15 hours ago
Making A Plan
I already wrote about how I am using a notebook planning system this school year, and this is the method I am using on the road to keep our school on track. Before our trip, I mapped out all the days we will be driving, and then tried to set reasonable expectations for each day in to-do list form. The difference between this and my normal planning is that I am going to be the keeper of the notebook, since most of our car school subjects will be done all together. I made a list of resources I want to use on our trip, and for each car day I included "all together" lessons, and a few individual learning activities as well. Here are some of the things I'm bringing:
Masterbooks States Unit Study
Since we will be driving through so many states, I figured this would be a great time to learn some United States geography and state history! We are going to try this resource from Master Books, which came with a free student workbook when I purchased the PDF. I'm going to print off the work pages for all the states that we will be driving through, and we'll learn about each one as we go!
Audiobooks
I'm loading up my phone with audiobooks that I would like to listen to on the road, and I am hoping we will get through at least one or two audiobooks. I specifically downloaded some titles from the two companies below, which have some really solid and rich historical books on audio! Both narrators read the text in an engaging way, and I'm really looking forward to listening to these books with the kids.
Uncle Rick's Audiobooks - I remembered seeing this website at a homeschool conference, and was pleasantly surprised to see that you can sign up for a 30 day free trial and get two free audiobooks! There is a wide selection of historical books, character stories, and Bible resources for kids. I chose "With Wind And Tide" (sea adventures, since we'll be going near the ocean), and "America First Vol. One" (great stories from American history).
Jim Hodges Audiobooks - I remembered this audiobook company at the homeschool conference as well, and was pleased to see another opportunity for a free audiobook! The freebie I got was "Under Drake's Flag: A Tale Of The Spanish Main". Though this particular novel does not fit with our history studies for the year, I did a little research and found some other titles from Jim Hodges Audiobooks that I am excited to dive into with the kids!
All-Together Subjects
Though I could bring several of our all together subjects, the main one I will bring for our car schooling is our history curricula. Both our history texts (Our Star-Spangled Story and Taking Africa For Jesus) are easily done in the car, with just a couple workbook pages that I can easily bring along. I also have an excessive collection of read-alouds that I will be bringing, including various picture books that relate to our destinations, The Horse and His Boy, The Trolley Car Family, Pilgrim's Progress For Young Readers, and African Pearls: A Story Of Faith In Uganda (which was published by a friend of mine, and which I'll be writing more about later...there may be a giveaway coming!).
Language Arts and Math Workbooks (and Apps)
Math is the one subject that I am hesitant to leave behind for two weeks in the middle of the school year. I want my kids to keep practicing their math facts, and not to lose their momentum with math. Though our main math curriculum (Rightstart) is too bulky to take on our trip, I have found some math coloring workbooks, math drill workbooks, multiplication fact apps, and flashcards that we'll bring to review each day that we are on the road.
For language arts, we will be leaving the writing and reading curricula behind (too bulky), but the kids Masterbooks Language Lessons For A Living Education books have pages that are easy to tear out. I will bring enough work pages to last the duration of our trip, and it won't add alot of extra weight!
Handicrafts
I've decided that lanyards 100% count as handicrafts. You know, those plastic-cord weaved keychains that we made when we were kids? Was that just me? I rediscovered them recently, taught my kids how to make them, and they've been weaving up a storm. This is a great activity to keep hands busy while we read in the car. Here's a post with some lanyard tutorials.
Getting Organized
Once I decide what to bring with us, the next step is to keep it all organized without loading our car down with too much bulk. As I mentioned, I am able to print off worksheets for most of the subjects, or tear work pages out of our curricula. Certain textbooks I will bring, but some of my resources are also in digital format (such as PDF's and audiobooks), and won't take up any space. The main thing I need to do is keep track of the kids' individual workbook pages and remember what I want to do each day.
My daily plan will be kept in our scheduling notebook for the week. For the kids' individual work, I bought them each a plain folder with the tabs inside for holding loose papers. I am going to hole-punch all their loose papers, and make an individual, custom "workbook" for each of them to use on vacation! I'll use sticky notes to separate the work pages into sections that they have to complete each day. I think this will keep everything in one place, and I'll be able to look through their work without alot of mess or a huge homeschool book bag to tote around.
Planning For Field Trips
Since we'll be driving through some pretty interesting areas and exploring a state we don't get to visit often, I am excited to take my kids to all the local historical sites! The husband and I are mapping out a plan for the things we would like to see (or that we can reasonably see) on our trip. Once we have our completed list, I'll bookmark websites and interesting resources that relate to those places. We will be reading about some of the related historical events as we drive, and then I will use field trip journals for the kids to record what they saw and learned after each stop. I hope this will be a fun way for them to look back on our trip in the future!
One Last Note
One thing I am trying to remember is not to get so rigid in our driving and schooling schedule that we miss interesting stops along the way! Sometimes those impromptu stops are full of interesting tidbits. Once I stopped along the side of the road in my own state on a whim, and read a plaque on a monument honoring one of our governors who stood against the Japanese internment camps during World War 2. I had no idea! Our summer waterfall hike was another random, side-of-the-road destination that we spotted, and it ended up being so memorable! On our trip to New Mexico, we took an hour detour to see the Manhattan Project site in Las Alamos, and it was a great learning experience. Those opportunities to stretch our legs, learn something, and make a new memory are things I don't want to miss.
I am really excited to report back on how my system for car-schooling works out, and what things I will do differently if we ever take such a long road trip during the school year again! I'll update this post and share on Instagram how it went - if it goes terribly, you can look for a future post about how we'll do better next time!
Since I've already shared most of our curriculum choices for the 2022-2023 homeschool year (except Bible curriculum, that post may be coming), I thought I would share three smaller changes I am making to our homeschooling this year.
Latin
At the end of last year, I decided to start my oldest on Latin lessons. Foreign language is one of those subject areas that scares me. Even though I took a little Spanish in high school, I remember almost nothing, except "Gracious" and "Por favor", and the only time I use those words is incorrectly in order to make my husband laugh. I read somewhere once that people whose brains have the talent for thinking in code excel at music and languages - I guess I'm not one of those people, since neither of those subjects is my forte.
It is yet to be seen if any of the kids picked up the code-thinking gene from their dad, or if they are stuck with inheriting my brain, but I decided Latin was something we would try. I think whether they go on to excel at foreign language studies or not, Latin is one of those things that will give them a good foundation for understanding many languages better, including our own!
After doing a bunch of research on Cathy Duffy's website, I decided to go with The Great Latin Adventure. The website is pretty old-looking, but don't let that fool you! This is an interesting program that comes in a PDF format, put together by a Latin teacher for use in either a school setting or in homeschools. There are no bells and whistles, no colorful flashcards or CD's. It's just bare-bones Latin instruction, where the student makes their own flashcards, does two translation worksheets a week, studies their notes, and listens to Latin pronunciation mp3 files.
What I love about this curriculum is the extensive teacher guide that goes into detail about how to teach each aspect of Latin to the student - sometimes it goes into too much detail, but it also gives me confidence that the course is thorough! It also helps that it was very affordable. I'd say the first level seems appropriate for 5th or 6th grade, though some younger kids might also be able to understand it!
Scheduling In Notebooks
The other big change I am making this year so far is using Sarah Mackenzie's spiral notebook method for planning and scheduling our homeschool week.
Planning the year all at once, or even a semester at a time, doesn't work well for me. If I plan too far out, we will inevitably get behind the pre-printed schedule, and then the schedule will feel useless and I won't look at it at all. Then books or subjects I wanted to get to will inevitably fall through the cracks.
This year, instead of planning the whole homeschool year out, I gathered my curriculum, and sat down with a weekly calendar planning page, and laid out all the subjects each kid would have to get through in an ideal week (I made a separate calendar for each child). Then I printed that sample week and pasted them into the back of plain notebooks, one for each kid.
Each week I will consult the ideal week sample schedule in the back of the notebooks, and then write a to-do list for each day of the week in each child's notebook. The kids just have to check everything off the list, and they will be done for school for that day.
Benefits of this:
-It encourages my kids to be independent, while letting me keep track of what they should be doing and what they already did.
-It helps keep me on task throughout the day, and reminds me of the things I wanted to accomplish each week so nothing falls through the cracks.
-Planning once a week (with the pre-set guides) helps me set short-term goals within a reasonable framework, and we end up getting more done.
We've been using the notebooks for a few weeks now, and it's been going wonderfully! I wish I had started keeping a homeschool to-do notebook years ago. I may write a more detailed post, with pictures and trouble-shooting in the future, so if you have any questions or comments about this system, let me know!
Working At The Kitchen Table
The last change I am making is insisting that all the kids need to do their bookwork at the kitchen table.
Some of my fondest homeschool memories were of doing my schoolwork in unusual places - the couch, the spot of sun on the living room floor, the porch, the hot tub. Because of that, up to this point I have let my kids work on their schoolwork anywhere that they like.
However, last year it become obvious that they are still just a little too young and distraction-prone to be allowed to work anywhere. They need to be where I can see them, and where I am easily accessible to help them if they get stuck.
With four kids doing serious schoolwork this year, I need to be able to help multiple kids with their work at once if I don't want the day to drag on. Ideally I'd love to work with them back-to-back on their individual lessons, giving my full attention to each child in sequence, but it's really not practical with a bigger family, and it's also not necessary. Even though it's a little exhausting for me to be on my feet all morning, circling the table to explain concepts and answer questions, it actually is manageable, not confusing (as I was afraid it would be), and much more efficient.
I'm sure the "stay at the table" rule will change in the future as my kids grow more independent, but at these ages, when they do need me to explain the lessons to them, it is so helpful to have them all in the same place, getting their work done at the same time - instead of scattered throughout the house and possibly getting distracted by toys or games!
That's all for now, though I am sure I will be making adjustments throughout the year, as always! Are you making any big changes to your homeschool this year?
Feeling...Really good about how our start to the homeschool year is going. I started using Sarah MacKenzie's notebook scheduling method, and it has honestly changed everything! We are getting SO MUCH done, way more than in years past, and it's been pretty easy to keep on top of, even three weeks into the school year. It's helping me keep the kids' work organized and not forget about things I wanted to do, and I am loving it.
Organizing...lots of clothes, and not because I'm switching to fall clothes - not yet. No, I have been sorting through everyone's drawers and packing things for a vacation to North Carolina! I wasn't sure if we would be able to take an official vacation this year (New Mexico was a long weekend trip), but we finally got everything finalized! We are going to be driving with five kids across the country, WHILE trying to homeschool in the car. Wish us luck. (I'm sounding nervous, but actually I have a pretty organized plan for carschooling, which I will share on the blog soon!)
Baking...a key lime pie, because my parents are coming over for dinner tonight. I tell you, I'm really getting into baking pies. Pies feel so domestic and homey, and they're surprisingly quick to throw together once you get a recipe down. I love it when the kids come up to the counter, peer over the edge of the dish, and then run off yelling "Mom is making a pie!" Do I want my kids to have memories of their mom making pies? Absolutely, yes.
Reading...I have really been loving the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series lately. The characters are so lovable, and the mysteries are not terrible at all. It's a cozy mystery series, but with a fun twist of being set in Botswana. I've also been listening to Skeletons On The Zahara, also set in Africa, but the complete opposite of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency in every way.
Watching...Derek and have been re-watching the documentary from the History Channel about Ulysses S. Grant. I love it just as much the second time around. It's so well-done, and it makes me reflect on how the Lord really does choose the times and places where we live (Acts 17:26) for a purpose. I don't know if Grant was a believer, but from the documentary, I know that he was mediocre at pretty much everything, barely scraping by for most of his life to support his family, and had very little gifting or talent - except in the exact qualities and skills he needed to be an amazing general and win us the Civil War. I have no doubt God placed Grant exactly where he was in history just for that purpose, and gave him the exact talents that he needed to help the country get past that dark time.
Worried...that we are going to miss the fall leaves on our trip. Usually, I was thinking we would be back in time for the peak week of leaf season, but things seem to be changing a little early this year. All the trees and bushes started getting a yellow hue a couple weeks ago, and there are some bright gold leaves popping up on the ends of scattered tree branches. Here's to hoping that the fall colors will hold off until we get back! I told Derek that we are never going on vacation in Autumn again. I get too stressed about the leaf situation.
Loving...that I think my sense of smell is mostly back. I can't remember if I've mentioned it on the blog, but my smell has been wacky since last November, which is when I'm pretty sure I actually got Covid. I really have very little trust in those tests, because we supposedly had it in September 2021, but I'm almost certain now that wasn't correct.
Anyway, I couldn't smell anything immediately after our November illness, and after a couple weeks of being very stressed about it, I started doing smell-training - which is basically choosing a scent that you know very well, and sniffing it very hard while concentrating on smelling for 20 seconds, and doing that daily until something starts to happen. I got quite a few smells back that way. (What were the first smells I worked on? Coffee, and books.)
However, for a long time, I had to be really concentrating to smell things - I couldn't just walk into a room and tell if it smelled good, I had to focus on smelling and then I sometimes could. I then had a brief period in the summer where lots of perfumes smelled completely terrible.
That weird experience lasted a couple weeks, and has mostly gone away. I can smell pretty much anything now! Sometimes without even trying! I did have to sniff-train myself to smell this scent from Bath and Body Works the other day, but it only took me a few hours to be able to smell it.
Enjoying...fall soaps. Speaking of Bath and Body Works!
Planning...on ways that I can preserve the herbs in my little herb garden before we leave on vacation. It just occurred to me that if I don't do something with them now, I'll probably return from our trip to a garden of dead herbs. I'm planning on freezing the mint leaves in ice cubes, freezing the rosemary sprigs, drying and crunching up the basil into basil flakes, hang-drying the lavender, and making mint and lavender syrups. Should be a busy couple days of work! Next year I'm going to harvest and preserve all through the summer and build up a little herb cabinet, instead of waiting until fall. I'm by no means a gardener, Derek keeps my herbs alive, but each year I get better at figuring out how to make good use of them.
A Quote
"In Christian circles there is constant talk about free salvation. It is free, thank God. But it is only free to us. God paid a great price for it. Jesus paid with His blood. It is free to us because someone else paid a great deal.
And this is why we do not work out our salvation by never doing anything that might be hard or difficult to us. We imitate Christ, and we make sacrifices for others. We do things that are hard, that cost us much, because we want our gifts to be free to others.
So imitate Christ in your giving. Do it daily, do it in as many little ways as you possibly can. Find a way to imitate Him in the folding of the laundry, in the stocking of the fridge, in the picking up of other peoples' socks. And then decide consciously that you're giving this meal, this clean room, this cheerful Christmas - that you are giving it all freely.
And much later, maybe thirty years later, you would like to see your children turn a profuit on it. You would like to see your kids taking what they were freely given and turning it into still more free giving. This is because God's story is never little. He works in generations, in lifetimes, and He wants us to do the same."
-Rachel Jankovic, Fit To Burst
I loved this quote when I read it in the context of giving freely to my children and being generous to them in various ways as we start school this fall. It was such an encouragement to me!
A Book
I've been reading a bunch of books at once, as per usual, but I just started Skeletons On The Zahara by Dean King, which is about this harrowing survival story of two men in the 1800's who were kidnapped, made slaves, and forced to travel across the desert. I also read Land Of Hope by Wilfred M McClay this morning, because I bought it a while back because I wanted to re-study American history, and then forgot about it until now.
A Bit Of Nature
The last of the summer columbines.
A Recommendation
I recently dug a Lemoncello La Croix out of the back of my pantry, and now I have declared that no one else in my household can drink them. The four remaining cans are MINE. It's a lemon-y vanilla flavor, and for some reason it really hit the spot.
A Moment Of Happiness
I took my four year old grocery shopping this past week, and she wanted to ride in the basket of the cart. I know they say not to do that, but whatever, this is America, we do what we want! She tried to stand up as I was walking toward the shelf to grab something, and I advised her to sit back down. As I turned to look at her plopping back down into the cart, she looked at me with her wide brown eyes, and asked "How did you KNOW I was standing up?" I declared that I had eyes in the back of my head, and her eyes got even wider, and she said "You do?" I, feeling a little mischievous, nodded my head and said "All mamas do."
I foolishly assumed she knew I was joking, but she was overheard by my husband later informing her siblings that Mom has eyes in the back of her head, and then trying to exercise her own back-of-head-sight skills. He texted me the story as I was leaving the gym, and I laughed to myself all the way home!
Disclaimer: After that I did clearly explain to her that I don't have eyes in the back of my head, but I am not quite sure she believes me.
History is one of my favorite homeschool subjects. It was not always so - as a homeschool student, I didn’t hate history, but I didn’t particularly enjoy it either. The curriculum we used when I was a student was thorough, but a little dry, and the real joy of history came to me more through experiences. We went on field trips to historic reenactments of pioneer times, we went to museums and historical sites on vacations, and I enjoyed reading historical fiction. My mom provided a wide range of history-related experiences for us, which made it all more real to me.
But I came to love history the most when my dad explained different historical events to me - the big picture of what happened, what these events and people meant, why they were important. There are cultural contexts and political atmospheres and real-life impacts of history that textbooks have a hard time conveying, and my dad gave all that to me when he told me the story of some historical event. He made me love history.
Because of those experiences of mine with dry history curriculum and real experiences and stories, I really wanted to take care not to suck the joy out of history for my kids. When I choose history curriculum, I try to make sure the text is written in an engaging way, and I re-tell certain aspects of history to my kids to help them understand the significance, as my dad did for me.
The three history curricula we’ve tried have been Beautiful Feet Books (Early American History primary set, K-1st grade), Master Books (America’s Story, 3-6th grade), and Notgrass History (Star-Spangled Story, 1-3rd grade), and Generations Providential History For Children collection (Taking Asia For Jesus, 3-5th grade). We also briefly used Story Of The World with our co-op, and I have opinions about it, but we didn’t use it long enough for me to write about it here.
Beautiful Feet Books
I initially was drawn to Beautiful Feet Books because it used living books to teach history, through picture books and chapter books. I got their Primary American History set about seven years ago, and we have very much enjoyed alot of the books that came with that set.
However, I am not confident in recommending them at this time, at least not for their Early American History set. The last time I looked at their website they had released a 2nd edition of the primary curriculum and changed many of the read-aloud books (there were some great ones that have been removed), de-emphasizing the founding fathers and emphasizing more minor historical figures, and including at least one controversial pick about Christopher Columbus.
My personal thoughts on teaching historical controversies (like Columbus) are this: my kids will be introduced to the Christopher Columbus controversy at some point, but I don’t think 1st grade is an appropriate time to do it. Kids at that age need heroes, and I think they need to be presented with the good and admirable aspects of history so they have some grounding before things are muddied up for them. If you don’t want to present Columbus as a hero to your kids, that’s fine, but no need to drag them into darker aspects of history at such a young age.
For that reason, I am more hesitant to recommend Beautiful Feet Books these days. I still look at their site for potential read-aloud ideas, but I do a little more research on the titles first.
Our Star-Spangled Story is the history curriculum I chose for my 2nd grader last year, as kind of a transition history curriculum from historical picture books to more of a textbook style. We unfortunately did not get very far into it because I tried to do too many history curricula at once last year, but we probably got one lesson done a week. What I enjoyed most about Notgrass was the way they included more obscure, but still interesting historical details, while still presenting the big picture and covering all the big historical names and events as well. The curriculum also comes with a great timeline book, and a book of songs from each period in American history, and my kids loved hearing the stories behind the songs! On top of that, each unit includes a fun and easy craft project, and my kids loved it when we did those! I am planning on using this more proactively this upcoming year with my 3rd grader and 1st grader, and I think we are going to really enjoy it!
Our main history curriculum starting in 3rd or 4th grade is the America’s Story series from Master Books. There are three levels covering America’s Story, and then the curriculum goes on to The World’s Story from there (we haven’t use World’s Story yet). I love this curriculum! The text is written in an engaging way (think “living book” style), and each chapter comes with a variety of worksheets with short answer questions, a drawing activity, vocabulary words, and map practice. Students are also encouraged to create a prayer book, praying for different aspects of the country that may relate to what they learned in history that week. There are also timeline pages included in the student’s book.
It’s alot of activities to choose from, so we often don’t get to them all. Usually my kids read the week’s chapter on Monday and/or Tuesday, and then do at least one worksheet each day the rest of the week, and ideally adding a note to their historical timeline (although we did fall behind on the timeline, I’ll be honest). I think alot of information is sticking for them because it’s presented in such an interesting way. My oldest will be starting on America’s Story 3 this year, and my 4th grader will be starting on America’s Story 2 (I started her on it a year early because she was so anxious to learn more). My 4th grader does get more out of it when I read the chapters aloud to her, and she enjoys history more when I am there to add my two cents. My 6th grader is old enough to do most of the work himself, and I just check over everything when he is done and talk about it with him.
Generations Providential History For Children
A really fun addition that we did as a family this year was Taking Asia For Jesus from Generations. This curriculum series is an overview of world history and geography, but it focuses specifically on Christian history and missions efforts in different areas of the world. We read so many inspiring missionary stories this year because of this curriculum! The end of each chapter also prompts us to pray for the country we just learned about, and it was so sweet to hear each of my kids praying for the people of different countries to come to know the Lord. There is a student workbook with additional geography and writing activities, but this year we just read the book aloud together and enjoyed the stories. I thought it was a great and gentle way to introduce a big-picture view of the what God is doing in the whole world through history. My oldest specifically said this was his favorite subject last year! We will try Taking Africa For Jesus this fall, and I bought the PDF of the student workbook this time so my older kids can get a little more geography practice.
My main goals for history (at these ages, it will shift as they grow) is that my kids will get a big-picture view of different historical periods, have a general knowledge of important names and events in American history and Christian history, have some experiences that will bring those things to life for them, be able to recognize how God is working through the flow of history. And finally, overall to just enjoy history! I hope we are well on our way to that.
About a month ago, I told Derek that I thought we needed to give our balcony a little facelift. We have a small balcony porch off of our master bedroom, and it's a nice place to sit and read my Bible in the morning, but I've had a vision of turning it into a summer outdoor living and movie night space. I wanted lights for ambience, and a TV mounted on the wall so we can enjoy the summer evening air while watching our shows at night.
We picked up a few things from the store, and he really has turned it into the exact sort of oasis I was envisioning. We are still working on the TV situation, but we've already enjoyed a movie night outside, and I happen to be sitting on the balcony right now, enjoying the mountain breeze as I type this post.
(The balcony in progress.)
Every morning for the last month or so I've been trying to start my day with some sort of workout. I recently realized I needed to put a little more effort into getting in shape for a variety of different reasons, and the summer is a good time to make a new workout routine a habit. Now, as we are approaching the start of the school year, I'm thinking I need to start setting my alarm earlier to see if a first-thing workout is something I can manage during the school year, or if I'll have to go back to squeezing it into the afternoon (which didn't always work that well for me, but I suppose it would still be better than nothing).
So my summer days have typically been going something like this - one of the kids wakes me up with a latte made by Derek (I know, I'm a lucky lady!), I drag myself out of bed, wash my face (etc.), and start a workout at home or head to the gym. After sweating it out, I freshen up, then I might spend some time cleaning up toys or dishes before working on a project around the house. I remind the kids to do their summer chore assignments sometime in the morning, and we have been reading a chapter of Narnia every day during lunch (or sometimes picture books on a special topic, such as sharks for Shark Week). Either in the morning or the afternoon I make time for myself to read, because summer is my most productive reading season since we are on a break from school. If I'm not reading, I'm probably baking something, or taking the kids to the library or park. Around 4, I start thinking about dinner (I need to learn to plan ahead more), and then we eat around 5:30. We might watch a show together as a family before bed (lately that would be either Alone or Shark Tank, or possibly a movie on weekends), and then we get the kids to bed around 8. Then Derek and I might watch another movie, perhaps on this lovely balcony.
This routine has been really restful, especially over the last few weeks. A part of me is dreading having to give up the summer relaxation, but a part of me is looking forward to the different rhythms that the school year brings. I can tell the kids are getting a little restless, though certain children-who-shall-not-be-named would like to put off the start of school as long as possible.
In an effort to fit in some extra summer fun over the last couple weeks, we've done some porch camping and a backyard campfire, gone swimming twice, and fishing once. Fishing was particularly lovely - the only time we could go was in the evening, and the softly lit sky reflecting on the water was so pretty and immediately relaxing. Stargazing is on the list of things to do over the next few nights, and I'm hoping to visit an aquarium or amusement park for a last hurrah of summer break. And of course I'm going to squeeze in as much personal reading time as I can before we jump back into the school year.
Today I spent time fighting with my printer, getting workbooks ready for some of our subjects. I have yet to map out a plan for how we will implement all the curricula I have, so that will be on my to-do list next week. I did, however, organize our school room and purge our curriculum cabinet before filling it with our new books, and it is always exciting seeing everything lined up, ready to go. I am most excited about incorporating the artist study portfolios from Simply Charlotte Mason into our morning time this year. I am not particularly strong in the area of art study, so it's something I think we will all enjoy learning together! We are starting the year with the Vermeer portfolio, and I think it will be wonderful to learn more artists and art pieces by name.
In between getting ready for the school year, the other goal I have for this next week is to finish my summer stack of books. Right now I am reading Persuasion by Jane Austen, and Two Truths And A Lie by Megan Mitchell Moore, and enjoying both of them quite a bit! The other books in the stack include Tears Of The Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith (part of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series), First Impressions by Charles Lovett (more Jane Austen connections), and The Bodyguard by Katherine Center (pure chic-lit fluff, and I hope it's good).
Today I filled the the kiddie pool in preparation for tomorrow, so the kids can play water games, and I can cool my feet while I sit in the hot sun with my beach hat and read on the porch. Maybe I'll even throw in a limeade for me and grape pop for the kids, and we'll make a whole summer thing of it.
Who says summer is over already? Not me.
(What does a sunflower picture have to do with math? I don't know, symmetry or something. I didn't have time to take a better picture.)
This year it became clear that we need to do something different for homeschool math.
Overall, I have been really satisfied with our math curriculum, Rightstart Math, up to this point. When my oldest was in kindergarten, a friend told me she was using Rightstart Math with her kindergartener because it included lots of games to help the kids retain the information. I knew that would be something we would enjoy, and when I did a little research on Rightstart I was very impressed. I could see that it would be a really thorough program, present the information in a variety of ways and help the student apply it through alot of manipulative use.
I also liked that it was a spiral program as opposed to mastery - meaning that instead of being stuck on the same type of math concept for weeks on end, it presents a math topic for a week or two, then moves on and circles back through the concepts, from different angles, throughout the year. I knew that would keep things a little more interesting for my kids and we wouldn’t get so bogged down in one concept, trying to “master” it before we could move on. The program would keep things moving, and I could rest assured we would come back to difficult concepts for more practice and review throughout the year.
In addition to all that, when I looked at how Rightstart emphasized teaching the student how to do math in their heads, it matched up with how I myself think about numbers. It was a perfect fit!
We have really enjoyed using Rightstart ever since 1st grade, and my kids haven’t struggled with grasping the math concepts. My kids have done really well with it, and can all do some pretty large math problems in their heads, which I think is a skill that will serve them well in life.
However, something shifted this past year, and we got to the point where it was taking one of my kids an excessively long time to finish math lessons. My child understood how to do the problems, and mostly got them right every time. However, Rightstart itself becomes much more intense as you get to higher levels. The worksheets become more complicated and require alot more abstract thinking. Though time expectations for math lessons obviously increase the older kids get, we really started to get bogged down in the complicated worksheets, and it was beginning to lead to alot of frustration on both my part and my child's.
When I started hearing "I hate math" on a daily basis, and it started to become something we both dreaded, I knew something probably needed to change. My main goal with my kids and math has always been to not push them ahead too fast - I never wanted them to get to the point where they either got frustrated and felt like they weren’t “good” at math, or ended up hating it. There is a certain level of struggle and frustration that comes with math anyway, and I don’t want to add into that unnecessarily.
Righstart is a pretty rigorous math program, and unfortunately I think we have fallen into that category of pushing too hard on math right now. So for this upcoming year, not all my kids will be doing Rightstart. I read once that around 4th-6th grade, alot of math programs end up merely repeating the same concepts in different ways, waiting until the kids’ brains catch up and grow enough to understand the more abstract concepts of algebra. So if there is a time to try something different for math, I think right now is it, before we start getting into higher math in the middle school years.
We decided to start with Teaching Textbooks for math this year, after doing their free trial for the last couple of weeks of school this past spring. It is a computer-based math program that has a tutorial for new concepts, practice problems, and periodic speed drills and review. My main thought on this is that even though it’s an “easier” program in some ways, a less intense program is actually what we need for math right now. I like how Teaching Textbooks doesn’t take all afternoon to complete. As my kids get older, other subjects are going to start to become more involved, and we don’t need to be getting so bogged down in math at this stage.
I also really like that Teaching Textbooks has built in speed drills and multiple practice problems, presented in an engaging and more lighthearted way. We are looking forward to getting through math a little quicker this year, and I think that will give us more time to grow in other areas. We may very well go back to Rightstart in the future, but for now, a less involved program is what we need! I think it will be great for us during this season.
Some of my children will continue with Rightstart Math, because I do think it provides such a great foundation of teaching kids mental math, which is something I think will serve them all well. But part of homeschooling is to know when to push ahead and when to ease up, and this is an easing up year for us. I’m looking forward to a hopefully more joy-filled homeschool year, in math and in general!
What do you use for math? Do you (and your kids) like it?
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