Y5 Year in Review (2016-2017 School Year)

Before I start planning our new year, I like to spend some time reviewing this past school year, the materials we used, and the changes we made. I'd like to share not only what I planned, but also what I ended up actually doing.  I think one of the greatest shortcomings in homeschooling blogs is that we're great at sharing all the wonderful things that we want to do and plan to do, but not so great at following up and sharing what actually worked, what we bailed on halfway through, or what sounded like a great idea but never really got off the ground.

This year was a significant departure from the last two years, where we largely used AmblesideOnline (Y3 review, Y4 review).  I’ve been listening to the Delectable Education podcasts just about from the beginning, and I’ve found them extremely helpful, encouraging, and useful.  They have vastly improved our homeschool and I have grown significantly as a homeschooling educator and mother.

In planning the 2016-2017 school year, I decided to use the scheduling cards from the ladies at Delectable Education and designed my schedule using them.  I treated each card as a bucket that I need to fill with some resource and pulled from a variety of places to fill my buckets.

Some areas are studied as a family, including composer study, nature study, and picture study.  You can read more about our selections and our year of family studies in my previous post.

Describing the boat he recently made

Subject Areas

These subject areas are from the scheduling cards I used to plan our year, not including the subjects we did as a family.

Bible

For a number of years I’ve considered our time spent reading, narrating and discussing the daily Mass readings as our Bible study time, particularly for the younger kids.  However, over time I could see that while the younger children knew individuals and certain events in the Bible and the Gospels reasonably well, they lacked a coherent overview of the Bible.  So in the second term I added 15 minutes a day to Nathan and Gregory’s where we read systematically through the Old Testament (Joshua, Judges, Ruth and part of First Samuel this year) and the Gospel of Luke (we’re about half-way through)  We’ve really enjoyed this time together, and I can see how their knowledge and appreciation for the story of the Old Testament has grown dramatically, as well as their knowledge of Biblical locations.

Resources
Bible
Student Bible Atlas
Sacred Art Series:  The Holy Gospels of St. Luke and St. John (Beautiful book!)

Copywork

Gregory continued to work on copywork in print and cursive.  I largely pulled from poetry and psalms for the first two terms of the year, but in the third term I realized he needed more practice with punctuation.  I started assigning passages from Kim, particularly ones with a lot of dialogue, to help with this.

Dictation Lesson

Dictation

Spelling is an area where Gregory struggles.  Dictation has worked well for him, but it is a slow process.  I've been using the Simply Charlotte Mason's Spelling Wisdom, which as worked well for us and is very easy to use.

In practicing the words, for most of the year I had him build the words using a movable alphabet.  This worked extremely well in getting him to slow down and to think about the sequence of the letters in the word he was studying.  Towards the end of the year we were able to graduate to having him write the words on a small whiteboard, as he had improved so much in his sequencing that the movable alphabet was starting to feel like an impediment rather than a helpful tool.

Resources
Spelling Wisdom, Book 1
Moveable Alphabet
Small Whiteboard and markers

Grammar

I've continued to use Winston Grammar with Gregory, and it has been a useful and successful program for him.  This is the only grammar program that I've actually been able to implement in our homeschool, and this is my second time through it.  I appreciate how it has lots of practice sentences for the student, and builds the concepts gradually through the lessons.  When I use it with him, I usually have him build the sentences and not mark up the sentences in the workbook.  Then we go through each word and phrase.  I would also sometimes have him copy a sentence and mark the it up using the directions in the program. At this point he's only about three lessons from the end of the first level.

Resources

Winston Grammar, Basic

Literature

Thankfully Gregory is at the point where he's reading all his assignments to himself, except for Shakespeare, Plutarch and Bible.

Resources
Age of Fable (not a favorite, and did not lead to good narrations or retention - I'm not that impressed with it either even though it is a classic...  but I'm not sure what I would replace it with)
King Arthur by Howard Pyle
Kim

Mapwork and narration, using a battlefield map

American History

Each history block also included narration and mapwork as appropriate.  I also had him look up the various battles as he read about them if he had additional time, sometimes tracing or drawing battle maps for particularly important battles.

In the first term I used America Grows Up and while I liked the quality of the writing and how the author encouraged the reader to consider some of the ideas behind the events of American History, I felt like it was really short on details.  As were were going into the second term and starting our study of the Civil War, I looked ahead in the book and found that the book covers the Civil War in 22 pages, 4 of them full page illustrations.  There's almost no details about battles of the Civil War, and little about the figures of the Civil War except Lincoln.  I thought the discussion of the ideas surrounding and influencing the Civil War was good, but I was puzzled in how to actually use the book since there were so few pages.  Did it really make sense to assign a page or two page each week?  And what else would I assign during his American history work period?

Even though the book is highly regarded in some circles, in the end I decided to put it aside and return to This Country of Ours, which we had been reading the previous two years.

Resources
America Grows Up (which I bought last June for under $10 - can't believe how much it costs now!!)
This Country of Ours
Of Courage Undaunted
Uncle Tom's Cabin for Young People
Civil War Battlefields
Lots of Historical Free Reads (see list at the end for favorites)

British History

The number of chapters in Our Island Story was a little light (15 chapters) for this time period, so I spread them out through the year and alternated with readings from three historical books and one book of historical fiction.  This worked reasonably well, and I think we liked alternating better than trying to do a little of each in the time slot.  These readings were all narrated orally and mapwork was done when appropriate.

Resources

Our Island Story

Hero of Trafalgar

Florence Nightingale's Nuns

Into the Ice

The young Colonists; a story of the Zulu and Boer Wars

Ancient History

This was an area of history that Gregory hasn't studied at all, but enjoyed quite a bit.  Each weekly reading was joined with mapwork, oral narration, and often a drawn narration as well.  Rather than having Gregory draw the maps freehand, I had him trace the maps using a light box then label them using a reference.  It was an excellent compromise between just labeling a printed map and having to do it all from scratch.  He was much happier with the results and much more confident in his mapmaking.

Resources

Book of the Ancient World by Dorothy Mills

Blackline Maps of World History

Light box

Making a topographic map of an island he created out of clay

Geography

This was scheduled twice a week, and in one session Gregory read from Halliburton's Book of Marvels and in the other we did hands-on geography activities.  In our hands on session, we explored local maps, political maps, terrain maps, and the globe through discussion and exercises.

Resources
Halliburton's Book of Marvels, The Occident
Illustrated Atlas for Young America
Various maps and a globe

Exploring with Snap Circuits

Natural History

Gregory had three natural history slots in his schedule, and each slot had a different focus.  In one he read Great Inventors and Their Inventions, narrating and drawing something from what he read.  In the third term I also had him start writing some narrations from this book as well.  This was one of his favorite books this year.

In the second slot, he read through the Christian Liberty Reader, Book 5, about the human body.  This book was not a favorite for either of us, but we made it through.  He also narrated this, both orally and in diagrams or sketches.

The third slot changed each term.  In the first Gregory read Rocks, Rivers and the Changing Earth and did most of the suggested experiments in the book.  This was another favorite of his.  In the second we sort of used Nicole William's Astronomy guide, but between me being in my first trimester of this pregnancy and an incredibly stormy winter, we didn't really do a very good job of it.  In the third term Gregory studied electricty, which was also a favorite.  He read from the Junior Science book of Electricity, did experiments from that book, built with Snap Circuits, drew diagrams and had a grand time.

Resources
Rocks, Rivers and the Changing Earth
Find the Constellations
Astronomy Study Guide
Junior Science Book of Electricity
Snap Circuits

Math

This is another area where I made significant changes.  Over the summer I heard Sonya Schafer speak about Richele Baburina’s book, Mathematics: An Instrument for Living Teaching and demonstrate what living math instruction can look like.  I was incredibly impressed and decided that this is what I needed to do with Nathan and Gregory.  I had been using MEP, but I found it difficult to break away from the worksheet mentality of it.  Gregory was going through the mechanics of what MEP was asking of him, but I could tell he didn't fully understand what he was doing.  He also seemed to be lacking in some foundational understanding of numeracy, and this was hindering him as he grappled with multi-digit multiplication and long division.

We spent the first part of the year solidifying our math foundations using techniques in Baburina’s book and running a store where the boys were practicing with a variety of math operations as well as writing receipts and keeping financial records.  After the first term, it became obvious that I needed to separate the boys for math, because something happened in Gregory's math understanding and he leaped ahead of his brother.  I shuffled the schedule and figured out how to make the time to teach them separately.  I was so thrilled to see this happen, it is one of the biggest successes of this school year.

In the second term I started to use a geometry book one day a week, which was a nice addition to his math studies.  I really like the multi-stream approach to math.

In the third term I started using the Strayer-Upton book to make it easier to come up with practice problems and such.  Pregnancy was taking a toll on my on-the-fly creativity, and I really appreciated having a straight-forward resource that I could easily pick and choose problems from as needed.

We also included some logic work a few times a week using a couple different resources.

Resources
Mathematics: An Instrument for Living Teaching
Play Money
Coins (including lots of pennies)
Strayer-Upton, Book 2
Logic Links
Tangoes
Practical Exercises in Geometry

Installing the new wheels for the garden cart

Recitation

As I mentioned in my family studies post, we added recitation into the boys’ schedule about halfway through the school year.

Selections
The Tables Turned by William Wordsworth
O Captain, My Captain! by Walt Whitman
Psalm 67
Psalm 33
Psalm 19
Gettysburg Address
Taming of the Shrew, Act 2, Scene 1 (about half of the scene)
John 15:1-11
John 10:1-16

Latin

I had used Latin for Children Primer A last year, and wasn't all that happy with it.  I wrestled with what to do quite a bit last summer, and decided I would go ahead and teach from what I know well, which is Henle.  This worked reasonably well, as we took it slow and plodded along, making progress.  However, Latin became Gregory's most dreaded subject in the process, which started to impede his learning.  In term 3 I decided that we needed to mix things up a bit and grabbed Minimus off the shelf.  This was a very welcome change, and while I didn't completely cast Henle aside, using the combination of the two books worked well and became much more effective and enjoyable (although more teacher intensive!).

Resources
Henle, Book 1
Minimus

Modern Language (Spanish)

This is an area where we’ve had a lot of transition over the course of the year.  We started with just using Speaking Spanish with Miss Mason and François, Volume 1 and including a song, a poem, and prayers in Spanish and then added in other activities such as building dictated sentences with picture cards, calendar work, vocabulary games like Simon Says, rhymes and increasing the number of songs we learned.  I’ve learned a lot from Celeste Cruz, particularly from her talk at the Conference in the Redwoods in February, and I’m looking forward to continuing to improve in this area.

Resources
Speaking Spanish with Miss Mason and François, Volume 1
De Colores and Other Latin-American Folk Songs for Children
Pio Peep!

Singing

This is another area that has seen a lot of growth.  I have been focusing on developing the boys’ sense of rhythm and beat using a variety of means.  I have done a little Sol-fa with them, but largely trying to reinforce what they are learning through the Hoffman Academy.  As an aside, Hoffman Academy has been wonderful for the boys!  We signed up for their subscription service and it is well worth the expense.  They are learning a lot, enjoying the lessons, and the scripted practice sessions are so helpful.  They have a great ear training game as well which has been a very helpful addition to their music studies.

Resources
Music at Home
Hoffman Academy

Physical Education/Drill

This was going to be the year I learned about Swedish Drill through Dawn Duran’s series…  and, then, well, it didn’t happen.  This is definitely an area that needs improvement.

A goat he whittled for his aunt's birthday

Handicraft/Work

We started doing Sloyd this year, which has been a great success.  I am coming to appreciate the importance of Sloyd in the curriculum, so much so that I’ll be speaking about Sloyd at the CMI Western Conference in July.

Gregory has really taken off with whittling, and one of his favorite pastimes is tinkering down in the shed with this idea or that.  He's retrofited a garden cart with wooden wheels, built several catapults, a wagon or two, and innumerable muskets and rifles.  We have also done some sewing together here and there, and Gregory tackled the lap loom to make some Christmas gifts as well.


Resources
Paper Sloyd for Primary Grades - if you are going to use this book, I highly recommend printing the PDF.  The book isn't that long, and if you print the PDF the illustrations in the book will not be stretched.

Amazing what he can make out of stuff that is laying around...  this is his wheelbarrow

Favorite Free Reads

I also like to include a few favorites from the year's reading.  I try to record all the books the kids read throughout the year by having them place completed books on my desk.  I also try and capture ebooks and audiobooks, but without that physical place to put the books they sometimes slip through the cracks.  As I'm doing this review, I print out the list and have the child mark their favorites.  I ask them to be discriminating and to not choose too many... but as you can see from this list, there were a lot of favorites!

Gregory has a particular fondness for historical books, but reads quite a lot of fiction as well.

• White Fang
• Little House Series
• Mr. Bell Invents the Telephone
• Fellowship of the Ring, Two Towers, Return of the King
• A Nose for Trouble (his favorite Kjelgaard book)
• Clipper Ship Days
• The Battle of Lake Erie
• The Swamp Fox of the Revolution (he's read this a number of times)
• Daniel Boone by John Mason
• The Story of Andrew Jackson
• Captain Cook Explores the South Seas
• The Golden Goblet
• Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo
• Tarzan of the Apes
• Casting the Gods Adrift
• Of Courage Undaunted
• Raccoons are the Brightest People
• Riders of the Pony Express
• Harry Potter series (books 1-6)
• John Paul Jones, Soldier of the Sea (I'm not sure I can count how many times he's read this book)
• The Cave by the Beech Ford
• St. Philip of the Joyous Heart
• The Story of King Arthur
• Rocks, Rivers and the Changing Earth
• They Flew to Glory
• Invincible Louisa
• Swiss Family Robinson
• Florence Nightingale's Nuns
• Rifles for Watie
• Across Five Aprils
• The Story of D-Day
• Lee and Grant at Appomattox
• Saint John Bosco
• Bull Run
• Stonewall Jackson
• Clara Barton
• Into the Ice
• Hero of Trafalgar: The Story of Lord Nelson
• Wyatt Earp: U.S. Marshal
• Chaplain in Gray: Father Abram Ryan
• Stormy
• The Black Pearl
• The 290
• St. Louis and the Last Crusade
• Girl of the Shining Mountains
• Geronimo: Wolf of the Warpath
• Sailing on the Ice
• Messenger from K'Itai
• Rascal
• The Story of Thomas Edison
• Roald Amundsen
• Leonardo Da Vinci (which he read in Y3, but picked up again this year)
• Simon Bruté and the Western Adventure
• Great Inventors and Their Inventions
• The Book of the Ancient World
• Commander of the Flying Tigers
• Kim

(Phew, I can't believe I just typed all that - and no, this wasn't every book he read this year!)

Some links are Amazon Affiliate links which benefit Charlotte Mason West

Year In Review: Y3 (2016 - 2017)

Before I start planning our new year, I like to spend some time reviewing this past school year, the materials we used, and the changes we made. I'd like to share not only what I planned, but also what I ended up actually doing.  I think one of the greatest shortcomings in homeschooling blogs is that we're great at sharing all the wonderful things that we want to do and plan to do, but not so great at following up and sharing what actually worked, what we bailed on halfway through, or what sounded like a great idea but never really got off the ground.

This year was a significant departure from the last two years, where we largely used AmblesideOnline (Y1 review, Y2 review).  I’ve been listening to the Delectable Education podcasts just about from the beginning, and I’ve found them extremely helpful, encouraging, and useful.  They have vastly improved our homeschool and I have grown significantly as a homeschooling educator and mother.

In planning the 2016-2017 school year, I decided to use the scheduling cards from the ladies at Delectable Education and designed my schedule using them.  I treated each card as a bucket that I need to fill with some resource and pulled from a variety of places to fill my buckets.

Some areas are studied as a family, including composer study, nature study, and picture study.  You can read more about our selections and our year of family studies in my previous post.

Checkers are always better with an audience, don't you think?

Subject Areas

These subject areas are from the scheduling cards I used to plan our year, not including the subjects we did as a family.

Bible

For a number of years I’ve considered our time spent reading, narrating and discussing the daily Mass readings as our Bible study time, particularly for the younger kids.  However, over time I could see that while the younger children knew individuals and certain events in the Bible and the Gospels reasonably well, they lacked a coherent overview of the Bible.  So in the second term I added 15 minutes a day to Nathan and Gregory’s where we read systematically through the Old Testament (Joshua, Judges, Ruth and part of First Samuel this year) and the Gospel of Luke (we’re about half-way through)  We’ve really enjoyed this time together, and I can see how their knowledge and appreciation for the story of the Old Testament has grown dramatically, as well as their knowledge of Biblical locations.

Resources
Bible
Student Bible Atlas
Sacred Art Series:  The Holy Gospels of St. Luke and St. John (Beautiful book!)

Copywork

Copywork was sort of a hodgepodge this year, a combination of pages from Classical Copywork, the Simply Charlotte Mason print to cursive book, and copywork assigned from his recitation work.  I continued to make copywork books with my ProClick, which worked well.

Resources
Classical Copywork
Simply Charlotte Mason Print to Cursive Proverbs
ProClick

Literature

I read all of these out loud, except for the Uncle Tom’s Cabin for Young Folks.

Resources
D’Aulaire’s Greek Myths
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children
American Tall Tales
Uncle Tom's Cabin: Young Folks' Edition
Jungle Book

American History

This year I decided to switch Nathan’s history to an American focus and I lined up his historical period with his older brother’s.  We used to study the same historical time period as a family, and that’s one of the things I’ve missed in the two years we spent largely following AmblesideOnline. I don’t think it has to be this way, but it is definitely our family’s preference.  This was scheduled twice a week, and once a week he would read from the spine, and the other from one of the other books listed (in succession).  Each history block also included narration, mapwork as appropriate, and occasionally a drawn narration.

This is the second time I've used American History Stories as a spine, and while there are some things I like about it, namely the quality of the writing and the variety of stories included, I feel like it also can be a little long-winded and it definitely contains some inappropriate references to people of other races.  Like last time I skipped some chapters and it worked out reasonably well.

I read aloud American History Stories in the first and second terms, then let Nathan read it to himself in term 3.  He read all the other ones himself.  It was a little challenging to find good books at his reading level, particularly since his reading level changed so dramatically over the course of the year.

Resources
American History Stories, Vol. 3 (partial) & Vol. 4 - spine
Sacajawea
Walking the Road to Freedom
Riding the Pony Express
Abraham Lincoln:  For the People
Gettysburg: Tad Lincoln's Story by F.N. Monjo
Stonewall Jackson

Geography

This was scheduled twice a week, and for the first two terms I read from Elementary Geography in one session and we did hands-on geography activities in the other.  In our hands on session, we explored local maps, political maps, terrain maps, and the globe through discussion and exercises.  In the third term, we finished Elementary Geography and I had him read, narrate and do mapwork with Paddle to the Sea.

Resources
Elementary Geography by Charlotte Mason
Illustrated Atlas for Young America
Various maps and a globe

Cataloguing everything he could see within a circle of string in his nature journal

Natural History

This year Nathan read through A Drop of Water and did the experiments in the first half of the year and then focused on astronomy in the second half of the year.  In his astronomy study, he made drawn narrations as well as oral narrations, and towards the end of the year I had him add a sentence, either copied or composed, to his drawn narrations.

Nathan also read several nature lore books over the course of the year as well.

Resources
A Drop of Water
Fun with Astronomy by Mae and Ira Freeman 
Our Solar System by Seymour Simon (not my favorite planets book, but the best of what I had - I’d like to find a better one though!)
Trees and Shrubs
Plant Life in Field and Garden
Pagoo
Secrets of the Woods

Working on Logic Links with our shop receipts in the foreground

Math

This is another area where I made significant changes.  Over the summer I heard Sonya Schafer speak about Richele Baburina’s book, Mathematics: An Instrument for Living Teaching and demonstrate what living math instruction can look like.  I was incredibly impressed and decided that this is what I needed to do with Nathan and Gregory.  I had been using MEP, but I found it difficult to break away from the worksheet mentality of it.  Nathan was largely plodding along, not really stimulated or engaged because the material was too easy for him.  But I didn’t really know how to jump him forward in MEP or how to make that program work for him.

We spent the first part of the year solidifying our math foundations using techniques in Baburina’s book and running a store where the boys were practicing with a variety of math operations as well as writing receipts and keeping financial records.  After the first term, it became obvious that I needed to separate the boys for math, because my 5th grader made a huge leap forward (more on that in his post!) and I started doing that subject individually.

In the third term I started using the Strayer-Upton book to make it easier to come up with practice problems and such.  Pregnancy was taking a toll on my on-the-fly creativity, and I really appreciated having a straight-forward resource that I could easily pick and choose problems from as needed.

We also included some logic work a few times a week using a couple different resources.

Resources
Mathematics: An Instrument for Living Teaching
Play Money
Coins (including lots of pennies)
Strayer-Upton, Book 1
Logic Links
Tangoes

Recitation

As I mentioned in my family studies post, we added recitation into the boys’ schedule about halfway through the school year.

Selections
Lucy Gray by Willam Wordsworth
Bivouac on a Mountain Side by Walt Whitman
Psalm 67
Psalm 33
John 15:1-11
John 10:1-16

Reading with his beloved guinea pigs, Portia and Bianca

Reading

Nathan made the jump into reading fluency this year (hooray!!) and went from moping around in November, complaining, “why does Gregory want to read all the time?  Why won’t he play?” to by March being so deeply immersed in whatever he was reading that he could tune out everything around him.  At this point I’m having to set limits on how much time he reads, otherwise he’d barely put the book down!

Modern Language (Spanish)

This is an area where we’ve had a lot of transition over the course of the year.  We started with just using Speaking Spanish with Miss Mason and François, Volume 1 and including a song, a poem, and prayers in Spanish and then added in other activities such as building dictated sentences with picture cards, calendar work, vocabulary games like Simon Says, rhymes and increasing the number of songs we learned.  I’ve learned a lot from Celeste Cruz, particularly from her talk at the Conference in the Redwoods in February, and I’m looking forward to continuing to improve in this area.

Resources
Speaking Spanish with Miss Mason and François, Volume 1
De Colores and Other Latin-American Folk Songs for Children
Pio Peep!

Singing

This is another area that has seen a lot of growth.  I have been focusing on developing the boys’ sense of rhythm and beat using a variety of means.  I have done a little Sol-fa with them, but largely trying to reinforce what they are learning through the Hoffman Academy.  As an aside, Hoffman Academy has been wonderful for the boys!  We signed up for their subscription service and it is well worth the expense.  They are learning a lot, enjoying the lessons, and the scripted practice sessions are so helpful.  They have a great ear training game as well which has been a very helpful addition to their music studies.

Resources
Music at Home
Hoffman Academy

Physical Education/Drill

This was going to be the year I learned about Swedish Drill through Dawn Duran’s series…  and, then, well, it didn’t happen.  This is definitely an area that needs improvement.

Working on making an insulated sleeve for his backpacking mug

Handicraft/Work

We started doing Sloyd this year, which has been a great success.  I am coming to appreciate the importance of Sloyd in the curriculum, so much so that I’ll be speaking about Sloyd at the CMI Western Conference in July.

Nathan was also introduced to crochet and whittling, and we spent some time improving his sewing skills as well.  Even though handicrafts is supposed to be in the morning schedule for a Form 1 student, I found it easier to do this in the afternoon with his older brother.  I have also started to include more dry brush work in Nathan’s work, assigning that as the medium for a drawn narration or a nature journal entry.

Resources
Paper Sloyd for Primary Grades - if you are going to use this book, I highly recommend printing the PDF.  The book isn't that long, and if you print the PDF the illustrations in the book will not be stretched.

Getting ready to start a paper sloyd project

Drawing Practice

I started the year using Bruce McIntyre’s Drawing Textbook as we were using that last year, but Nathan really disliked it. I finally decided to switch to some other drawing books we owned, because it didn’t seem like that book was worth making him dread drawing practice time.  Since we switched this has been a much more successful and happier experience for both of us.

Nathan reading to his two younger siblings

Favorite Free Reads

I also like to include a few favorites from the year's reading.  I try to record all the books the kids read throughout the year by having them place completed books on my desk.  I also try and capture ebooks and audiobooks, but without that physical place to put the books they sometimes slip through the cracks.

This has been a big year for series for Nathan, as he's gained reading fluency.  Some favorites:

• Happy Hollisters
• Boxcar Children
• Bobbsey Twins
• Harry Potter (Books 1-4)
• Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
• Cleary's Ralph books
• Enright's Melendy books
• And in May he fell into a Redwall hole and read very little else since then!

Some non-series favorites

• Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
• Frankel Mouse
• Civil War Spies
• The Monitor and the Merrimac
• Black Ships Before Troy
• The Green Ember & Ember Falls
• Ginger Pye and Pinky Pye
• Babe: The Gallant Pig

Year In Review: Family Studies (2016 - 2017)

Before I start planning our new year, I like to spend some time reviewing this past school year, the materials we used, and the changes we made.  I'd like to share not only what I planned, but also what I ended up actually doing.  I think one of the greatest shortcomings in homeschooling blogs is that we're great at sharing all the wonderful things that we want to do and plan to do, but not so great at following up and sharing what actually worked, what we bailed on halfway through, or what sounded like a great idea but never really got off the ground.

So, with that in mind, here's my synopsis of our Family Studies.

(Previous Years' Write-ups can be found here)

Subjects We Study as a Family

In our family studies, we tackle subjects together at set times during the day.  Some of my children will have additional readings or work in these areas, and some will do all their work in this area with the family.  Our family studies include:

Natural History and Nature Lore
California History
Lives of Saints
Picture Study
Hymns
Folk Songs
Poetry
Plutarch
Shakespeare (we studied Shakespeare with a group of other families in the fall and spring)
Memory Work **
Literature
Nature Study and Journaling
Composer Study

Morning Time

We decided to move our Morning Time to 8 am this year, which was definitely more 8-ish than I would have liked.  However, we still managed to keep to that fairly well, even through my first trimester.  In our Morning Time we would:

• Pray the Morning Offering
• Chant a psalm
• Sing a hymn
• Read something about the day's saint (if there was one) and discuss
• Read, narrate, and sometimes look up maps or commentary for the Mass Readings of the day
• Take turns praying for various intentions
• Sing another hymn
• Read a poem
• Do our memory work for the day **
• Do an additional activity, such as Picture Study or Composer Study.  I did these on the days when we started (closer to) on time, usually doing something with Composer Study a couple times a week and Picture Study once a week (although I accidentally dropped Picture Study for part of the year).
• Sing a folk song or two

Poetry

For poetry this year we read Hiawatha by Longfellow, and selected poems from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and William Wordsworth.  Robert Service is our summer poet.

Memory Work (**)

We stopped doing memory work this year and switched to individual recitation instead.  I have been very frustrated for awhile with how our memory work was going.  I had one student who did an excellent job, one who generally mumbled along and sort of knew the material, and one that barely participated at all.  It was too time consuming to try and have each child say the material individually, and taking turns didn’t seem to give enough review to make progress on the work, particularly for the mumbler and non-participant.  I also tried setting and reminding them of the expectations for participation but it didn’t amount to any sort of longer term improvement.  It really didn’t seem like our memory work time was cultivating good habits, and I spent some time considering what I was trying to do with this time, and what my goals were, as well as what this sort of work looked like in Charlotte Mason's schedule.

After a lot of consideration, I decided to add a period of recitation to my younger students’ schedule, and assign a particular type of recitation to each work session.  It was a little tricky getting them to understand what they were supposed to be doing during this time, but after couple months it started to go fairly well and I think it has been a positive change.  However, recitation has not become a regular part of my oldest student's afternoon or evening, unless she has a particular piece she wants to memorize.  I think she misses this memory work time and laments that the pieces she once had memorized are slowly drifting away.

Picture Study

Term 1 - Peter Paul Rubens
Term 2 - Winslow Homer (started mid-way through the term)
Term 3 - Winslow Homer (finished mid-way through the term)

After finishing our picture study of Winslow Homer, I neglected to move to the next artist.  We continue our Morning Time through the summer though, and I think I’ll go ahead and do that picture study over the summer.  I had planned on studying Monet, and I have one set of the images from Simply Charlotte Mason on hand, but I need to either order more copies or set up the images on the iPads so everyone can have their own.  I’ve found it works so much better that way, but it also creates an obstacle for actually doing it, because I have to remember to set it up!

Composer Study

Term 1 - Dvorak
Term 2 - None
Term 3 - Wagner, Ring Cycle and The Book of Great Musicians: A Course in Appreciation for Young Readers

I dropped Composer Study in the second term, as that was the term that overlapped with my first trimester and I needed to do less.  In the third term I started an ambitious study of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, which we are still working through.  We are alternating between reading a bit from a retelling of the opera and listening to a few tracks from Wagner’s Ring Motifs.

Nature Study

This year we had a couple new things happen in our nature study.  We started doing nature study as a family on Sundays and we also started a monthly nature study group that meets about an hour away from where we live.

Weekly nature study as a family has been very rewarding.  On most Sundays, we go to Mass, have a little down time while my husband enjoys his morning coffee, then we take a walk.  We either journal as part of our walk, or we will do an activity from John Muir Laws once we get home.  Having the whole family involved and journaling has been a lot of fun, and a great family activity.

Our monthly nature study group has been a great addition as well.  The previous year I had tried to get one started closer to where I live, but with no success.  Driving an hour isn’t the greatest, but if it means we actually can meet up with other families - CM families, no less! - it is definitely worth it.

Lunch Time Reading

I either eat beforehand (if I was particularly on top of things that day - this didn't happen often!) or I eat a bit while the kids recapped the last reading and then more while they narrated.  An unexpected bonus of this was that it encouraged my older kids to be more helpful with the youngers.  If there was a problem, they were expected to hop up and clean up a spill, get a refill or seconds, or help clean up a younger child so I could keep reading.  Previously that had always been my job, and I think practicing this sort of responsiveness to other people's needs has been good for them.

I allow the child of the day to pick what we're reading off of whatever is currently available on the list.  A book cannot be picked again until a selection from all the books have been read.  With five kids, it works very nicely to delegate a child per day.  This child gets to light the prayer candle, pick the lunch reading, lead the Divine Mercy chaplet (if old enough) and do other little things on their day.  And it is extremely cute to hear my three year old pick Plutarch for the read aloud!

In our rotation this year, we had five books and this which worked out well.  Some weeks we would read all five, but sometimes we would only get to three or four.  But since there weren’t as many as there were last year, we were generally able to keep moving along in each book often enough that we didn’t forget what was happening when we read last.

Books in Our Rotation

Plutarch - Titus Flamininus and Phyrrus, both using Anne White's Plutarch Project Guide
Natural History - The Wild Muir, One Day On Beetle Rock (still reading)
California History - Jessie Benton Fremont: California Pioneer, The Shirley Letters (still reading)
Faith - The Royal Road (finishing from last year), First Communion by Mother Mary Loyola (still reading)
Music/Art - The Well Tempered Listener (still reading)

Evening Time

Once I was pregnant, our rather robust evening time that we enjoyed together went by the wayside.  We moved our read aloud to after dinner which worked really well until allergy season started and my husband couldn’t real aloud anymore.  That, coupled with the lengthening day and the prospect of playing outside a bit after dinner too, has made this read aloud time pretty spotty.

We still read poetry, picture books, and a Bible story to the two little ones (5 and 3, at this point) and we all seven pray together before putting the two younger ones to bed.  After the littles are in bed, the bigger kids read and I tackle my pre-reading for the next day.  If it isn’t a school day the next day, sometimes some of us will play a game together.  I miss the Great Courses lectures and drawing time, but trying to do those things and the pre-reading and getting to bed early enough for my pregnant self was more than I could handle.

This Year's Family Studies Favorites

The Wild Muir
Old Squire’s Farm
Johnny Reb
My Side of the Mountain
Jessie Benton Fremont: California Pioneer
The Well Tempered Listener  (the older two in particular)
One Day On Beetle Rock

(Amazon Affiliate links are used in this post, benefiting Charlotte Mason West)

Homeschool Planning Thoughts (way) after the Feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel, 2016 Edition

This is the fourth year I've prayed the Novena in honor of Our Lady of Good Counsel, asking specifically for wisdom and guidance as I consider our next school year.   Each year I've found this an excellent and clarifying experience, and it has become an essential part of my homeschool planning process.

This April was a particularly busy one for me as I planned and helped lead a retreat, finished the spring Shakespeare session, had my work-from-home husband away for a conference, and prepared for and traveled to a family wedding.  I still diligently prayed the novena, but I didn't feel like I had time to process what God was telling me during this time.

As I continued to consider this experience over the last few months, the message gradually became clearer and clearer, and as I re-read what I wrote last year and the year before, I can see how it fits into the continuum of what I have learned before.  The phrase that kept coming into my mind was the idea that "education consists of books and things".

Now the word "things" is not particularly profound, and it is both vague and encompassing.  I've heard Sonya Shafer talk about this idea, and I think that's why this particular phrase kept coming back to mind.  We've certainly improved over where we were a couple years ago, but there is still room for improvement.  For example, my kids could be more physically fit and active. There's also more work we should be doing with our readings beyond narration, and we should be making more of an effort to do that.

In considering how to move forward, I realized that a couple things needed to change.  I needed to figure out how to free up more time in my children's day so they could have that ample free time that the students in Charlotte Mason's schools had, and I needed to figure out how to maximize the work they were doing in each of their lessons so we can get the most out of our books and other work.  It is easy to get stuck in the read and narrate rut, and pass over the other sorts of work the students in the Charlotte Mason paradigm are supposed to do as well.  Narration is certainly the cornerstone of the child's work, but it is not the only work she expected from the students.

Studying my Form 1 and Form 2 schedules to make sure I wasn't double-booking myself and trying to make sure it all made sense.

In the end, and after re-listening to a number of the Delectable Education podcasts and re-reading Nicole William's scheduling series, I decided to move to a completely schedule based system.  My books would be picked such that they filled the blocks of time I have set out for the different subjects, and if the book didn't fit into that block, then it would move to the free reading shelf or it wouldn't get used at all.  I believe this will keep me from that subtle booklist and activity creep that gradually makes the day longer and longer.  I'm so good at thinking, "oh, why just do this twice a week?  Let's  do it every day!"  Or, "this would be a great book to add, why not add this one in too?  It is just one more book..."  The scheduling cards from A Delectable Education were extremely helpful with this endeavor.  There was something about working with physical cards that made the process much easier, more creative and actually even enjoyable.

The other piece of the puzzle is procedure lists.  I need to communicate clearly what I expect from my children in the course of their lessons.  And I need to have a clear idea of that myself!  We need to move beyond a simple read and narrate model, which is all we had time for (barely!) when we had so many books.  We'll still have that wide and varied curriculum that Charlotte Mason's philosophy is so known for, but I anticipate fewer assigned books in our core school time and more books on the free reading shelf and sprinkled throughout our week.

What Our School Days Look Like Now

Due to my astonishing lack of energy, our highly structured school days had to change.  I have shifted from a very Mason inspired structured day to a much looser and freeform checklist for Emma (11 - 5th grade) and Gregory (7 - 1st grade).  Lessons are definitely taking longer, as they no longer have the schedule and the momentum of the day keeping them moving reasonably smoothly through their various subjects.  The school day is also more scattered, a little school here, a little running around, a little more school, some time outside, and back to the schoolwork.  For the most part the work is being completed, although sometimes things bleed into the next day(s).  I have continued to leave Friday without a checklist (it used to be our Fine Arts and Nature Day, but that has gone by the wayside too) and we tend to take on a garden project, finish up lingering checklist items, and I do math and reading practice with Gregory.

The biggest difference in our school day is the lack of read-alouds.  For whatever reason, reading aloud makes me extremely nauseous.  I've never had this happen before, and I'm not sure how to adjust.  I'm making a supreme effort to still read Gregory's school assignments with him, but I'm not even able to do that twenty minutes or so every day.  We bought the kids inexpensive MP3 players so they could still hear good literature, but it has thrown a monkey-wrench in many of our family studies.  They generally listen to their players for awhile after lunch, and again in the evening as they are doing their after dinner chores.  We were in the midst of a number of good books together, and they have all been put aside for the last month and a half while I've been in the throes of the first trimester.  We've also had to stop our morning time, because if I do morning time with the kids, I then have to go back to bed and cannot help Gregory with his math or anything else.  Seriously.  Since I'm generally going to bed hours earlier than the kids, I'm no longer available for evening prayer either.   My husband is generally reading the kids a bedtime story, so at least they are getting a little bit of reading aloud around here!

Thankfully, it is spring and the kids are having a wonderful time with all their time available outside.  Now that I'm not reading out loud for about two hours a day and we're no longer involved in any outside activities, the hours out of doors, while never skimpy around here, are now vast.  They've built forts, planted seeds, fought the Hessians and the British (many times - they alternate between watching an episode of the Magic School Bus or Liberty's Kids during lunch), learned about new insects and plants, and just generally had a marvelous time running around.

My hope is that in another couple of weeks I'll be feeling stronger and less nauseous (please, Lord?) and we'll pick up morning time and our read alouds again.  The kids will largely be done with their other studies, but I think they'll enjoy spending an hour or so together in the morning and maybe another half an hour in the afternoon, reading, listening to music, and praying as a family.  I think it will   be nice to bring the kids together like that, even during the summer, and it will help relieve my conscience regarding my dereliction of duty this spring.

And moving forward?  Will I stay like this or go back to our daily schedules?  Really, I don't know.  I can't see myself going back to schedules until at least next spring.  I have a feeling I'll continue with checklists for the next school year and re-evaluate next summer.

The First Week Back

We started back to school on January 7th.  All in all, it was a decent week.  Our lessons were completed, meals were made, some housecleaning was accomplished.  New read alouds were started and old ones were picked up without feeling the gap hardly at all.  Narration is truly and amazing, simple, and effective tool for creating lasting memories!  I made a few small changes to our schedule, to give recitation a firm place in the morning and to order the early afternoon a little better.  I wanted to make sure we all had some time for quiet activity, our afternoon family read aloud, a little more reading practice for Gregory and a read aloud for the boys, and some time for a little more school work.

At this point, our afternoon schedule looks as follows:
1:00 pm - Quiet time - we listen to an audiobook (currently Heidi) and we do quiet play or handicrafts
1:20 pm - Family read aloud in US History.  We just started Across Five Aprils.
1:40 pm - Reading practice for Gregory (7), then I read to the boys.  Emma (10) does either Greek or Latin.
2:00 pm - Mon:  Faith and Life online (Emma), Play (Boys)  Tues:  Science - chemistry (mainly for Emma, but the boys often watch and join in)  Wed:  Programming with my husband (Emma), Science for the boys (We're working our way through A Drop of Water, doing most of the experiments)  Thurs:  Science (Emma),  Faith and Life online (Gregory)  Friday:  Weekly meeting (Emma), Play (boys)

We finish sometime between 2:30 and 3:00, and so far this is all going well.  What is not going well is, well, me.  I started exercising in the morning during our Christmas break, and during break that was great.  I was invigorated by the twenty minutes I was out there, running and walking, and I had figured out how to disappear for that amount of time and still have it work for rest of the family.  But then once I started school up again, I found that my body couldn't handle the exercise and the demands of my daily schedule.  My daily step count went from approximately 11,000 on Monday to 3,000 on Thursday, as I barely limped along, trying to get done the school work and the bare minimum around the house.  It was frustrating and disappointing, and I already miss the running.  But it is more important that I am functional through the rest of my day than for me to be out running for 20 minutes, as much as I like to run and would like to run in a 5K this spring.  But I think my hip and back pain is a strong sign that my body isn't capable of doing all that.  I am prone to hip pain, and I can add running (when combined to my regularly life) to the list of things that cause it, along with wearing pants (weird, I know), kneeling for more than a couple minutes, and carrying kids on my hip.  It makes me feel old, running into these physical limitations like this.  I keep whining in my mind, "but it isn't like I'm trying to train for a marathon!  It isn't like want to climb Mt. Everest! (or even Mt. Rainier!)  Why can't I do this?"  Yesterday I read Jennifer's recent post, and this part in particular helped me to think about the whole situation in a new light.  Here's the quote:

I’m not immune to the occasional pang of “I’m getting old!” thoughts that probably plague most citizens of our youth-obsessed society. MTV culture tries to paint aging — or illness, or disability, or any condition other than being young and healthy — as a great limiting of options. Alas, you can no longer [insert description of supposedly glamorous activity]. That’s for people who are [younger / healthier / prettier / wealthier] than you are. But the truth, which I understand with such great clarity after all I’ve been through in the past week, is that if your plans were not love-driven in the first place, then they were the kind of stupid, time-wasting plans that people shake their fists and rue through tears on their deathbeds; and if they were love-driven, then there are no worldly circumstances that could prevent you from executing them, even if the details change a bit.

And this made me think more about my goal.  Do I really want to run a 5K (or any other arbitrary distance in an organized event) or am I trying to build and maintain some level of physical fitness so I can enjoy the outdoors with my family?   Which one of those goals is love-driven, and which one is the stupid, time-wasting plan I'm likely to shake my fist at?  I think the answer is pretty obvious!

To this end, I've decided to try something new.  I'm still going to go out when I was running, but this time I'll walk and I'll invite anyone in the family to join me.  I expect some mornings I won't have much company, but I think on others I will have lots.  And I think on those mornings I won't go as far or as fast, but that's ok too.  We'll be together, our bodies will be moving, and we'll get the chance to experience the frosty mornings together.  Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make a bunch of  fleece neck warmers!

A Day in the Life: A More Typical Day

As I look over my notes from today, I'm both gratified to have done this and a little intimidated at the thought of typing it all up!  It is a busy and full life, but it is a wonderful one too.  And seeing my day scrawled out on this piece of binder paper next to me brings this home in a way I hadn't expected or experienced.  And I'm so glad to have the pictures that go with this day too.

Here's a quick summary of where the time went:

Reading out loud (mostly for school, includes narrations):  1 hr, 55 min
Prayer (alone and with kids, includes spiritual reading):  1 hr, 20 min
Cleaning:  50 min
Laundry:  30 min
Dishes:  1 hr, 15 min
Exercise:  1 hr, 5 min
School (in addition to reading out loud):  2 hr, 5 min
Personal (personal hygiene, email, blogs):  55 min
Personal learning:  30 min
Cooking:  2 hrs
Eating:  1 hr, 30 min

And overlapping with many of these things...  time spent with a 13 month old on my back:  5 hrs, 45 min!

6:19 - Up, praying morning prayer, Magnificat and Letter to the Hebrews

7:00 - Dressed, ready for the day, and downstairs.  Rolling out dough for donuts (because we're into healthy eating around here, folks!  Actually, this is a surprise treat for everyone - usually donuts are only done as a birthday breakfast around here.  The dough was made last night and rested in the fridge overnight)  Frying donuts, making chocolate glaze (might as well go all out!)

7:20 -  Breakfast.  Read Matt's latest NaNoWriMo installment, chatted with Matt and the kids.

8:00 - cleanup, sweeping, read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Nathan.  Yesterday Emma was doing Alphabet Path with him and they did an activity about the life cycle of a caterpillar.  Nathan was so excited to see that we had a book all about this very subject!

8:25 - Trying to decide if I should change Justin or squeeze in my consecration reading.  Decided to change his diaper, then handed him off to Emma for dressing.  Read 33 Days to Morning Glory.

8:40 - Started prayer with the kids - Mass Readings, narration

8:55 - Justin goes in the Ergo.  Memory work for everyone, including me!  I'm working on the new translation of the Nicene Creed, Emma is working on "To be or not to be..." from Hamlet and Mark Antony's funeral oration from Julius Caesar.  Gregory is working on At the Zoo by A.A. Milne.  We also reviewed work they already know.

9:05 - World History read aloud - Augustine Goes to Kent, narrations

9:15 - MEP math with Gregory (or since it is from the UK, I should probably call it MEP maths) Lesson 48, Year 1.  Love this program - such a great combination of hands on, logic, problem solving, review, facts practice...  and it is free.  What a wonderful find, I couldn't be more pleased with it.  Emma did reading, Stack the States app for map practice, and XtraMath for math facts practice.  Nathan was crazy for a bit, then settled down to instrument 3 part cards, then building with sticks and blocks.  I practiced counting and grouping with him as Gregory worked on problems by himself.  Gregory also did the Dot to Dot app for some skip counting practice.

9:55 - Recess.  The boys played ball and Emma and I walked while she narrated from St. Columba by Forbes and Life in Celtic Times (not really narrated from this - more talked about pictures that she found most interesting)  Visited briefly with the UPS guy (delivered our new router, yay!) and my father-in-law.

10:20 - Copywork and weather observations for Gregory, and reading practice with his reader and with the movable alphabet.  Emma worked on Delta, and Nathan worked with letters.  I wanted him to do some letter cards, but he was much more interested in the letter magnets.  I bugged him a little bit, then seeing he was working industriously I let him work.  He fished out all the square letter magnets, carefully lined them up ("N leads the way on the happy parade!") then rearranged the magnets on the board to spell his name again.  Gregory wandered over to spell his name with magnets, then went back to his work.  After this Nathan seemed ready for another activity, so we did the letter cards together - he has the sounds for about half the alphabet at this point.

10:50 - Snack prep.  Half a homemade sourdough whole wheat bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon, sliced pear.  (see, it isn't all donuts around here!)

11:00 - Snack and read aloud.  Today it is Tree in the Trail.  Discussion and narration.

11:15 - Read from Abraham Lincoln to the boys, nursed Justin.  Narration.

11:35 - Boys out to play.  Quickly typed Emma's freewrite from Monday (she was retelling a fairy tale from another character's perspective).  Discussed with her how to expand and improve it, helping her to find some places to add description and dialogue.  Left Emma to flesh out her writing.

11:45 - Huge diaper change.  Happier baby.

11:55 - From Emma:  "Mom, it is fun to write giant-talk, especially when they are arguing!"  Justin is back in the Ergo, and I'm picking up from snack.

Noon - Angelus.  We gathered outside to pray with the boys.  Took lunch orders.  (PB&J for two, quesadilla for one, Leftover chickpea and veggie curry with rice for Justin and me.  Apples for all.)  Working on lunch, chatting with Matt.

12:15 - Justin is asleep, but wouldn't transfer to his crib.  Back in the Ergo he goes.

12:40 - Starting laundry, finally serving lunch.  We watched a video from Discovery Streaming about Salmon spawning in preparation for our fish hatchery tour on Friday.

1:00 - Clean-up, Emma has programming class with Matt.

1:15 - Reading to the boys.  A River Runs Wild, Sword in the Tree, A Drop of Water.  Gregory also read for about 15 minutes.  Justin went in the Ergo at about 1:30 and I read while pacing.

1:55 - Water dispersion experiment - was supposed to be just the boys, but Emma wanted to join in.  Justin is finally(!!) asleep and transfered to his crib this time.  Phew!

2:10 - American History read aloud, Judith Lankaster

2:35 - Read Captain Small to Nathan

2:45 - Boys out to play again, I start a Rosetta Stone Spanish lesson.  Emma is finishing up some of her schoolwork then goes outside for awhile to boss around play with the boys.

3:10 - Briefly check email, answered one

3:15 - Folding laundry, doing dictation with Emma.  She's trying to populate her recipe box with recipes she likes, so I dictated a pulled pork recipe for her to record on an index card.

3:30 - Justin is awake and crabby.  I nursed him and read blogs.

3:55 - Justin goes in the Ergo while I put away laundry, put up chores, and got ready for a walk.

4:10 - Walked the deer path at the top of the property down to the 30 acre property and back by the road with Emma, Nathan and Justin.

Alas, poor Yorick...

4:50 - Cleaning chores - dusting, cleaning a few windows.

5:10 - Dinner prep.  I made a double batch of chicken and black bean enchiladas, one for tonight and one to freeze.  I also added diced tomatoes, bell pepper and onions to some plain brown rice from Monday night and made a salad.

6:25 - Dinner is finally ready.  I was tired and not moving as quickly as I usually do.  Thankfully Matt came down and helped at around 5:30.  He also rode herd on the kids as they did their cleaning chores and picked up.

7:00 - Dinner is over, time to do dishes.

7:40 - Dishes are done, kids are in PJs and Matt is reading Little House in the Big Woods to the boys.  Emma is helping with Justin.

8:00 - Bedtime for the boys.  I say prayers with the boys in their room, then nurse Justin while I pray the Rosary.

8:30 - All the boys are asleep.  Whew!  I had a little dessert (a piece of cake that Emma made), made some tea, added up some numbers and started typing this.  And now it is 9:30.  And now that I've dumped photos, made some photo collages, and uploaded photos, it is 10:15!  I'm not sure I'll be doing this very often...  but still, I'm glad I did.  I enjoyed creating this.  I hope someone has enjoyed looking at it!

Term 4 Weekly Schedule Sample

I was recently involved in a discussion online about how to schedule out our children's schoolwork.  I offered to share a sample of what I started doing in our fourth term for my 3rd grade daughter.  I wanted to help her to work more independently and I wanted to force myself to be a little more on top of my weekly plans.

To give credit where credit is due, I was strongly inspired by Jen's post at Wildflowers and Marbles (go to the bottom of her post, where she links to the 5th and 9th grade plans in the second to last bullet point).

To fill this out each week, I edit the previous week's plan to increment the readings and other assignments, and I look at the plan I developed over the previous summer using the Simply Charlotte Mason Planner to make sure I'm on track with what comes next.  I also consult our calendar to make sure there aren't any special appointments or anything that I need to plan around.  I found that it all fell together very nicely and was very easy to put together.  I also have another overall schedule (MOTH type) that helps me know what I and the other two children are supposed to be doing at the various intervals.  It isn't all written in stone, but having expectations for how long things should take helps keep things moving along and makes sure things get done in a reasonably timely manner.  If something doesn't get completed, then the work has to be done during the quiet time in the afternoon.  The rest of our day and evening is fairly unscheduled - I can only maintain that sort of scheduled pace for so long! - but having a portion of our day so heavily scheduled out has been incredibly worthwhile.

And a couple further notes on the file - in math, IP stands for Singapore's Intensive Practice and CWP stands for Singapore's Challenging Word Problems.  We finished Math-U-See Gamma in mid-spring, and rather than start Delta at that awkward point, I decided to switch to these workbooks.  Also, I think I was assigning too much reading in a block for my 3rd grader.  Even though she's a strong reader, it was a little much to read, assimilate, and narrate.  But I was trying to finish up a few things so I decided to do it anyway.

And finally, without further ado, here it is below.  Please click on the link below to download the file, or use the Scribd controls at the bottom of the Scribd window to look at it more closely in the browser.

2011-06-06