A Bit of Bubbly
Posted in How it goes
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I'm in a blogging mood again lately, but haven't had much time to write up posts. I feel a desire to spell out what our homeschooling looks like nowadays, not quite two weeks before Christmas. = Christmas School = I figured we'd do some sort of homeschoolers' "Christmas school." Some folks do light homeschooling from Thanksgiving through early January. Others change the focus of their history, writing, and other subjects to be all about the holidays. Still others do no homeschool lessons at all and focus on crafts, cooking, visiting, and generally enjoying family and holidays. My general plan was to figure it out as we went along, but try for nearly daily Latin and math regardless. We did light lessons early in Thanksgiving week and took that Wednesday off just like the public schools. ...Math and piano... The next two weeks were semi-light homeschooling, except that we got new math books after more than a few weeks without (during which we did math enrichment and, toward the end, math facts worksheets). Also, I ordered two different piano beginners books and a similar-level book of Christmas songs. The boys play the piano here and there throughout every single day, from their memorized songs (Ode to Joy, and Yankee Doodle) to half-scales and, now, working on pieces in their books. I work on piano with them every two to three days. As a result of the new books, math and piano have increased in structure and expectation rather than easing up! But the kids are interested and mostly enjoy it, so that's great. ..Christmas topics.. For Christmas study, I'm reading aloud a book about the historical context of the nativity story, mostly for Son1. We of course! will read our many Christmas books, from picture books to short stories, and more, but first I pulled from our bookshelves every kids' book related to winter (and I just thought of a few more on my own shelves). I added some winter-related books from the library, and Son2 was delighted! This led to an experiment about the effect of salt on melting rate of ice cubes in plastic bowls indoors. We also explored geometry, spatial analysis, random versus regular folds, and topology -- through folding and cutting paper snowflakes and other fun with paper folding and cutting one afternoon. Hehe. ..Latin.. We'd hit a lull in Latin. Son1 sort of lost interest? motivation? energy? for the very gently paced Prima Latina after 15 or so lessons. I spent a week evaluating age-appropriate Latin options for him. I really want to add Latin reading, probably because I had some college Latin and lots of years of French study, and I think getting to decode another language, even as a super beginner, is so fun! There are a lot more options out there than I initially thought. I decided there was no time like the present, and even with Christmas I certainly wasn't going to drop Latin until January, so Wednesday I started Son1 in Lesson One of Latin Book One (1937, 1942). It's a much better fit for his age and ability, and not hard at all. Son2 will keep going in Prima Latina, memorization, and Latin games in January. In the meantime, we'll keep learning the Our Father / Lord's Prayer in Latin and learn some Advent and Christmas songs in Latin (Adeste Fideles; Veni, Veni Emmanuel), and play with our Latin flashcards. = The General Idea = Here's our homeschooling plan for a given week. ..Son1 .. Daily: Math, Latin memory work, Latin book work, subject reading, handwriting, recitation, piano. ..Son2.. Daily: Math, Latin memory work, reading aloud or be read to by Mom, handwriting, recitation, piano. That's the rundown. A flexible yet strong foundation that's working really well for us right now. We enrich with all kinds of stuff, after making sure we set the foundation that day. Okay, gotta go. Be well! |
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