2014-2015 Homeschool Curriculum

Even though we are over halfway through the year as I type this, I still wanted to have a record of our homeschool curriculum choices.  It seems late, but really, waiting this long means that I have more insight into what choices worked well for us, and which ones didn’t!

History, Bible, Readers, Read-alouds—Sonlight Core D

After completing—and loving—Cores B and C, I have to say, this year is Sonlight’s time to shine.  For one thing, their readers have caught up to Luke and Anna’s reading level.  In the previous cores, the readers were even too easy for Anna, but this year, they are right on the money for both of them.  Also, this year is the first year when everything—History, readers, and read-alouds—totally aligns.  Thus, for each part of History we study, we are totally immersed in literature set in that era.  It has been such a rich experience, and both kids have learned a ton.

I will say, though, that the reading load is no joke.  We read for at least an hour everyday, usually more.  There is no falling behind, or we’d never catch back up!  Of course, you don’t have to read every book Sonlight schedules—that’s part of the beauty of homeschooling.  But we don’t want to miss anything!

Math—Singapore Levels 2 and 3

Like Sonlight, Singapore is something we have used since the beginning of our homeschooling journey, and I see no reason to change.  The curriculum is a good fit for my children.  In the past, I have supplemented it with worksheets printed from the computer, but this year, I’m having them do the textbook exercises in their math notebook in addition to the workbook exercises.  I’ve found that together, that’s quite enough math for them!  Anna is doing Level 2, and Luke is working through Level 3, and they are both making it through just fine.

Spelling--All About Spelling, Level 2

We started Level 1 last Spring with Anna, out of desperation.  Even though it really began at the beginning, I figured that review would be good for her, since she had apparently missed some key phonics rules along the way.  She loved it, and this Fall, we moved onto Level 2.  I brought in Luke this time because there were some skills in it he hadn’t learned.  We completed the Level around Christmas, but honestly, I needed a break before moving on to Level 3.  AAS is fun, but kind of intense, what with its whiteboard and magnets and big box of flashcards.  For the second half of the year, we are kickin’ it old school with spelling lists from K12 Reader, and daily assignments like 2X’s each, ABC order, and sentences.  It’s memory-based instead of rules-based, but I think there is some value in memorizing the spelling of certain words.  Anyway, it is working well for us right now, and perhaps more importantly, it has shifted Spelling from parent-intensive to student-intensive.  It has been nice to have one more thing they can do independently.

Grammar--First Language Lessons, Level 3

First Language Lessons is also something we have used from the beginning, and it has worked beautifully for us.  The kids love the poem memorization (and are waaay better than I am at it), and I love the gentle, yet thorough introduction to grammar.  This is the first year that it has come with a workbook, and the kids are learning to diagram sentences, which makes my English-nerd-self giddy.

Science:  A Child’s Geography and R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey:  Earth and Space

I bought Ann Voskamp’s A Child’s Geography a couple years ago, but quickly realized it wouldn’t mesh with that year’s Life Science curriculum (also from R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey).  This year, I knew I would be using R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey’s Earth and Space curriculum, and it corresponded much better with the 11-week A Child’s Geography. Both books have surprised me this year.  I was surprise by just how much I liked A Child’s Geography, and also by how much RSO has ended up not working for us.  I love the concept of this curriculum:  scientific-method based, experiment-based, hands-on Science lessons that build on each other.  However, as my friend, Molly, observed, often the “experiments” aren’t really experiments, but demonstrations.  And as such, many of them are honestly too labor intensive to make them worth it for me.  In addition, I’ve had some problems getting some of them to work. 

This has left me in a jam because Science is not my forte.  It’s not something I can just “wing.”  Also, though I am a person of deep faith, I really want Science curriculum that teaches strictly from a scientific perspective.  I can add in the God stuff myself; I get uncomfortable, though, when others do it for me—and that goes not only for Science, but for any discipline.  (In fact, we are not reading a few of the Sonlight books because they put such an overtly religious slant on History, and I strongly disagree with their perspective.)

So, all that to say, I have no idea what we’re doing for Science next year.

Latin—Prima Latina

Last winter, we started Prima Latina.  The kids loved it.  They especially loved memorizing the Latin prayers, and would say the Sanctus on a daily basis.  They found the workbook a little dull, but still thought it was fun to learn words from a different language.

Fast forward to this winter, and they hate Latin with the fire of a thousand suns.  I have no idea why they’ve turned against it, but there is no mistaking their feelings.  However, I’m still totally committed to Latin, and they are just going to have to deal with it.  Plus, they know the drill:  school isn’t always fun, but I wouldn’t teach them anything that I didn’t think it was important to learn.  So while I get some sighs and grumbles about Latin, there hasn’t been anything approaching mutiny.  Yet.

We have been doing one lesson a week and are set to finish the workbook in less than a month.  I think I’m going to do review for the rest of the year (and have them memorize the last two prayers which have totally fallen by the wayside).  Then next year, we will most likely be doing Classical Conversations, and I might let that suffice for Latin.

And for Science, come to think of it.

Rounding out our curriculum are two workbooks I picked up at parent-teacher stores.  Unlike the past two years, Sonlight didn’t really have a Geography component, so I am supplementing with a workbook that, actually, I got for $3 at a dollar store.  It says for Grades 4-5, but if that’s true (and I don’t think it is), it says something about the sad state of education in America.  Anna has no problem with this book, and of course, neither does Luke.

I also picked up a workbook to start teaching the kids cursive.  They both write well now, and happily, the workbook has shifted to copying paragraphs about American History and symbols, which fits right into the rest of our curriculum.  The kids don’t love it, but they’ve gotten used to it.

So that’s our curriculum for this year.  I know we will continue with Sonlight and Singapore next year.  With Classical Conversations, though, the rest is up in the air!

Today in Homeschool News…

…Luke, for the first time, knew a history reference that not only did I not know, but that I had never heard of.  It happened while we were reading The Lewis and Clark Expedition. 

We got to this sentence:  “Major Robert Rogers, organizers of the famous Rogers Rangers, had written of ‘the Great River Oregon,’ which drained the barren lands of the sub-Arctic southward in the direction of California.”

Luke said, “Oh, I know him.  He arrested Nathan Hale.”

Huh?  I’ve never even heard of that guy! 

Just to be sure, I looked it up in what I assumed was Luke’s source later in the day:

Sure enough, it told all about Major Robert Rogers.

In other news, while the kids did their dictation, I asked them if they remembered the “w” in “answer.”  Luke admitted that he forgot, but Anna proudly said, “I remembered!”  “Wow,” I answered, “Could this be the first time that Luke misspelled a word that Anna got right?”

Then I looked at her paper:

Wow.  I especially love that the sentence she was writing was, “Ask a silly question, and you will get a silly answer.”

So true!

On the other hand, she can be kind of a Rain Man with math:

When I checked it, I asked how she did it without showing her work.  She said, “I just did it in my head.”  Ummm…okay…

If only she took math more seriously…

A Proper Snow Day

After Monday, I pretty much stopped listening to weather reports and just decided to take the weather as it came.  That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to wake up on Wednesday to see actual snow—not sleet or “freezing rain”—falling from the sky:

There was still a layer of ice, of course, under the snow, but the new snow was novel enough that the kids wanted to explore:

They played outside and sledded while I sat on the floor and had my quiet time by the window so I could watch them.  It was a beautiful, sunny day.

Afterward, I decided to venture out and do a little sledding myself.  It was the best day so far to sled, and I have to say, I heartily enjoyed myself as I zoomed down our hill, across the street, and down the neighbor’s hill. 

I also very much enjoyed spending some time with my sweet boy:

A little while later, Greg joined us and took his turn sledding:

Still going!

Of course, Anna loved the new, snow-packed sledding hill:

And even cautious Luke, who had assured the rest of us we were going to die, ended up taking a turn:).

After our sledding adventures, we went inside to warm up, and I tried my hand at making snow cream:

Luke thought I put in too much vanilla, but Anna liked it—especially with sprinkles!

Around mid-morning, we went out for a family walk in the woods.  But first, Greg said we had to take a selfie:

I love this boy:

After our walk through the woods, we decided to walk to Piggly Wiggly to get some much needed supplies, like firewood…and marshmallows and Redi-Whip:).  Man does not live by hot chocolate alone…especially on a snow day!

Then it was home to warm up by the fire…

…and have a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and homemade tomato soup!

We spent the rest of the afternoon in and out of the house, and then that evening, we had pizza and popped popcorn for a movie night.  We watched Enchanted:

It was a fun end to the day.  Everyone enjoyed it, and I’ve had this song in my head ever since.

#TeddySNOWSevelt becomes #DwightdICEnhower

All last week, we heard that the mother of all snow days could possibly be coming on President’s Day.  Of course, these predictions came cloaked in caveats, and I held off even telling the kids about the possibility of snow until this weekend because if I’ve learned anything about snow over a lifetime of living in the South, it’s that it is apparently very tricky—nigh impossible--to predict snow accurately. At the same time, the weathermen seemed quite confident this time that we would definitely get something, and it would probably be between 5 and 7 inches of snow.Since it was predicted for President’s Day, there were many cheesy hashtag puns about #Snowbama and #TeddySNOWsevelt, which I loved. 

And jusssst in case we did get snow, I thought the kids would like some friends to play with outside, so I let them each invite a friend to spend the night on Sunday.  Anna’s friend was Hadessa, and Luke’s friend was Kevin.

They had fun hanging out together that night after dinner.

I checked the forecast during the night, and it seemed like the snow predictions were shifting to ice/sleet predictions, which was a bummer.  And sure enough, we woke up Monday morning, not to fluffy white flakes floating to the earth, but pelting sleet pouring from the sky.  Anna came to me in tears saying, “We only got, like, half an inch of snow!”  Unfortunately, she was wrong:  it was sleet. 

Still, after yet another encounter with the bitter, bitter disappointment of unmaterialized Southern snow predictions, she bounced back, as she normally does:

The kids were intrigued by the hard white stuff, so even though it wasn’t snow, they went out to explore:

We got out the sled, and supplemented with laundry baskets, which worked just as well:

It’s a Southern thing:).

While they played in the pouring sleet, I made bacon, biscuits, and hot chocolate for them to refuel with when they got cold.  They bolted it down, and also warmed their feet and hands up with our heating pad:

In between their many forays outside, the kids took breaks and played board games…

…and video games:

Then…it was back out to sled!

Neither of those sleds are ours.  A couple other families came out to play in the sleet, as well, and all the sleds became communal.

During another break, we had warm cookies and milk:

Because of the treacherous conditions of the roads, there was no way to get Hadessa and Kevin home on Monday.  So we hunkered down and prepared for one more snow day:

Tuesday brought more of the same:

The kids had a blast sledding, and we even got to meet a family that lives a couple houses down the road from us.  Turns out, they also attend the church of Christ, and their kids go to a private school that a lot of our friends’ kids attend.  They have a son Luke’s age and a son in middle school, and both of the boys seemed very nice.  Luke and Nathan (their third grader) were especially ecstatic to meet another boy their age who lived so close!

As with yesterday, we interrupted the outside play with warm foods and beverages.  Particularly useful were our Keurig hot cocoa cups:

These things were a lifesaver!

The roads are better today.  Greg is taking Hadessa home, and Kevin’s dad is on his way to pick him up.  We had a great time with our friends, and even though we were sad not to get half a foot of snow, I think we did the best we could with what we had!