at breakfast, then Memory Work, Math, Language Arts and Science we do at 10:00, which take anywhere from 1-2 hours depending on what we’re doing in science that day.
History is done at lunch time, and family literature is done at supper time.
I love this thread. It is fun to see what others are doing (and steal some ideas!) and it is encouraging for me to see in print what my kids are doing. So often it doesn’t feel like “enough” or life seems so hectic that I can’t see our progress.
6th grader: Saxon 7/6, Ambleside Online Year 6, Classical Conversations Essentials
4th grader: Saxon 5/4, Ambleside Online Years 2/3 blend, Classical Conversations Essentials
2nd grader: RightStart Math C, Ambleside Online Years 2/3 blend
Hm…
8th grade:RightStart E and G together (almost done E), AO year 6, AAS 3, and other bits and pieces
6th grade:RightStart E, AO year 4, AAS 2, and other bits and pieces
3rd grade:RightStart D, AO year 3, AAS 2, and other bits and pieces
1st grade:RightStart B, AO year 1, I See Sam, and other bits and pieces
What a fun thread!
8yr old:
Bible – Old Story New by Machowski, Hymn Study (We did The Old Rugged Cross and now we are doing Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus), Scripture Memory System with one long passage for recitation per term. (We did 1 Cor 13.)
Habits – LDTR (doing Modesty and Purity for Term 1)
Foreign Language – Speaking Spanish with Miss Mason and Francois
Poetry – SCM Enjoy the Poems – Dickerson
(finished picture study and artist study for now)
Math – Rightstart Level C supplemented with the word problems only from MUS Beta and Gamma student workbook
Language Arts – Logic of English Foundations Level D
Copywork – SCM A Child’s Copybook Readers
History – SCM Modern Times (Module 6) Book List only…we don’t read SOA (it was too much)
Geography – Visits to North America
Science – Pond and Stream, Companion, and Among the Pond People
Art – Artistic Pursuits and a few online drawing resources
We co op once a week with other Christian homeschoolers. What blessing that has been. WOW! She takes a cooking class, math skills practice, P.E., Crafts, and Jazz for Fun
and finally, piano lessons
Ds12 (7th grade): We are continuing the Bible reading plan we’ve had for several years. Art study–currently Degas; will also study Winslow Homer and Bruegel the Elder; Language Arts–Daily Grammar website; 1000 Commonly Used Words for spelling; an occasional writing assignment; literature that coincides with our social studies; for fun reading we’re reading novels about animals. Math–Schoolhouse Teachers prealgebra (1st half of book) with a few supplemental areas. Science–Introduction to Agriscience; Social Science–world geography. I will probably count these last two as high school credits on his transcript.
Dd9 (4th grade with special needs): We are reading through Bible Story for Older Children. Language Arts–file folder games; handwriting practice. Math–still working on addition and subtraction; am watching for readiness for word problems and a formal intro to multiplication (she has an understanding of her 2s, 5s, and 10s from daily life). We are also using Starfall again. Science/social studies–world geography with relevant animal books thrown in (different booklist than her brother)
Art/Handicrafts, as usual, are whenever they want to do it.
I also have Typing Instructor for Kids that they can use whenever they want to.
One thing that’s working well for us this year is weekly checklists for each girl. They know what’s expected of them……that doesn’t mean it all gets done in one week’s time, but at least they can see what they should be doing.
Anyway, some of you ladies talked me out of the spiral-notebook-write-a-list-every-night-for-each-kid plan and I’m grateful! ?
We are reading aloud The Switherby Pilgrims and the girls and I are really enjoying it. It ties in with our Geography (Visits to….-which I am also really liking).
I feel behind in Science and History, but that’s normal for me and it’s because we actually are. I’m trying to stop stressing over it ?. One good thing is that with our Learning Ally subscription, my dyslexic dd and the 2nd grade dd can listen to their history readings by themselves, so they are on track……it’s just the family readings that we’re behind in.
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