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{"id":7153,"date":"2013-05-24T07:43:36","date_gmt":"2013-05-24T13:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/buildingcathedrals\/?p=7153"},"modified":"2013-05-24T07:43:36","modified_gmt":"2013-05-24T13:43:36","slug":"homeschool-round-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/buildingcathedrals\/2013\/05\/homeschool-round-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Homeschool Round Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Inspired by Charlotte at Waltzing Matilda<\/a>, here are some of my lessons from the school year which we are about to finish:<\/p>\n

Activities:<\/p>\n

Keep<\/strong>: Skiing: I will treasure the ski season, especially fresh powder on weekday mornings and long sessions reading Heidi in the evenings, I will cherish those months always.\u00a0 \u00a0That sort of flexibility is one of the major benefits of homeschooling.<\/p>\n

Trash<\/strong>: Overscheduling: For the past 8 weeks I have had children\u2019s activities outside the house 7 days a week.\u00a0 7! While grandparents and carpooling neighbors were a help, we used that when we had several children with commitments in different places on the same night, so I rarely had a night off.\u00a0 Ballet is finally wrapping up, and baseball was rained out tonight, it was just a huge relief to be at home!\u00a0 The fruit of this time is exhaustion, ill behaved preschoolers, and a lack of effective home systems.\u00a0 We can\u2019t do this again.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to have to figure something out, but because of age gaps, even children in the same activities weren\u2019t on the same schedule, and it was just too much.<\/p>\n

Preschoolers:<\/p>\n

Keep<\/strong>: \u00a0Explode the Code:\u00a0 These inexpensive workbooks are a great beginning phonics package, and combined with Primary Phonics primers, we used them to hatch another reader!\u00a0 This is one of the few school materials that has been successful for every single one of my children.<\/p>\n

Trash<\/strong>:\u00a0 Lack of structure: \u00a0My little guys are capable of more than they are doing, but I need an organized way to give them instruction.\u00a0 Just today I implemented a drawer system for my four year old, and I think that might be the route I take with him in the fall.<\/p>\n

Older Kids:<\/p>\n

Keep<\/strong>: Saxon Math:\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t love this program more.\u00a0 My oldest child has begun algebra, and I am seeing now that he has a conceptual understanding of math that will ease the transition to higher learning, something which I totally lacked at his age.\u00a0 As I watch my second graders solving math problems with smudged out numbers and my fourth grader look at number patterns, with the bigger picture in mind I know understand how they are really laying the foundation for high school mathematics success.<\/p>\n

Keep<\/strong>: Seton Full Enrollment WITH TWEAKING:\u00a0 My older two have done really well studying independently with Seton lesson plans this year. \u00a0Along the way, I made some adjustments to fit our family learning preferences.\u00a0 In history, I added our corresponding history cycle book baskets so that they would have lots of supplemental historical novels, picture books and primary sources to read, and I required some writing.\u00a0 In Religion, I did not require them to memorize all of the questions and answers from the Baltimore Catechism and take tests on them, rather, I had them read and discuss the chapters.\u00a0 In Reading, I eliminated the reading comprehension work, but did give a lot of attention to the book report\/essays in the Reading lesson plans.\u00a0 Seton English is EXCELLENT, I love the grammar and diagramming.\u00a0 My children really liked doing the weekly Art assignment.\u00a0 We skipped the Music and Phys Ed, since we do plenty of both in supplemental activities.\u00a0 The science is not great, but I didn\u2019t have the energy to replace or supplement, so all I can say is that it is better than nothing.\u00a0 I\u2019ll have to figure out something else for the future for science.\u00a0 I used Saxon Math in place of Seton\u2019s program (Seton does use Saxon in the upper grades). \u00a0After wonderful, creative years of planning my own lessons from scratch, with seven children at home and a busy life outside of the home I am now ready to just accept my own limitations and take a boxed curriculum. \u00a0While it is not perfect, it gives us structure and consistency, and this is the boxed curriculum for us.<\/p>\n

Trash<\/strong>: Lack of personal discipline in routine:\u00a0 We went from summer with a newborn to school days with a nursing baby to a very free ski season, so by the time March came around my children were not in the habit of much of anything.\u00a0 They are GREAT about getting their school work done, but this year it was often done in pajamas while bedrooms were messy and beds were unmade.\u00a0 I even got some pulled faces when I would ask children to clean their rooms or brush their hair!\u00a0 We didn\u2019t used to have that problem, so I am going to have to go back to designated school clothes and a morning routine next year.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013<\/p>\n

Round these parts, summer swim team switches to morning practice when the public school lets out, so we have just a few weeks left of regular school days.\u00a0 After that, it will be pool time all the time.\u00a0 We usually have a long summer read aloud, I am thinking of choosing\u00a0The Secret Garden<\/em> since the last time we read that was in the old house, about 5 years ago, and some of my children weren\u2019t even born yet! \u00a0I also like to use the summer to read a classic which I am embarrassed not to have read before; my kindle is loaded up with Muriel Spark\u2019s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,\u00a0<\/em>but I\u2019m also thinking about the new translation of Madame Bovary<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"