The kids eat breakfast around 9:00, and then get to their morning chores.
Once all of that activity has subsided, everyone disperses to tackle their assigned activities. Big kids grab their school binders and piano lesson notebooks and hit the books. Little kids head to the basement (more on this in a minute). The big kids' morning work involves math, handwriting, assigned school reading, and piano lessons.
For math, we're still using Math-U-See. I can't recommend it highly enough for many reasons, one of which being (as I ranted to a friend recently) that it's mastery-based, rather than spiral. That may or may not mean anything to you, but it basically means that the focus is on making sure the student understands one math concept before moving on to the next. Duh. It seems like that should be an intuitive strategy, but apparently we've reached an era in which you have to clarify you'd like a curriculum that actually teaches a kid a linear concept in a linear way. (And, as we all hopefully learned - ironically enough - in math, The Shortest Distance Between Two Points Is A Straight Line. Not a spiral. NOT A SPIRAL, ARE YOU HEARING ME, COMMON CORE??)
Anyway. Enough ranting. The kids are doing well in math.
Handwriting is getting better and better each day, and I've moved from using a reading program with readers and workbooks (Pathways) to simply requiring thirty minutes of reading time during school hours. (They have an assigned list of books to choose from.)
Piano lessons are going pretty well! The kids are using Hoffman Academy, which has been a major godsend. Real-life, face-to-face piano lessons are crazy expensive - too expensive for us by any stretch of the imagination - but I really, really wanted them to know the basics of how to play. I could teach them myself, but realistically I knew I wouldn't likely be all that consistent with it. And then the clouds parted, and the angels started singing, and someone posted about Hoffman lessons in a homeschool group I'm in. The thing is, it's all online, and I was kind of elitist about the idea of online lessons at first. I really didn't think they could be as good as 'the real thing'. But these lessons are really so thorough and helpful. Penelope is especially fond of piano practice each morning. (I'll do a more in-depth review of our experience with Hoffman Academy soon!)
While the big kids are upstairs working, the little kids are down in the basement playing. I do occasionally let them watch Leapfrog Letter Factory, or a series of sight words videos that focus on the Dolch word lists. Might as well use the time to make my job easier when they start school, right?
After morning school is over, we break for a bit of play time, and then lunch. During lunch, I read poetry, our Bible passage for the day, and a section from Pilgrim's Progress. Sometimes I'll also read from our current Literature pick, the Wind in the Willows. OH MY WORD I LOVE THIS BOOK.
In the afternoon comes my favorite part of school: read-alouds. Here are our current books:
(Not pictured: Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare)
One of my favorite parts of homeschooling has been learning alongside the kids, and one of my favorite parts of Charlotte Mason homeschooling has been learning from genuinely interesting sources. The kids could probably be juggling more of our afternoon reading independently, but I don't want to give up reading the stories myself, so we still do it all together.
We will sometimes do simple crafts here and there. Penelope has really enjoyed weaving this year, and when the garage isn't freezing cold, Atticus will spend hours out there, whittling and carving and sawing and nailing and painting a plethora of little wooden creations. They like beading necklaces and bracelets, and we even made some candles and soap this semester.
I will say that our schedule is still really wonky. With random appointments and ministry commitments that fluctuate every week, plus our standing schedule commitments like our morning at the Amish each week, or regular discipleship times with younger gals, our days are somewhat irregular. It is rare to have a day in which both morning school and afternoon school are accomplished without interruption, delay or postponement. We have missed out on a lot of the 'riches' this year: nature study, artist and composer study, tea time. I'm trying to keep it all juggled, but that's the first stuff to get squeezed out when time gets tight.
However, we're doing well staying on course to finish our hours without cramming, taking breaks when we need to, and moving forward at a restful pace. We were on break between Christmas and New Years, and will be taking our midterm break next week, at which point we will have completed half of our scheduled work for the year. I'm encouraged by this! We're halfway done, which means we're on the downhill slope from here on out.
(Sorry for the weird photo - these sheets are printed on blue paper, and it is weirdly hard to get a good, clear shot.) I use the Ambleside Online curriculum and schedule, and build these planner pages to help myself envision it all, and check it all off a little more easily.
This is the log I keep of their hours and activities. I keep all our logs and weekly sheets together in a spiral bound book, along with their exam sheets for each term. This will be so very easy to stick in their portfoliosat the end of the year.
This is our fourth year of homeschooling, and I finally feel like we have enough of a framework to our weeks that I don't feel stressed or behind, though I would like to better mitigate scheduling conflicts, and better prioritize the humanities. I have figured out a (mostly) non-annoying way to keep the required records without wanting to die, and I'm feeling pretty good about where the kids are at. In all, I'd say we're in a pretty good spot!
7 comments :
ain't no party like a homeschool party cuz a homeschool party allows you to stay in (and still go to a party!)
Thanks so much for sharing this! Do you prefer comments on your blog or facebook better? If I comment, I guess I'd like to make it easier for you. We're dipping our toes in the water this year as I do a bit of work with my three year old/almost four year old. Even though I studied El. Ed and taught Kindergarten for a short time before having my little ones, I am feeling quite overwhelmed thinking about homeschooling and even figuring it out. It is different than public education! :) Thanks for sharing on your blog!
-Katie
We use Horizons, which employs the spiral method. As I've explained it to others and as we are finishing year two, what I can say is that "mastery" and "spiral" are misnomers in the sense that it then seems to be saying that spiral means not mastery, but I think a more accurate way to think about the two is that they both have a goal of mastery, but they work toward it differently.
"Mastery" works toward it by hammering concepts until they seem to stick while "spiral" introduces and cements them slowly, intentionally. For me, as I thought about how I learn, I realized the kind of learning I've done that seems to have staying power are topics or ideas I've learned slowly. I just thought I'd chime in so you have a more well-rounded thought on the "why" of spiral method. :)
Either place is fine for commenting, Katie, but I do have an easier time responding on Facebook, for some reason! The jump into homeschool was overwhelming for me, too - it's a huge paradigm shift. I had to take things REALLY slowly the first year or two, to get used to it and acclimate the kids. But it is so rewarding and fun! I'm not sure if you'd find it helpful or be interested, but I did do a video on Facebook a while back on the topic of homescooling. It's on the Facebook page under "videos".
I think you're right, Lissa - in so many areas of life I learn best by spiraling back around, too! I do think math is different - it is by its very nature logical, and logic is by its very nature linear. It builds on itself in much the same way as a house is built: first the foundation is dug, then poured, then the framing goes up, then the roof and walls. You can't dig a little of the foundation, then put on a few shingles, then add some siding, then go back and dig some more of the foundation.
And anecdotally, I worked in K-2 classrooms before staying home, and I saw kids really struggling and frustrated with the spiral approach. Not that every kid was, for sure, but the ones who seemed the least frustrated were the ones quick enough to actually master the concept before spiraling on to the next concept, which is really then just a linear mastery approach for that kid. There were, to be sure, kiddos who felt the relief of being able to take a break from a concept and come back to it later. But on the whole, I witnessed more confusion and frustration than with mastery math. (The first year I taught, the school used a mastery program; the second year it switched to spiral, so I got an unusual opportunity to witness both!)
It sounds like it is working well for your family, though, which is great!
I'll try and tune in tomorrow night and we can maybe bat this back and forth a little more. :-) I was just reading this to my husband and he had some interesting responses. His question was how do you learn a language? And we talked about that a bit but the reason he asked that is because in every sense of the word, math is a language. Think about how you learn a language. I have learned two besides English and spiral is very much how you learn a language, or maybe I should say how, I learn a language. It is not that you master all of these concepts and verbs and ways to speak and then move on, you are constantly building on what has been introduced even before it has been mastered. Think about children and how they learn language. I thought that was a really interesting thought that my husband put out there.
Practically, I am a research crazy lady and before I chose Horizons, I scoured the internet for perspectives and reviews of major homeschool math curriculums: Singapore, Saxon, Horizons and Math U See. The only one that either had no negative critiques or so few that I can't remember them was Horizons. Also, Sonlight has a feature where they review major curriculums and their comment on Horizons is that it is very teachable, which we have found to be true. So my decision was based both on philosophy and practicality. But like you said, I'm thankful you have found a program that has worked and so far Horizons is working well for us.
I had written this whole further response and it got deleted! I think to emphasize humility and or unity, after I wrote my last comment, I did think of some examples in which I would not want to move on until the previous concept was mastered, like scripture memory. But I wonder whether this is all a question of semantics or form because, even with scripture memory, I continue to circle us back around to make sure the concept is cemented in a more permanent part of our brains. That is one of the critiques that kept surfacing with some of these linear mastery approaches - that the content was seemingly mastered but maybe in a more temporary part of the brain because then when the content resurfaced, it could not be recalled. All to say, I can see where you're coming from, but I'm not convinced that Horizons or the spiral approach in general is going against that. It fully recognizes that certain material has to be dealt with first before later material can be dealt with.
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