School Year in Review
Since summer time is here, it is time for a “year in review”, homeschool edition. We had our first year in our local Classical Conversations campus, and we loved it! I learned so much about how to better teach our children, and Bud learned so much as well. We will definitely be in CC again next year.
My goal this year was to take it slow since Bud was not technically kindergarten age, but to ease into school and spread things out gradually. We tried to do school 3 days a week, some weeks we made that goal, and some weeks we did more. It was a good way for us to ease into things. Over the course of the year, we went from doing school for 45 minutes each day to now almost two hours many days.
This is what we did, and my opinions on it:
Math - Saxon 1 – I planned to stretch this out over two years, but we will likely finish this before our new baby arrives. Bud loves doing math, and I really appreciate the way Saxon does things. There is so much repetition that he really knows the material well by the time we are done with it. Some people don’t like Saxon for the repetition, which is the very thing that makes me like it so much.
Phonics - The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading – we started the year off with Explode the Code, but I realized that it wasn’t working for us, so I switched to this curriculum. There is a ton of repetition and review with this curriculum, which is needed at this age. Bud is doing well with it, and enjoys the games and optional activities with many lessons. We will be sticking with this since we still have a long way to go.
Handwriting - Handwriting Without Tears – Bud was very interested in writing his letters, and I just let him figure it out on his own for a long time, but then I realized he was doing things the hard way. I got this little workbook and it has helped a ton. He likes working on it a lot.
Science, Geography, Timeline, History, Latin, Grammar, Fine Arts – Classical Conversations – we both had a great time learning these subjects together this year, and I am amazed at how much he (and I) learned–from all of the presidents in order, Ephesians 6, to the three laws of thermodynamics, to how to play music on his tin whistle, to identifying the continents, oceans and scores of countries on the map. While many of these things are not applicable to him yet (like the laws of thermodynamics), they are stored away in his brain on memory pegs for later, just waiting for more information to hang on it.
We’ve just started reading “The Story of the World” with Dominic, and we’re learning history all over ourselves! :) Adults need repetition too, I think! :) Did you use any particular resources for social studies? This summer I’d like to work with Dominic on country and state recognition – I suppose I could just give him a map and work with him each day but surely there is a more fun and interesting method that I could benefit from.
Way to go, Rachel! I pray this coming year is another smashing success!
Thanks so much for posting this. We’re still a few years off, but we’ve already started thinking of what we might do if we homeschooled. It’s kinda overwhelming – so I always like hearing what others do!
Hi Julia! I’m glad you are enjoying Story of the World. I am excited to start learning from it, too! As for the geography, last year we used a colorful world map and a colorful European map that our CC group provided and put in a page protector in a notebook. We would find the locations for each week on the maps and just review what they were several times together (I would find it on my map and write the letter of the name on it, he would find it on his, then we would erase and sting them with our bee-stinger finger, splat on them like fly, etc.) To review, during the week, we would find those same 4-5 locations (along with the previous weeks), by me saying, “Where is China?” and he would color it with his dry-erase marker. Other times, I would point to a location and say, “What country is this?” so that he had to be able to show and tell me. I think this is a fairly easy skill for boys since it is rather spatial. The girls in my class in our group had a much more difficult time with it. We didn’t do many bells and whistles with it, but it was Bud’s favorite subject.
Next year, our focus is on American geography (states, capitols, physical landmarks, etc.), but in future years when we focus on world geography, I plan to pick a country from that week and learn more about it together by reading about prayer needs (we have a missions book called Operation World), pray for that country, look at pictures of people from that country and try to check out a book about that country–like Rick Steve’s or something very pictorial. Those are just ideas.
I hope that helps!
I’m catching up on my blog reading. Would love to talk more with you about your explode the code experience. Sedona’s already got her letter sounds and is doing fine with 3 letter words, so we’re just going through BOB books now, but I hear so much about explode the code and have been thinking maybe that’s what I’ll use when Secora starts school…she’ll be the first one I’ll actually teach from the beginning and teaching reading scares me more than any other subject!!
Hi Kimberly! I think Explode the Code is a wonderful tool to use for practice and drilling in concepts, but I think it is lacking in some aspects. Bud sailed through books 2, 3 and 4, figuring out very quickly the words with the pictures (almost like he was cheating) and lacked the reading practice he needed along with it. The workbooks seem to move through the concepts quickly, especially as you start getting into vowel pairs. I realized we needed something else because he was not retaining the old information as well as I thought he should be with all the time we were spending on it. I think with Sugar, I will use it as a supplement to the Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading because the activities really are fun for them, but I will not use it exclusively. That’s just our experience, yours may be totally different, but I feel like we did lose some time using those books exclusively.
Yay! I LOVE having parents of older kids around to glean from. Thanks, Rachel!