Someone stop me PLEASE!
Now that Christmas is over, I am looking toward our new school year which is coming up in February. Over the past year or so, a multitude of issues (funding, deployments, LICE, moving, just to name a few) has put us on a February-February school schedule. At first, I had plans to "catch" us up with the PS...however once I realized that it was not going to happen this year, it dawned on me that this would work better for us. We can take the time off we want and since we always get our tax returns in February, there will always be plenty of money for curriculum.
We enjoyed a very relaxed year this year. My friend Christy gave me the wonderful idea of staggering start times with the girls instead of trying to get everyone going at the same time. I was pulling my hair out the year before trying to go from one child to the other, from one subject to the other. Now, we start with Chaney. Riley and Kennedy play games or puzzles during this time. I spend about 45min to one hour with Chaney going over the previous days lesson in Math. We correct her paper and work on any problem areas. We then move on to the new concept. When I feel like she has that down fine, we move on and do the same thing with Language. I then give her a premade form that I made up giving her daily work. This lists all her work for the day including worksheet papers, test/quizzes, reading assignments, History etc. She is then on her own unless she needs help with something.
Next, I move on to Riley. I work with her in a similar fashion. I spend about an hour going over her Phonics, Math, Spelling, and Reading lessons. We check the previous days work and assign work for that day. She does not have an assignment sheet like Chaney, I just use the reusable sticky tabs to mark her seatwork. Once Riley is working on her own, I can devote all my time with Kennedy.
This has worked amazingly well for us this year, however, I see problems coming in the next few years. We have used mostly Abeka since we started Homeschooling. I am very happy with Abeka. One of the things that drew me to it was it was almost like "Homeschooling For Dummies." I liked that everything was laid out in the curriculum guides..there is no guess work on what they needed to do, and they even bolded the parts that I needed to say! Abeka is a very solid curriculum...I thought I would use Abeka forever. The only problem with Abeka is that it is very teacher intensive for every subject. By time I get done teaching three math lessons, three language/phonics lessons, and read with the three of them, there is no time to do three History/Science lessons. I have not *taught one History lesson to Chaney(I assign her reading in her History book, and she does the question and answers), very few with Riley and Kennedy...and we have not even cracked open the science and health books this year. I am feeling very guilty. I LOVED History when I was in school because I had great teachers who helped me to visualize what was going on. I did not love Science so much...but the girls are very interested in science. Honestly, the thought of doing three science lessons is painful for me...but I do not want to ruin their love of History and Science before it is even begun.
I realized a few months ago I needed a History and Science curriculum that I could do with all of them. So, I started researching. What I found (for History) is SOTW and Biblioplan. I am very excited to start *teaching History this year. We are going to use Biblioplan for the spine. Biblioplan incorporates SOTW as well as *many other resource and reading books. I am praying that by using Biblioplan and SOTW I will be able to teach History in a fun way that fosters a love of History.
During my research, I stumbled on the Classical Education school of thought. I *knew that there were different "styles" of Homeschooling, but I really was not all that interested in them. I was very happy with Abeka and how they do things...there really was not a need to learn another way of doing things. Once I started looking into CE though, things really started to jump out at me. I loved the idea of learning history in chronological order...and I really liked the thought of incorporating Biblical history with the secular history.
Another thing that caught my attention and held on was Literature. One of Abekas best attributes,in my opinion,is their reading program. All three of my children have learned to read using Abeka, and all three of them excel at reading. I have always appreciated their readers. They have good wholesome-moral stories, with a Godly, and patriotic basis. It dawned on me during my CE research, though, that Chaney was not reading the "classic" books as part of her schooling. She on her own has read things like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Hedi, and Charlotte's Web but she could be reading more...she should be reading more in her school work.
After hours upon hours of reading websites and blogs, as well as talking to more experienced HSers, I decided to drop Abeka reading for Chaney and we are just going to start reading more classic books. Here is where you, Internet, need to help me STOP! Stop obsessing over this reading list. It is driving me crazy!!! Since I have never had to plan out anything on my own, I have *no earthly idea what is to much or to little. I *thought I had it for the most part worked out. I used the Veritas Press catalog to plan out her reading list for this year. I still did not know if it was to much or to little, but I figured we would wing it...and I was good with that...until last week when I I found Ambleside Online.
I have now become obsessed with Chaney reading every great work out there. For Christmas we bought Chaney and Riley the complete library of American Girl Collections as well as some of the AG Mysteries. The reading list I have now has morphed to the point where, between Literature and the reading list for Biblioplan, there may not be time for her to read the AG books...E.V.E.R!
But. I. Can't. Stop!
PLEASE, Internet, reel me in here.
This is what I have so far:
- Eight Cousins/Louisa May Alcott
- The Railway Children /Edith Nesbit
- Cricket in Times Square/George Selden
- Witch of Blackbird Pond/Elizabeth George Speare
- Robinson Crusoe/Daniel Defoe
- Blackthorn Winter/Douglas Wilson
- Gulliver's Travels/Jonathan Swift
- Susan Creek/Douglas Wilson
- Beowulf/Frederick Rebsamen
- The Hobbit/J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Red Keep/Allen French
- King Arthur and His Knights/Howard Pyle
- Age of Fable/Thomas Bulfinch
Like I said, this is just for Literature...Biblioplan has more history books for her to read. Am I insane?
Tomorrow, I will post about the other changes we are making in our curriculum...and my obsessive need to get it all Just. Right.
I am sure you just can't wait.
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