Instead of holding myself to a weekly wrap-up, I thought I might give a monthly wrap-up a try. This is a big homeschool year for us, as we ditched our cyber-school and are enjoying a new way of learning! I am wrapping up 6 weeks of learning in this post. During those 6 weeks, we had two short weeks, so all together it’s about 5 weeks of learning.
Yes, this will be a long post.
You can see our detailed curriculum posts by clicking on the graphics below.
All Together School
We have a wide grade and age range between our three kids, but I am thrilled to say that we have found quite a few subjects to learn all together! I wasn’t sure how it would work, but a month later I can say…so far, so good!
We do the following subjects all together, and I will share mini updates below!
Mystery of History
Our Mystery of History time together has been simple and fun. I must be honest, we aren’t doing much in the way of extra activities. We are in a season of life which requires a bit less and I am finding peace in less. We are enjoying the reading, the coloring pages, the timeline, a few extra books to go along, and some great discussion. My oldest is doing the notebooking pages also.
Everyone’s favorite seems to be the coloring pages. Thankfully they all three enjoy coloring.
As I write this we have completed the 5th week. We enjoyed a documentary on Netflix about the Pyramids, a LOT. We also have been enjoying The Read and Share Bible {shown below} to watch some of the Bible stories. This really helps the younger two.
I struggled with a decision over our timeline and finally decided to use the free printables from Contented at Home. I am SO pleased with our choice, perfect for this season of life
We are all learning a lot, I am very pleased with our choice for world history.
US History ~ Christopher Columbus
I LOVE this! I know my kids are learning so much but I am so excited about all that I am learning! It’s amazing the very basic knowledge I had of Christopher Columbus, until now! It took us about 6 weeks to read the entire book, we usually read 2-4 times per week. See all we did here!
World Geography
I chose a very simple world geography curriculum and made some printables {sharing soon} to go along. We are following along with the book Passport to the World currently. So far we have made it through G is for Germany. Our goal is twice a week, but some weeks we only did one. We are all enjoying this simple way to touch on new countries consistently.
Bible
We are using What’s in the Bible DVDs and coloring book for our main focus, with Picture Smart Bible as a once a week focus for the boys only.
Music Appreciation
We are using A Young Scholar’s Guide to Composers, with just the boys. L is invited but not required to participate. I waited to begin this subject until near the end of the month, as it is a once a week extra. I have done the first two lessons with the boys. They like the music samples {which are linked on YouTube in the curriculum}. We all enjoyed the first lesson, but the second was a bit slow for us {the first two lessons are about the early history of music and not actual composers}. The third lesson bring us to our first composer and we are looking forward to that!
D.E.A.R.
Drop Everything And Read is happening in our house during the thirty minutes right before lunch. It is usually enjoyed by all kids. During this time, Pac reads whatever chapter book he is reading, and L and K choose their books. All of these photos were shared on Instagram!
7th Grade
PacMan is almost entirely independent this year. I teach him writing and Who is God? and the rest he does independently.
One big change for our family is having Daddy FULLY in charge of overseeing Pac’s science {Apologia General Science}! I caught them in action below {love their faces}.
Pac is not only reading and doing the work himself, he is also setting up, completing, and cleaning up his own experiments! This curriculum has a LOT of experiments and he loves it. I love that he is able to handle the time consuming part.
He invites us in to see the end result, I am usually pretty impressed! These are some neat experiments.
We do writing {Write Shop 1} in the afternoon together, can’t say it’s a favorite for either of us {writing in general}. This is the one subject I would pay someone to teach my kids. The curriculum is great, I just don’t like teaching writing.
He is doing really well with Teaching Textbooks Pre Algebra, you can see him in action below. it is a GREAT fit for our family so far.
He chose The Bronze Bow as his first novel and he LOVED it. He is now reading The Hittite Warrior, also his choice {from a stack of books I preselected for him, shown below.}
We are pleased with our curriculum choices so far. He is learning, it is flowing, and we are getting through school in a reasonable amount of time!
3rd Grade
Krash is blessed to be going to his best friends’ house for science every morning. One of my dear friends {the author of Calendar Connections} is teaching her son and mine using Apologia’s Botany.
I do the rest of his school with him in the afternoon. Each day I grab his stack shortly after lunch and we dig in!
His favorites are Life of Fred Math and reading. We continue to use and love Lessontrek {see his on top of the stack} for lesson plans.
He is doing well with Teaching Textbooks Math 4, I am pleased with this choice so far.
In addition to this we also do timed multiplication fact tests at least once a week. He LOVES these and begs to do them.
We are using Write Shop D for writing and it is going well. He enjoys the many activities and the final writing but does not like the brainstorming part He just likes to write freely so this is cramping his style a bit. The curriculum is great, I just dislike teaching writing.
I am using First Language Lessons {starting with book 1 and moving quickly} to work on oral comprehension and solid grammar skills. In addition to this he is using Growing with Grammar 2 which I am loving. Can’t say he loves it, but it is working and simple.
I am using P’s old Calvert 3rd grade reading books {shown on right below} to have him read passages aloud to me to work on fluency. Ladybug likes to listen.
We are also using the book list from Sonlight 3rd grade to read through. He reads the books on his own and then answers questions and discusses with me. I also have a stack of books ready for him to choose freely from.
We are using Vocabulary Connections D and again, he doesn’t love it, but I know it’s good for him. Calvert used this and I like it for some simple vocab review and growth. The cat likes it more than he does. It’s one of those traditional choices that just makes me feel better. Touching on vocab, grammar, and comprehension.
All About Spelling continues to work for him. We are almost done with Level 2 {didn’t finish it last year} and will move onto level 3 soon.
Kindergarten
Ladybug goes first with me in the morning for her school with Mommy time. We usually get started around 9am and finish up by around 10:15. Sometimes she wants to go longer and we will do more in the afternoon, sometimes we will stop before 10:15. I am super flexible with the Kindergarten year.
I do specific posts for much of Ladybug’s Kindergarten {Kindergarten Literature Units, You Can Read, Spielgaben, RLRS and Theme Units}. Here’s direct links to the posts showing her in action during this first six weeks of homeschool {click on the graphic to see the posts}.
I have been asked how the timing of our units works out. Here’s a brief outline to show how I fit things in during the first 6 weeks so you can see what overlaps with what. Basically I create a plan like this with loose goals and then adjust as needed each week. This image shows what we actually did for the past 6 weeks.
{LOE=Logic of English Foundations A, YCR=You Can Read, RLRS=Raising Lil’ Rock Stars}
She also has other Kindergarten fun that we don’t blog specifically about, and I will include in the wrap up posts here!
We are using and enjoying Logic of English Foundations A. I specifically chose the cursive as I believe in their method of teaching cursive first, BUT my daughter did not agree. So, I am following her lead and we are instead working on identifying cursive letters, but using print for handwriting. So, although we are bypassing the handwriting portion presented in LOE Foundations A, we are loving the phonogram teaching. We are up to lesson 11 and her favorite is the oral sound work with the worksheets for her to circle on. She has improved SO much with her oral skills. In the beginning she couldn’t listen to me segment sounds and figure out a word at ALL. Now, weeks later she is truly grasping this.
We do lots of active games to work with the phonograms. You can see her in action below in photos and video!
For handwriting, I am using my Letter Tracing Printables & flashcards, LetterSchool app, and the Alphabet Tracing Pages from This Reading Mama. I have a post coming soon sharing how we are using these.
We are using Speekee for Spanish, she does this with Krash and they both LOVE it!
We are doing our Integrity Time Bible lessons a bit slower right now as we iron out our other subjects. My goal is once a week. Below you can see her with the characters from Letter F.
On days when we have extra time we play games together. A favorite is POP Rhyming which is simple and effective.
Lots of work on rhyming words, which she still needs!
It has been a great first 6 weeks, I am loving the shift from cyber school to traditional homeschool. It is working for us. I am still ironing out a few daily routine things even 6 weeks later. It is an ongoing process, it seems we are always adjusting! But that’s the beauty of homeschooling, we can!
Linking to ~ Weekly Wrap-Up
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