Now for my precious middle child's plan for this year. Boo is a gifted learner and it's a constant challenge to find work that stretches her, while not pushing too hard. I usually fall into, "This is way too easy, Mama," in my desire to keep her love for learning strong and not frustrate her. And inevitably, once I find something that hits the mark, she blazes past it within a month and I'm left in the dust yet again.
Math:
This is a big question right now. She did all of Singapore 2A last year, quickly grasping the concepts and scoring in the 90's in all her assessments. When she hit 2B however she dug in her heals and math became a daily battle. Since it was a grade level ahead of where she needed to be, I let her quit it half way through and gave her Evan Moor's Skill Sharpeners Math: 3rd Grade to work on for the rest of the year and through the summer. She did this with a good will, but I noticed that she just didn't have her basic facts as solid as I would like, and decided to dial back and let her repeat 2nd grade, in a sense. I explained that Singapore didn't seem to click with her so well toward the end of the year and I was going to try something new for the year to see how it works out. She is doing the math program provided by the home ed. program we go through, Harcourt Brace's California Math. Right now it's really easy, but it's getting her confidence back and that's the key. She has been doubling up assignments in order to be done with the book by STAR testing, and when that's done I'll give her Life of Fred for math. I think it will right up her ally given that it's done through a story and doesn't use a drill and kill approach. Then, if all goes well, we will give Singapore another shot for 3rd grade because I really think it's the strongest math program out there. But I could be biased because it worked so well for my oldest.
Language Arts:
Grammar: Evan Moor's Daily Language Review. That's it. Again, less can be more, and DLR is getting the job done. She corrects two sentences and we talk about the mistakes that were made and explain why she made the corrections she did. Then there are three to four more questions that deal with anything from identifying the adjective in a sentence to completing an analogy. I feel that having to remember various grammar rules and terms in a variety of settings and with no forewarning works better than spending a few days in each topic and then moving on.
Writing: Evan Moor's Daily 6 Trait Writing. Boo has mild disgraphia, and a strong perfectionist streak, and together they make for unpleasant situations during writing assignments. She will write as little as possible, complaining the whole time, in order to minimize the number of mistakes she will make. This year I've gone with a "let's just write for the enjoyment of writing" approach and have told her that I will only edit and make her rewrite the culminating essay for each of the five traits, or every fifth writing assignment. The difference in her attitude and writing has been a joy to see. She is finally enjoying writing, and I'm getting better paragraphs from her than when I was obsessing over every detail.
Spelling: We are using Sequential Spelling because it works with hearing the spelling patterns in the words and using them, rather than simply memorizing a list of words. I feel that spelling becomes more intuitive with it than with other programs. The benefit for Boo is that she doesn't have to do any writing with it if she doesn't want to. She usually jumps up and down stairs, in and out of tiles in the entry way, or rides her scooter around our backyard while spelling. She is steadily improving at being able to break down the words into their components and spell them.
Boo's reading is done just like Bug's. Reading is done with a two pronged approach. Boo has to read a short story and do the accompanying worksheet in her Spectrum Reading book each day. That covers vocabulary, word skills (prefixes, compound words, possessives), comprehension, and study skill (graphs, alphabetical order, using an index). Then she gets to move on to reading whatever she wants, for how long she wants to. Sonlight's reading list provides a good start, but the girl reads a book a day and I need to provide more choices for her. Last year I would give her a book that was intended to take two weeks, she would bring it back in an hour or two, and I wouldn't have anything left for "reading" for the next 7 school days. This year I scrapped the idea of reading assignments and went with a book basket approach. :) I fill up a square laundry basket with books and she is free to pick from there. There are book lists provided by Evan Moor's How to Report on Books program, and along with books that relate to what she's studying in history and science, there are a lot for her to choose from. When she's done for the day she comes and tells me about what she read, and when she finishes the book she does a book report. I use for the forms and themes from HWBR. Our library lets you check out books for three weeks at a time, so our themes go in three week stretches. We just finished focusing on use of setting in a story and have moved on to character development.
Social Studies:
I felt that I was dropping the ball when it came to geography, but I didn't have the time to do a comprehensive, literature inclusive, program. Instead I've settled for Evan Moor's Daily Geography. It's sufficient. I'm not blown away by it, but it gets the job done. Boo will often do the whole week on Monday, freeing up time in the rest of the week.
Boo is following Sonlight's Core 3 and is studying American history, from the arrival of the first people groups by way of the Alaskan land bridge through Pilgrims and the American Revolution, ending just after the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. I already wrote a lengthy review of Sonlight that you can read here. I also feel a need for concrete pen and paper type work to accompany all the great stories and Boo will be doing a few Hands of a Child project packs, Evan Moor's History Pockets, and two Download 'n Go units.
Science:
This has been my Waterloo. I just can't pull off experiments/activities consistently during the school year. Two years ago science fell out of my lesson plan book completely in December and never made its way back in. I spent the summer catching up and realized that I had found something that worked for me. :) I decided I would use a bare minimum, make sure they are getting some knowledge, program for the school year and then really delve into something during the summer. Last year we used Evan Moor's Daily Science and it fit the bill. It was simple, covered state standards, and threw in an experiment every five weeks. Then we did Sonlight's Science 2 over the summer, doing a week's worth of lessons in a day. This year we are back to Evan Moor, but I'm planning on using Apologia's Astronomy for the summer. As much as the girls love Professor Justin, I'm ready to really sink my teeth into a field and Sonlight jumps around too much for me. Apologia looks substantial, and yet approachable, and I'm hoping they'll love it.
So that's my curriculum choices for Boo. At this point we are six weeks into the school year and this has been my smoothest homeschooling year yet. I feel that I have figured out what works for me and my girls and we are cruising. And this is by no means an exhaustive list of every teaching tool that will be used this year. There are Spanish, art, literature, science, and writing classes offered through our home education program. There are field trips that we will take. There are sports programs and homeschool PE classes. And there are so many books to read, shows to watch, and websites to explore. The problem lies not in having too few choices, but rather being able to pass on curriculum/programs/experiences.
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