Curriculum Choices

Sharkbait is in second grade. Last year he completed Phonics Pathways, which teaches phonics up to a fourth grade level. On an online reading test last year, he scored at the third grade level! (Reading comprehension, though, is a whole 'nuther story!) This year, he is not doing phonics or spelling, because he's a natural speller. He's doing vocabulary, using Wordly Wise. After he finishes this book (it's only 15 lessons long and he's halfway through already!), he will move on to Prima Latina. Yes, Latin! Writing With Ease I and First Language Lessons II round out his language arts curriculum. He is learning handwriting/copywork, grammar, writing, narration, and dictation skills. Also, he is memorizing poems. I tried to get him to learn cursive at the beginning of the year, but he was so used to writing manuscript that he resisted. I'm going to pursue cursive harder this session!

For math, Sharkbait is using Right Start Math, Level B.

SweetSong is using Phonics Pathways and is currently learning how to blend her letter sounds. She is using Jan Brett's free handwriting website to work on manuscript (I print off the sheets I need at the beginning of the year). I'm thinking of teaching her cursive in January or so, just to introduce it early. Maybe she won't resist like her older brother has!

For math, she is using Right Start Math, Level A and is getting it more quickly than I expected!

Snuggie is using Jan Brett's handwriting worksheets also and is still working on her letter sounds. She loves her school time with Mommy!

Together we are learning the Lord's Prayer, the Doxology and we are reading a devotional for kids based on Oswald Chamber's My Utmost for His Highest. I hope to teach them the Nicene Creed starting in January. We are using Veritas Press's Bible and History cards: Old Testament and Ancient Egypt. To supplement, we are using the Story of the World, vol. I. For science we're using God's Design for Plants. I have a great friend who is a few years ahead homeschooling her children and she let me borrow her copy! For literature, we read Mother Goose rhymes last session. This session we're reading Aesop's fables.

Phew! It looks like a lot when I write it all out, but really it's totally doable!!! My next post will be about what our day and week look like :)

Educational Philosophy

The first book to open up my mind to the possibilities in homeschooling was Mary Pride's Complete Guide to Homeschooling. I think I picked it up at a random Christian bookstore on the highway on the way to Gatlinburg way back when Sharkbait was 3 or 4 years old! I learned that there is a range of educational philosophies, from unschooling to textbooks, from classical to eclectic! I discovered that my desire was to follow the classical model of education.

In short, the classical model uses the Trivium as its foundation. The Trivium includes the grammar stage, the logic stage, and the rhetoric stage. The grammar stage aligns with early elementary ages and is the prime time to stuff the kids' heads full of facts! Timelines, lists, math facts, poems, stories, etc. The next stage correlates with the late elementary ages/middle school ages and is when the students begin to make connections among all the facts learned in the grammar years. For example, they might have learned the books of the Bible in order as grammar students. In the logic stage, they learn why the Bible books are ordered that way. They learn critical thinking. In the rhetoric stage, the student learns to defend and debate their hypotheses and conclusions, developing and using their writing and even speech skills. To complete our example, the rhetoric student would learn to research the differing theories of how the canon came to be, choose a theory and support it with logic and facts.

The second resource that has shaped my educational philosophy and curriculum choices is the Well-Trained Mind book by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise and its discussion board. It's a treasure trove of information for every year of a child's classical education. Finally, I use the Latin-Centered Curriculum by Andrew Campbell as a guide for curriculum choices (esp. Literature, at this point). His philosophy is "less is more." Focus on quality, not quantity.

And that's why I'm doing what I'm doing :)

The Students

I'll upload better photos later...this one was taken at Easter. Not very "school-ish". I have to upload some good pictures to my computer soon!

Anyways, Sharkbait is my second grader this year. I started "officially" homeschooling him three years ago as a kindergartner. I had registered with a TN umbrella school. Last year I registered him as a first grader by sending in the required one-time Notice of Intent with the state we moved to. Sharkbait has been interested in sea creatures since he was two and still has a passion for all things ocean-related! We've been to many aquariums on both coasts of the country in pursuit of this passion. It's become a family interest :)

SweetSong (the one in the yellow dress) is five currently and I have labelled her as a K-5'er this year. I do not have to register her with the state until she is seven, but will do it next year when she is six, so I don't forget to do it later! She is the strong personality in our little "orchard" (are groups of olive trees called orchards?). She loves to sing and makes up songs often about her God. She's so precious :)

Snuggie (the one in the pink flowered dress) just turned four and she's in K-4. She's the perfect fit for her older sister. They get along great, because she will go along with almost anything SweetSong suggests. Yet she's strong enough, too, to hold her own when she disagrees or feels like she got the short end of some stick! She's got the squeezable, cuddly personality that fits the "baby in the family".

However, she won't be the baby of the family for much longer because Baby #4 is due in March!

That's our little family, our little school. I hope you enjoy reading about them!

Introduction

This is the third or fourth blog I've started. I love starting them and have the hardest time following through! This one will be different, I think, because it actually has a purpose: it's going to be a record of our homeschooling journey.

Although this is the third year I've "officially" homeschooled, this is the first year I feel like I'm actually doing it! I feel like I have something to share that might benefit folk interested in how we do it!

Here's to hoping (that I actually follow through and that folk actually read it)!

How many times did I use "actually" in this post? Five. Hmmm, I think I need a thesaurus...