A Better Mom Than Me: November 2015

Reality check...this is a lot of work!

The last post I wrote was about our decision to start homeschooling, and I haven't had time to write anything else since then! One thing I quickly discovered about homeschooling is that it's truly a full time job!

I thought I'd do a check in for 2 reasons. 1. People have been sending me messages asking how it's going and 2. the state tells me to keep a portfolio that shows what we are working on or have done, and I thought this would be a good way to keep a secondary 'online' portfolio of sorts.

We started school on the same day the public schools started, (mid August). We are also part of Classical Conversations as well, (a coo-op of sorts), but that didn't start until later in the month. I homeschooled Grace for the second part of last year, but adding Grant this year was a new thing. I was a little nervous about having two to educate, but it turns out I was needlessly worried. It's actually been easier than I thought, and a lot more fun to have two in our homeschool 'class'.

Every Monday is spent at Classical Conversations from 9am-3pm. The other 4 days a week we are at home. Each of those 4 school days at home has two parts. The first is our non CC curriculum. Both kids have their own individualized Math, Science and Language Arts curriculum. They also both have grade leveled spelling programs. On top of those things Grace also does a 4th grade geography/history curriculum, and typing. Together they both do a full Latin curriculum, but since they are both new to Latin, they both use the same texts and workbooks which allows me to lead Latin for both of them at the same time. I do math, science, and Language arts/Spelling with them everyday. We do Latin twice a week.

I work with them individually on their grade level subjects. It works out well because I finish math with one, send them off with math work, then do math with the next. Then I switch and do English and spelling, and then science. While one is working with me, the other is working on an assignment that goes with the lesson I just did with them one on one. We come together for Latin. The only thing Grace does totally independently, is history and geography, (and also typing). Her history curriculum is set up with a reading assignment and then questions and essays that go with it. We talk about the lesson once she has read it, and I use the Teacher's guide to lead her through a discussion, but for the most part, that subject is independent, (which is great prep for high school courses and college classes).

We start school around 9 each morning and it takes us until about 12:15 to get through those core subjects. After a lunch break we come back together and do memory work together. Memory work is the core part of Classical Conversations. Each week they have something to memorize in Math, Latin, Science, English, History, the history timeline, and Geography. All ages memorize the same things each week, but they are grouped by ages into regular looking classes. Older kids can go deeper into things than younger kids, but they all are learning the same core material. Grace also does a full English grammar/writing curriculum in CC, which is totally separate from the memory work and her other Language arts curriculum, so in actuality she has 2 English programs. (YAY ENGLISH!) The memory work in CC changes each week. For really little students, memorization is enough. For older kids, you can add some context. After lunch we practice our memory work for the current week and then review some previous weeks. This takes about 30 mins.

After that we pick one of our CC memory work subjects, (Such as history) and learn more about it together. Sometimes we watch a documentary, or we read a play from that time period. For science, we look up the topic, read about it, and maybe do a sketch of what we are learning about, (like a conifer seed) etc. It's not our core curriculum for any of the subjects, but we can often incorporate into our core. For instance, we learned about the Age of Imperialism in CC a couple of weeks ago, and it flowed right into what Grace was learning about Great Britain in her core history. Sometimes we can even incorporate CC things into art concepts. When we are at CC all day on Mondays they also do a fine arts class, music class, science experiment, and map work. At home I try to incorporate the music and art that they are learning into other things. If we are learning about symmetry in fine arts, then I will have them integrate that into a drawing of something historically related. We also use some art curriculum that is tutorial based and teaches art concepts such as perspective, use of different materials, etc.

We are usually finished each day by 3. I use after school hours for the P.E. requirement. Right now Grace is in a Basketball league, and we also will be starting a 2 hour a week swimming class soon. I feel like P.E. is the one area where it's easier to sign them up for structured classes instead of just trying to do it at home, (music too). They get music instruction at CC, but we will be joining an orchestra group next year to start learning violing. Overall it's amazing how much more you can accomplish outside of a traditional school setting. We just don't have the lost time between classes, recess, and other things, so we can speed right along. By the end of the day they are tired though, and ready for a break, (me too)!

I have seen some really awesome progress, especially in math and language arts. It has been a great journey so far.

Pro's and Cons I've found for homeschooling at this point are:

Pro's
1. Academically I can go a lot deeper with them at home. I know we are doing more rigorous work then what they'd get at school, not because school is inferior, but because I just have that flexibility.

2.They are well rested (this is actually kind of huge). When I know they are really tired I let them sleep later and just adjust our day accordingly. I know that everyone has to learn to get up and get going in the real world, but the American Academy of Pediatrics is always telling us that sleep is important for kids, so I let them. I don't know if it's anecdotal or not, but they haven't gotten the normal numerous colds that the school year usually brings. We are still around a lot of kids all the time, so I'm thinking getting enough sleep might actually be making their immune systems more effective.

3. They are learning a foreign language, which is awesome.

4. They are progressing faster than they would at school. This is especially true in math. I've discovered that math levels mean nothing. If a 7 year old has already memorized the multiplication tables he can start division. I am totally ignoring the grade level markings on math curriculum. You logically should progress to the next step in math when you are ready. So, Grant is halfway through the 2nd grade math book even though he is only technically in 1st grade. At first this freaked me out, now I don't care.

5. You can slow down a concept until they perfect it, which actually helps them progress faster. Last year Grace didn't have her multiplication totally mastered when I pulled her. I slowed her back down until she could get there. Slowing her down gave her confidence. Once she mastered it, she sped through division so fast that I blinked and she had gotten it. We went through that part faster than she would have at school and are now ahead again. This only happened because I was first able to slow her down.

6. The kids have no stress. They love getting up and going to 'school'. They love their school day at CC on Mondays. They have the best of both worlds. They get a day with a teacher who isn't me on Mondays, a class full of friends who they have to get along with. And recess, lunch together etc. The rest of the week they just get to focus on their work without worrying about anything else. So far, they are loving it.

CONS:
1. THIS IS A LOT OF WORK

2. I haven't figured out the happy medium of letting them do fun things like field trips. I know how much I can get accomplished in a day and it seems like a waste of a day academically to go out and do something with them. But this is misleading because we should be taking advantage of this perk..sometimes. I plan to give them a little breathing room soon. This is just me being paranoid and making sure we are getting it 'all done'. There are so many cool home school activities happening around here and I need to participate in those more.

3. Non Homeschool people constantly quiz your kids to see if they are 'learning anything', which is the most annoying thing ever. Would you ask a regular public school kid to recite the multiplication tables for you out of the blue? How about just shooting random spelling words at them? No? Then why do people do it to homeschooled kids? It's annoying and I feel like people are constantly wondering how far behind my kids are falling. I'm trying to start letting these things roll off my back, without getting upset.

4.You can't get lazy. I don't get to have a day where I say, "I don't feel like being your teacher today." I have to stay on top of what we are doing to make sure I'm prepared to keep giving them what they need. which goes back to the number 1 CON: THIS IS A LOT OF WORK

5. PAPER. SO MUCH PAPER. I AM DROWNING IN PAPER THINGS. Worksheets, art projects, papers, drawing, etc etc. IT IS EVERYWHERE. I can't just send it home with them because, THEY ARE ALREADY HOME.

6. THIS IS A LOT OF WORK ;)

I'd like to do a review of Classical Conversations in the next few weeks too. Especially how that day is laid out, and the Essentials of Grammar and Writing class that Grace is a part of. It's a really interesting program and there is a lot to discuss about it.

But that's all from me today. Because, I'm tired. And I have a lot of paper to stuff into quickly diminishing hiding places.

I'm going to include a few pictures of things they've been working on, and a video showing us doing some memory work.

I think we are getting the hang of this homeschool thing! Would I do it all over again? Right now my answer is ABSOLUTELY!

Grace has been doing a lot of diagramming and parsing in English. She loves diagramming!