How are you *tweeking* your homeschool experience? * I got lazy in the mornings last year and started school too late. 9 to 9:45a is a luxury but it took us too long into the afternoon. This year I am rolling it back to 8a start time. * I loaded their workplans up too heavy last year. It was too stressful so this year I will be more realistic. Some of the problem was the charter school's fault in their requirements on my high schooler, but having a year under my belt with them, I now see where their priorities are and where I can cut or skimp. In hindsight, they were actually more flexible than I realized. What about you? What's changing this year?
Last year I babysat a little one and we were limited in what we could participate in and get accomplished. We are going to be more active this year, both physically outdoors and more hands on with school. We are also going to be able to go on more field trips and hopefully be part of a local homeschool group. I am focusing more on handwriting and neatness this year. I let both of them slack off last year and they didn't really progress. We are adding in more fun things that I wanted to add in last year but didn't really have time. We will be enjoying hobbies like archery and stop-motion-animation and some computer animation. Maybe at some point we will add in some photography as well. Nothing serious for them, just having fun taking pictures. I'm going to be tweaking how we do history to make it more exciting and engaging. I'm not totally sure how I'm going to do this but I have some ideas rolling around. We are adding in geography and art once a week or so. We won't be doing science and history everyday this year. Some weeks Science will be M/W/F and History T/Th, some weeks the other way around. Basically, I just want to have more FUN!
Last year, I tutored 4 children at their school from 1:30-5:30 most days. The time that required took too much away from our homeschool. thankfully, my children are easy learners, so there academics didn't suffer, but it took away from other things I wanted to accomplish. Like outreach/missions. One of the main reasons I homeschool is to teach my kids that our main purpose is NOT to get the best education, to get into the best college, to get the best job, to have a successful life....it's about doing for others and spreading the gospel. So I won't be tutoring this year, but I will add in some outreach ministries. I tweaked some curriculum. I will make my daughter type all her writing assignments from now on..(10th grade) We will start no later than 9am. We will participate in the local co-op (another thing that fell by the wayside due to my tutoring) We will do all math problems from every lesson (no more just evens or odds) I think that's about it!
Last year, our start time gradually slid from 830 to 845, and our end time oozed over from 245 to just after 300. I am resolved not to let that happen this year. We'll be doing more arts and music, and penmanship. I HAVE to make more time for these! I'm hoping that DH will be able to be with us at school consistently again. Cancer is just danged inconvenient, y'know?? Lately his energy is picking up again, so I'm looking forward to getting back to "normal".
Last year we did ALOT of individual workbooks for many diferent subjects last year. It made the day seem to drag on.... So this year we are sticking to the basics: Math, History, Science, and Language Arts. We will throw in some projects (science experiments, lapbooking, chapter books) for fun. But the days should go alot smoother than last year. Plus I will be starting Pre-k with my youngest So that will be fun.
This year we moved away from CLASS and are doing our own thing; that alone is really exciting for us. In hindsight, I never should've done CLASS but it was easy because we fell into homeschooling at the very last second and we had to get moving before I found a full time job. We are also breaking things up differently. Last year, we did a little bit of everything at once and spread it across 5 weeknight evenings after I got off work. This year, we are focusing on about 3 to 4 subjects at a time. Tackling and finishing those; then repeat. And the curriculum I chose this year will allow J to do a lot more on his own during the day while I'm at work vs me needing to actually be sitting next to him helping him through every single bit.
I'm working more this year. We are starting our day at 8am instead of 9am. We'll be more traditional textbooks/workbooks than we ever have before. I'll be setting a timer to signal "time to switch subjects". (ringing the bell0 Dh will be more involved in teaching/grading/checking. I'll require more chores and we have a different chore chart/list. All because... I'm working more this year! (Five days a week in August.. average of 24 hours per week.. with a 35 minute commute to work and another 35 minutes back home! )
We have a couple big changes coming our way. We just joined the local homeschool group which I am very excited about. They do activities such as skate day, park day, field day and holiday parties. This will allow dd9 to have more interaction with other kiddos and we already know a few families from going to skate day last year. Also I am due to have our third child in 6 1/2 weeks. We will be taking a whole month off to relax and enjoy the new addition to our family. Our start time will be earlier as well. My oldest has to be at dance class at 6:30 AM so we will be starting our school day around 8 - 8:30 instead of 10am which is what we have done before. I think things will go well and I am really looking forward to it!
This year I switched math programs. I liked what we used last year but my son hated it because it had a lot handwriting. This year I also know that my son has issues with handwriting because his brain isn't connecting with his hand properly and we will be working to correct that and will be finding a keyboarding program for him which is something I probably wouldn't have looked into for a few more years otherwise. I don't want his creative writing limited because handwriting is such a laborious and stressful process for him. This year all of my kiddos will be doing some school activities. I'm also going to mess around with a different type of school week and see how it works for us.
Mid-May we finally fell into a groove that we liked and worked well. We will continue it this year. Every morning that the weather cooperates, we will take a walk/hike in the woods nearby, discussing the plans for the day, stopping by the creek for morning prayer, and some times doing some nature sketching. Once home, we have breakfast, Bible study, watch the BrainPop video of the day, and do whatever lesson they are doing together (science, history, civics, art, etc.). The rest of the day varies. On the days that we are home the kids will work on their individual assignments-- math, grammar, literature, etc. However, some days we are out of the house mid-morning for science, art history, community service, music, and golf, so the individual work is completed after lunch when we return (or often, not at all!) We're pretty relaxed, and definitely don't plan to change that-- I'm way too "type B personality" to be able to handle daily formal lessons! LOL
I'm going to have both of them working a full school day for the first time. So we are going to start with one activity that they will do together, which is proving a little challenging to work out, due to the almost 4 year age difference! Apart from that we will keep on going as we have been!
We are going to be doing IEW with as a small co-op. We are going to meet every other week. That is going to spread out our writing a bit but I will probably mix in some of the Sonlight assignments as the year goes on. We also changed up our Bible so I will have to see how that works out. I am hoping the schedule does not get too crazy and I am kind of anxious to get started so I can see how it all fits together.
I'm splitting up my two older children for almost everything. My oldest will get to start learning through lectures and in depth reading. He will also be away from the "classroom" in his own private study area for his independent work. My second child will be doing more project-based learning. I'm also adding a 3rd child "full-time" when she desires to have focused learning time. Because I'm adding a 3rd child, I've chosen more independent curricula or resources for my older two. I've changed my approach to math as well I'm still thinking about how I want to approach the schedule for this year. There is no one size fits all here so I might have to do different approaches for each kid.
Not doing the Bible Curricula I originally wanted....looked like too much "work". Changing my middle child's Grammar/Writing stuff. He just is really bored with Easy Grammar, I got Exercises in English for free from free cycle, so I'm going to use that. It's an easy one page a day grammar refresher for him. I thought about doing Daily Grams for him, but I got this free. I actually might do one half of the year grammar, and one half of the year as writing, and find a writing curricula - like Writing Strands - that he could do in half a year. My youngest tested in to TT3, and BEGGED to do TT like her brother and sister, so we're doing that for her. I'm sad to leave Horizons because I've loved it so much, but if it's what SHE wants to do, and if it will make her feel like one of the big kids, I'm okay with that. Not really changing much else.
I just found out today that my rising 4th grader will not be returning. Her mom found at job teaching at a Christian private school in the next town, and she'll be taking her with her. So as of right now, I'll have only a 9th grader and a 2nd grader.
Perhaps you could start with a read aloud? The classics are never too young for older kids and the younger one would still get a lot out of it.
Well up until this year we have unschooled but a friend pointed out we had become very CMish so this year we decided to try Ambleside Online. So far, so good.
I, too, will be starting school earlier in the morning. I am also going to try workboxes- but not to the full scale as others do- to fit our needs. I am also scaling back on p.e.- as far as outside activities are concerned as we are integrating music lessons (in the home) and spanish lessons. I'm wanting to teach them a bit more independence as I may need to find some outside work and have them help with more chores around the house. We are excited to get started soon though!
