Well, we’ve finally done it! We finished our school year and had a fun celebration! Today I’m sharing what worked well for us and what we will be tweaking/adjusting for next year. If you want to read how we started the year, check out our curriculum and schedule posts here and then come back and find out how it went!
For this look at our year, I’m going to start big-picture and work our way down to the small stuff.
Big Picture
The thing that really makes our homeschool experience are our unit studies. First semester, we did several units that were about a month long. We covered Light, Shadows, & Rainbows, Earth Science, Disaster Preparedness, and Christmas Picture Book Activities. For second semester, I decided to do a really long unit – we learned about American geography and history through the end of the civil war. I really loved the immersive experience of second semester. I felt like the money I spent on supplies, books, and experiences went further, and we were really able to delve into all the small topics I’d wanted to cover. So this is the format we’re going to be sticking with for next year.
I’ll share some more about our units for next school year next week!
Weekly Schedule
Next, let’s talk about our weekly schedule. We began the year trying to spend every other day on the more typical sit-down school work days, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Tuesdays was our field trip day, and Thursdays the kids hung out at “Grammy and Papa’s House”.
Second semester, I wanted to try something a little different. Noticing that it was often difficult to get back into the swing of things on each of our at-home learning days, we decided to spend Monday – Wednesday doing “sit-down” school. We still spent Thursdays with Grammy, and Friday became our new field trip day. We still remain flexible if other plans or weather necessitate moving the schedule around, but having three straight days with the same schedule helped everyone (most especially, me) stay on track.
Daily Schedule
So, what about those little things? I think of these being things like our daily schedule and curriculum picks. We had to make adjustments to our daily schedule when our two year old suddenly realized she was the only one napping in the afternoons and decided she wouldn’t be doing that anymore. Now the kids spend the afternoons in what we call “independent project time”. They choose something specific to work on during this 1-2 hour period. Our 7 year old most enjoys Legos, our 4 year old loves crafts and sensory activities, or playing “moms and dads” with her 2 year old sister. The 2 year old either follows me around while I try to get a few things done, or plays with her sister.
Reading
Let’s talk about curriculum. It has taken us two years to find a reading curriculum that speaks to my son’s unique needs and personality. We’ve tried “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons” and “Phonics Pathways”. Both were really frustrating to him for different reasons. We finally attempted a few lessons from the Hooked on Phonics books that I had put away for his younger sister, and it automatically clicked. For one thing, the lessons are EXTREMELY short. Sometimes he does two a day. The best thing about this, however, is that almost all of the lessons end with a little comic or book that he gets to read.
The biggest problem we experienced with the previous curriculums was that he got bored and frustrated with the long columns and rows of words he was supposed to read. To be honest, it was boring. I noticed he did much better when we’d skip the curriculum and practice reading in small leveled readers we already owned. I would help when he got stuck, or when he came to a word whose spelling pattern we hadn’t covered yet. When I realized his level of Hooked on Phonics included a story in each lesson, we gave it a shot. And so far its a win! We will keep moving through these and letting him read books from our shelves to us when he feels inclined. He’s definitely a kid who needs to feel some ownership and control over what’s happening, so I think this method should work for a while.
Math
Let’s talk math curriculum. We chose Math with Confidence for this year. Early in the year, both the 7 & year olds were able to easily move through the first grade curriculum. Once we started working on subtraction, however, it was time to move to something different for our four year old. I purchased just the level K workbook and have been doing two pages a day with her to keep her skills sharp through the year. I’m anticipating restarting her in first grade book (from the beginning) in June.
Math with Confidence, in my opinion, is one of the best things out there. We liked Saxon math, which we did for kindergarten, but the way this curriculum focuses on mathematical thinking is pretty unique. The kids love having their own workbooks to practice the concepts, but I wouldn’t describe it as a typical “workbook curriculum”. The workbook is really used as a way to reinforce. You do all the learning through parent and child interactions, games, and activities. Once you take into account how reasonably priced it is, I really don’t think it can be beat!
What about you? What changes will you be making to your homeschooling routine for next year? Let me know in the comments!
Leave a Reply