I won’t apologize for my absence; dealing with 3 kids has been a challenge. Keeping 2 doing school and 1 entertained has been a challenge! Each time we start schooling with a new student I feel like a newbie again because so much changes and the challenges of different learning styles make so much of what we’ve done in the past not workable! Each kid learns so differently and when we started this 10+ years ago, I had to find my way, and so I begin again.
So let me introduce the students, keep in mind none of them have ever been to brick and mortar school.
Froggy 14, is between 9th and 10th grade. She is pretty self motivated and planning to go to college.
- Science - Easy Peasy High School Homeschool Biology
- Literature - Designed her own because studying just American authors seemed so limiting
- Grammar was studied intensively from 1st – 8th Grade – so not covering that.
- Social Studies – Designed her own Religion and Culture Study
- Math – Life of Fred – Algebra 1 and 2 this year
- French – Rosetta Stone
- PE is Horsebackriding
- Extracurricular – Girl Scouts, writing for a Girl Scout eZine, and the Student Nanowrimo
I won’t be writing much about her studies as she is pretty independent and doesn’t like me sharing what she is up to but there might be the odd post. She is heavily into writing, loves to write her own novels and has participated in at least 2 years of NaNoWriMo. (National Novel Writers Month - which happens in November every year.)
Ketchup 9, is pretty solidly 4th grade in everything but Math.
- Grammar – completed 4th grade last year – so taking a year off
- Literature – Moving Beyond the Page’s 9-11 Literature Units
- Science – Moving Beyond the Page’s 9-11 Science Units
- Social Studies – Moving Beyond the Page’s 9-11 Social Studies Units
- Math – Life of Fred and Singapore Math
- Extracurricular – Girl Scouts
She likes her materials to be fairly structured with a good balance of physical activity. She has never been tested but has several markers of ADD/ADHD – so we take a lot of breaks and move pretty slowly somedays. She has a vivid imagination, a gentle heart and we work with it. There is a lot of sitting with Ketchup to keep her focused and on task – so I spend a lot of time juggling her and Giraffe between subjects.
Giraffe 6, is just getting started. She is comfortably 1st grade. At the moment she will be the focus of most of these posts.
- Literature – Various reading books on leave and read alouds – covering all subject areas
- Language Arts – Explode the Code (Phonics), No spelling, various Handwriting projects, Grammar to come
- Math – Singapore 1A & B, Life of Fred Apples & Butterflies
- Science – Various materials following a kind of Earth Science Life Science pattern
- History/Geography – Evan Moor Beginning Geography / History Odyssey (Ancients), Horrible Histories
- Language/Art/Crafts/Music – nothing here as yet
- Extracurricular – Daisys as a Virtual Girl Scout (formerly known as Juliette)
She’s pretty stubborn and doesn’t like having to do school work. I’m working to find materials and subjects that interest her and get her motivated to keep going.
If you look through past posts you’ll find that we’ve used a variety of methods in the past from parts of self-pay K12.com, to standard workbooks you can get a the bookstore, to purchased materials like Oak Meadow (OM) or Moving Beyond the Page (MBtP) etc. We’ve pretty much stubbornly stuck with Singapore for Math til 5th grade, and then moved to Life of Fred (LOF) which has done well for us. But Science and History/Social Studies has always been a challenge as they aren’t really MY favourite subject and so they’re more of a challenge for me to teach.
Beginning this year I’m actively trying to motivate the girls in the Sciences and History and trying to make sure they get equal air time. As always, if there is an interest in any subject, we’ll drop everything and run with it as far as we can take it.
(the Wonderful Puddle project was fun! Definitely an exciting splash of colour on our delightfully rainy day.)