Well, we just finished our first month of homeschool for the 09-10 year. It is going smooth and great! This year I have a 5th grader, a 2nd grader and a Kindergartener. It has been so fun teaching Isaiah how to read! He has just begun reading three letter words this week, and it's always so exciting when a child opens up this whole world of reading for himself. I am so proud of him, he has worked hard and does his best!Gabriel's school is a bit too easy for him right now, so I hope it becomes more challenging as the year progresses. If not, that's fine - he will get to sail through it... I know that harder years are coming. It's not that it's an easy 2nd grade curicullum, but that he read a LOT this summer, and seems to have made the difference.
Josiah's school has a lot more composition and research papers to write. It's always been the most challenging part of school for him, so we welcome that. He is learning to do a great job sorting ideas into paragraphs, not plagiarizing, and using good handwriting. It's exciting. His math, on the other hand is long and laborious. I remember myself doing this same math... long division and then checking the problems. It takes a long time sometimes, but it's a valuable thing to know that we will use the rest of our life.
This is a school calendar that I made for this year. It is for writing out the lesson plans for the year, so that the kids can see at a glance where they are. Our school is laid out very simple as far as lesson planning goes, so this is more for writing out where we should be each week so that they can see if they are behind at all. It has already proved so useful.
Writing definitions from the glossary.
This is what Isaiah did in his first week. He loves it.
6 comments:
How fun and rewarding it is to be able to teach our children at home. Crazy as this might sound, I'm looking forward to the day when all of my kids are school age!
Your calendar looks very nice and organized. I use a plan book and that works well for us, but that's because our curriculum is a little made up of several different curriculum publishers. When I first looked at your calendar, I thought, Wow! Look how simple it looks! ...on paper at least. :)
Glad to hear that your year is off to a great start!
Hi Karilee! Thanks for your comment! I was a little surprised to hear that you decided to mix curriculums... I've always heard that that is a big "no-no". I know that some families do choose to do it... but from what I've seen it's usually more the unorganized type of people that do... you know, people that make up their own rules for everything. Knowing how organized and orderly you are... you will have to tell me why you chose this path. Last I heard, I think you were using Abeka.
Yes, our calendar and curriculum is very simple! I love it for that reason! It's all completely laid out for me every day. They boys are doing so awesome, I'm so proud of them! Talk to you soon!
Hi, Jenny,this is Rachel (Watkins) Bueckert--Are you using Landmark Freedom Baptist Curriculum, at least for the Kindergarten?! Because that's what I'm using this year for Gabriel, and the pages you photographed looked the same as his. I am LOVING my first year of homeschooling so far, and it is very exciting to watch and help Gabriel learn to read! I'm glad your year is starting great too!
Rachel
Don't worry, I've not gone completely mad. I'm still schooling in scheduled and orderly fashion. Chaos, you know is of the devil. Seriously. Anyway...
We still use A Beka exclusively for History and Literature and Sophia still uses their Science. Oh wait, this is going to get confusing...Ethan uses all A Beka, Sophia uses some and Caleb uses some, but less.
As Caleb is in 7th grade this year, I decided to get a different science curriculum that has more hand on experiments and scientific exploration rather than mostly textbook reading and fact regurgitation. The science curriculum is Apologia, General Science, and so far, we LOVE it! Check it out online, if you're curious, they have a nice website. We also have a companion DVD that has extra teaching animations, pronunciations and lesson extras. For the past two years we've been using Saxon Publishers Math. There are teaching CD's that you can get to go along with the curriculum. A teacher goes over each lesson and you see them do practice problems on your screen as you hear them teach the lesson. I'm not a stellar math student and it was important to me as the kids got more advanced that they had things taught to them properly. This has been a great success thus far. The textbooks are hardbound and we keep the cd's forever, so I will be able to use it for all the children.
I also am going through a creative writing textbook with Caleb and Sophia, we do that just a few days a week, alternating with an art book that we're also doing.
At first, it was a little confusing, but once I figured out my goals for each of them for the year, things fell into place. They're all doing great, so I am pleased. I agree about how fun it is to watch kids catch the reading bug--fruit's of your labor! :)
Sorry to be so long winded!
Yea! So fun to teach, yet I know it is also challenging, especially when you have 3 different grades, I am sure! How exciting for Isaiah to start reading. What a sweet time!
Rachel, Hi!! Yes, I use Landmark still. Thanks for commenting!! How exciting that you are schooling your first little man! Isn't it so much fun?? I hope to "see" you here again!
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