It’s time to transition from Butterflies to Books. This is my annual School Planning Weekend, in which Huz takes the kids up north to his mom’s for a couple nights and I get the house and my brain all to myself. (Well, mostly. Cheez is here, but she’s in & out and isn’t much of a distraction.)
I’d like to tell you that I go into this weekend with my curriculum all chosen and the basic planning already done, that I use this weekend to do the more detailed planning & organization, and that I come out of it all ready to go. Or at least, I’d like to tell you that and have it be true, but it wouldn’t be. The truth is, I generally go into this planning weekend in full Summer Mode, having done virtually nothing for the coming school year, and I emerge from it with a lot of work yet to be done. It’s really just a starting point, something to lull my brain out of Summer Break mode and into the reality of the Impending School Year. Which is why I finally got smart and decided I'd better stop waiting until Labor Day weekend to do it.
(I’m going to insert here that I think that some form of year-round schooling would be the best way to homeschool. However, we don’t do it. I’d never heard or thought of it when we started out 16 years ago, and now the Summer Break habit is too deeply ingrained. Despite my strong opinion that a long summer break is not good for young brains, we’re always ready for one by June, and so we take one. We do some “summer learning” in varying amounts; we did a lot last year, but barely any this year. They read, of course, but other than that, I think we did a few math worksheets. Oh, and I made the kids recite the Gettysburg address every time they became too verbally obnoxious, and that’s about it.)
So, back to my Planning Weekend. In order to ease said brain into School-Planning Mode while simultaneously indulging my desire for a Blogging Fix, I am going to share with you a few of the curricular resources we’ve used & liked over the years. I’ll start with the mundane and work my way up to our favorite things, literature and history. Only I’ll tell you right now, I won’t make it to the end.
Oh, first, for a basic description of The Way I Homeschool, here is a description lifted directly from my sidebar, because I know a lot of people don’t read them anyway. Although you really should read mine.
“Over 16 years of homeschooling, I've evolved to a less formal, Charlotte Mason-ish eclectic approach with a more-or-less classical bent. (Isn't that clear as mud?) My goal is to “light the fires” of learning and creativity in my kids. I emphasize history & literature because we enjoy them, and I incorporate informal language arts into much of what we do.
“Er, yeah. That's how it's SUPPOSED to go. The reality of it is...
“After 16 years of homeschooling, I have yet to really figure out how to do it. So we muddle along, overemphasizing history and almost sort of neglecting science, and I spend way too much time making plans that we don't stick to anyway. We read a lot, and we like words, and we don't manage our time very well, and sometimes I yell.”
And with that understanding, here we go...
Math
No “favorites” here, really. Math is the one subject for which I have made barely any curriculum changes over the years; I had to take an “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach to something! When I ditched the traditional textbook approach to homeschooling after our first year, our math curriculum was the one thing I didn’t change, so all my kids have started out with BJU Math. Cheez seemed to have a harder time grasping & remembering concepts than had my eldest, so I switched her to Saxon in 5th grade. That was a much better fit for her. I may switch Fuzz to Saxon this year as well. As long as that works, I will continue to resist temptation to look at all the nifty, newer, “more interesting” math programs out there, because spending my money on other subjects is much more fun.
Oh, but here’s one of the free math worksheet sites I use for extra practice, and a couple of fun supplements for a sports-minded kid:
  Huh. Can't get them the same size, and not sure if they're linking right. Oh well. Both Biz & Spaz have enjoyed these.
Science
*Sigh* Science is not our favorite subject and we have a hard time staying consistent with it. There’s a lot of good science curriculum out there; I’ve looked at it. It’s just that we haven’t used any of it. Yet. My favorite science “curriculum” over the years has been Classes Taught By Someone Else, followed closely by Co-op With Friends. But we did science at home last year, and here’s something fun that we used:
I bought this kit years ago at a bargain price, and the kids really wanted to do it last year. This is not highly sophisticated, in-depth stuff, but we enjoyed it and I think the kids learned a few things. Best of all, for the first time ever, DAD actually got involved in homeschool teaching! (I have pictures to prove it.) We reinforced the concepts with simple notebook assignments-- each kid had to draw a picture and write a description using some of the terms we learned.
Handwriting & Typing
I loathe ball-and-stick manuscript; it’s difficult and unnatural, and who actually writes that way once they are done with handwriting books? I likewise abhor traditional loopy cursive. I can’t stand d’Nealian, either. What I do like is this:
My littles, however, despise any handwriting book, even this wonderful series, and much prefer copywork. Well, actually, Spaz prefers to never hold a pencil at all, but that isn’t an option. He actually has beautiful handwriting when he tries. Anyway, I think perhaps they prefer copywork because they can write something meaningful or relevant to their studies. Now, I am perfectly capable of coming up with copywork for them; nevertheless, this book sounded too good to resist:
Despite its utilization of the loathsome ball-and-stick manuscript and the abhorrent loopy cursive, we have gotten a lot of use out of this worthwhile book. Spaz has no problem looking at a quote in manuscript or loopy and rewriting it in Italic handwriting. Fuzz, not yet having mastered italic handwriting, has a harder time doing this but continually asks to do copywork from this book anyway as a supplement to her handwriting book. How could I say no?
There is another history-based copywork series I found on the internet which actually comes in an Italic Handwriting version and includes quotes from world history as well. I am debating purchasing it, but first I have to go to my old computer and look up the link, because I don't even remember the name of it. 
For typoing, the kids use and like:
I left the above error so that you can see why I really ought to install this program on my own computer. I type mostly with my two middle fingers, by the way. That’s not a reflection of how I feel about my readers; it’s just habit. And my right pointer finger stays glued to the middle finger as I type. Ever since I noticed this, it drives me nuts, but it drives me even more nuts when I make an effort to not do it. Oops, sorry; I digress.
This is long enough for now. Time for me to get busy with my planning. Tomorrow, language arts, spelling, & writing. Really. I promise. I've already written it.
|
<a href="http://www.andfam.net/kimblog">Kim in MI</a>