Finally, Some Peace at the Inn....Week in Review 1/23-1/27 12

So, we finally had our first peaceful school day in ages. I swapped some things out for my 7(almost 8 year old...and WHAT a difference....
This week the boys were sick with a nasty cold which started last Friday. Cubby was pretty much out of commission Monday and Tuesday. Hammy was having sympathy pangs. This turned out to be the week where the proverbial poop hit the fan in our homeschool. My youngest is definitely an unschooler type. I, however, am not by any stretch of the imagination....but, as a war hardened mom, know when something has to give. You can not force feed knowledge. You can not force a child to learn. I can go over and over the material, insist, yell, work myself and him into a frenzy, but that is not productive and does neither one of us any favors.

When these events happen in our homeschool, which they inevitably do from time to time, I need to step back and evaluate our materials, my teaching method and what will be best for that particular child. My youngest needs lots of one on one, he likes to read materials for himself, he loves hands on manipulatives, he needs to see the point in the exercises or assignments he is given, he likes to focus on one skill at a time, and he is still working on getting his handwriting fluid, so too much writing tires him easily.

So, in case you are wondering.....I finally gave in and put CLE away for him....even though it makes me sad. It is such a good, rigorous, thorough program which has served me so well over the last few years...but, this kid was going to either have a nervous breakdown, or give me one!

He spent 45 minutes on Tuesday crying because he hated school, he hated his math, he hated his books and he hated ME for making me make him do school!! OY! Not what you want to hear when you work so hard to provide a good education, and when you love your kids and want them to love learning.

So, Wednesday....I took the day to really rethink WHAT would work for this boy. He is a bit quirky....very smart, able to think, but easily frustrated by curricula that is either too easy or too hard.

I did some soul searching, and as much as I love CLE, I can see that it is just NOT a good fit for this child at this time. Looking at our school day I can see where all of my CM leanings have been slowly pushed out and replaced by workbooks and me repeating ad nauseum to the kiddoes to get their work done.

I packed up his workbooks and cleared his slate. On Thursday, I had a trial run of how I thought we may make our day work.

When the boys wake up they usually like to sit on the couch and snuggle while I build up a fire in the wood stove, make their breakfast and the older kids bring in firewood, take care of the dogs etc. When they came down Thursday a.m., I handed each of them a book....MTH Vacation Under a Volcano for Hammy and Detectives in Togas for Cubby. We are studying Rome, so I thought these 2 would work well. Grace is reading D'Aulaire's Greek Myths. I told them they should each read a chapter and then come narrate to me when they were done.
That went beautifully!...it was a nice way for the kids to start their day and I felt like it was more productive than just sitting and staring into space until they were awake enough to function.

So, hammy's program now looks like this:
Math: Life of Fred Elementary Series. We have already completed Apples, so we went onto Butterflies. I ordered an A Beka Math book for extra practice, and will use few days a week...but, with me teaching using manipulatives.

Reading: Hammy has finished CLE 2nd grade reading, so we will spend the rest of the year reading living books. We did the CLE program orally, so it was fun and pain free...but, I would like him to be writing better before we move on to the 3rd grade. He is reading well, but I would also like to see him read more "real" books. I will draw from Sonlight, Veritas Press, Well trained Mind etc. Booklists. He will narrate daily. Once a week we will work on a written or drawn narration.

Language Arts/Writing. Hammy will be using WWE 1 to get the hang of copy work and narration. I will probably use his copy work to teach grammar concepts which are covered in the CLE program. I always taught my older kids this way...ala CM/Ruth Beechick, and it was very effective and less stressful on my little kids. Hammy too to it like a fish to water. He was so relieved and learned his lesson well. In his case, less is definitely more. For spelling, I will probably just use the spelling lists from my CLE TM....

Bible, History, Read Alouds, Poetry etc. Are done as a family. this year, I am using Sonlight Core W and it is going well dfor all of the kids...so I will stick with it. This week we covered the Golden Age of Greece, The Peloppenesian War and Socrates. CHOW Chap 27&28.
We finished reading the Book of Isaiah and moved onto the book of Jeremiah...
Our memory verse is 1 Peter 2:9
As a devotional, we are reading Grandfather's Box. this week we read Chapters 19-22
We dumped The Trojan War by Olivia Coolidge...it was awfully boring, and we already read Black Ships and Wanderings of Odysseus...no reason to torture us all.
We are using Archimedes and the Door of Science as a Read Aloud, rather than a reader as a re
Placement for The Trojan War. phew! That was a relief.

We also finished The Invention of Hugo Cabret. We all LOVED this book. I have Wonderstruck kicking around here...and can't wait to read it to the kids.

Cubby had a short week because he was so sick at the beginning of this one...but was able to finish his 4 th grade CLE reading. He will be reading living books and writing narrations for the rest of this school year.
He finished 3 math and 3 LA assignments. I also started him on WWE 3 and he did so well! He loved his first lesson, so I am encouraged.
He practiced his facts using Rocket Math and began reading detectives in Togas.

Had a long talknwith Grace about the level and amount of academic work which will be expected of her come fall. She will be entering her High School years, and we will begin planning her Course of Study in the next few weeks. I am planning to homeschool with a mix of home made, farmed out and online courses. She is a lazy student, and it is going to be a struggle to encourage her to excel. She is an average student, but is capable of so much more if she would put forth the effort. Her tendency is to do as little as possible to pass, and she is well aware of that. I am well aware of it too...and not afraid to call her on it.

This week we reviewed her progress for the year...and talked about where she is doing well, where she is excelling and where she needs to step it up. She has conveniently " forgotten" to do her Science lessons for the past 5 weeks. ....so, this weekend she will be catching up on some science. We have been VERY light on her science anyway because she is just not interested whatsoever. I made sure we covered many scientists and their discoveries all though out her elementary years....sneaking in science wherever I could, and that seems to have familiarized her with many scientific concepts. I think she will do fine next year with an introductory Biology class and I am now researching our options.

She will be ready for Algebra 1 in the fall....and is well ahead in English and history. This looks to be an interesting next few years.

So, here is my week or rather semester in review....
Update next week :-)