So much has been happening around here this year. But hey, that's just sums up 2020 right? A whole lot of nothing it seems.. Everybody is busy just trying to keep some sort of sanity about them.
We ended up starting school later than I would have liked-but that's ok, plans change. Honestly, the best way for me keep my sanity with homeschooling is to remember to be a little flexible... If I'm too flexible, then things fall apart and we don't get anything done. So we still have to have our plan.
So what are we doing for school this year?
Andrew is in 4th grade.. He's doing a variety of Ace PACES, Answers in Genesis for science, Saxon for math and a homemade state study.
He loves the PACES. I love the PACES. I LOVE how there's pretty much no planning involved and it's mostly independent... But we needed some subjects that are a little more reusable for the rest of the kids-making it a little more affordable.. So we dropped ACE PACEs for science. He really wanted to learn about the human body, so we shopped around online looking at reviews and found one that's Bible based and not teaching him about certain anatomy features he's not quite ready for. The one we chose was Answers in Genesis. God's Wondrous Machine. It teaches about the mind, respiratory and circulatory. I am LOVING this. Everything was all planned out and pretty much ready for us to start when we got it. It's written for ages 8-12, and has different levels planned in-you just have look and decide which level is right for your child.. It also makes it easy to use a family study, or as a study more than one child can use the books for at a time. The Saxon math.... Well, we're getting used to it. Andrew is getting used to having more word problems and learning how to write and solve equations along with using a text book instead of a workbook. The state study.. When I was in school, 4th graders learned about the state.. Apparently it's more traditional to wait a few more years around here. Oh well... I also found out that when it comes to homeschoolers and state studies, you are on your own. So I grabbed a couple of our tourist books, found a few great websites and delved in.. We have a section on governors, a section on the history of the state and a section of each region. I wrote it as an independent study and so far he's having some fun with it.. It will only last about 12 weeks, but that's ok. I think Andrew's biggest problem this year will be the transition from workbooks to textbooks.
Eva is in 3rd grade. She is mostly in PACEs, but her science is through Institute for Creation Research. Eva is also finishing up Abeka cursive. Ok, the science I am regretting a bit... I did as soon as I saw the books.. But we are making the best of it and although it's a little difficult for her, she's doing her best and even enjoying it. We bought the pack of Guide To Books but left out the Universe and the Human Body. I had to go through and write a workbook and the tests to these books. While I love the information given, these were NOT written as curriculum kind of book-at least not for independent study. But I had spent my budget so we went with what we had. Next year I'll probably buy something from AiG for an animsl study better fitted to how we do school.
Grace is in 1st grade. She is all Abeka and doing great in it. Grace is learning independent study this year... and keeps having to redo something when she forgets to read instructions.
Hannah is working her way through the alphabet. She's insistent she needs to learn to read soon... So she has great motivation to learn her letters and their sounds. Hannah is 4.
Two year old Elijah is along for the ride. He has special coloring books just for school along with reusable stickers.
Baby Dinah makes things interesting. LOL
My biggest fear with homeschooling is that we'll miss something. That's mostly why we're using a curriculum for hte base subjects.. But even with that, we missed something. Andrew and Eva do not have a good foundation with addition and subtraction. Completely my fault as mom/teacher. So, we are working on flashcards. I'm fixing the issue with Grace as she starts in addition this year. I think as an adult I have so much engrained in me (such as basic math) that I forget that it had to be taught to me. Unfortunately for our older kids, they seem to be the "guinea pigs".
But I'm just being truthful with them.... Yesterday went something like... Ok guys, we didn't do this right, we need to stop, take a step back and do it right. I put our flashcards in order (we have Abeka sets for addition and subtraction... honestly debating ordering for multiplication-we have division flashcards) and paid attention to what problems we were on when they started have to pause for longer than a few seconds or started counting on their fingers. We got pretty far in addition, subtraction wasn't so easy. But we'll get it. One day at a time. I had a friend explain to me the importance of the speed drills-I didn't fully understand then, I understand now... They need to know those addition and subtraction problems without batting an eye to make it once they get to the harder stuff.
As for me.. I'm learning some Anatomy right along with Andrew. I am still searching for a planner I like that will fit all the kids-plus more. I have yet to find it. This year my planner is basically notebook papers with the days labeled, what week of school we are in. Everybody is color coded. Which is helping a lot as I can just glance real quick and see who has to do what. I have a ton of blank notebook papers in my binder as well, for notes, grades or other miscellaneous things that pop into my head. Once we're through this calendar year, I'll add my meal and life planner to the same notebook-though this is more monthly than daily. That way it's all in the same notebook. Merissa over at Little House Living just shared her planner and I think I need to go play on excel and see what I can make, I loved the layout of hers, but I much prefer a regular notebook size as my eyes aren't so great.
Andrew and Eva also have planners this year instead of the goal cards like ACE uses. I loved those goal cards the past few years, but I wanted something I didn't have to remember to print out every few weeks when I did school planning. So we printed off a calendar. Next year I will probably just do a full year calendar so they can dates they want to remember even for our days we don't have school-such as birthdays or events at church or whatever. I'll do a post on our planners, too.
I'm working on another post about how we are organizing things this year, this one seems to be a bit long as it is.
I don't get much of a chance to sit down and type anymore... For instance, this post took me 6 hours, I'm sitting rocking Dinah in the bouncy chair as I finish typing this.. Supervising home ec (Eva's learning to bake cookies), and grading PACEs as Andrew gets them done... He didn't get done with his school this week so he gets to finish on Saturday...
Anyway.. I don't get much of a chance anymore, but I'll be here when I can.
~Tabitha
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