I realized this week that I have been very foolish with my curriculum choices for next year.
You see, I have spent the last 4 months planning and scouring looking for what I think we need.... when I have an entire curriculum-I just have no idea how to use it.
Let me rewind.
When I was homeschooled (back in the day😂😂), my mom tried the Robinson Curriculum.
This is very much a self teaching curriculum.. In the ideal setting, you teach your child to read, the math facts.... and then pretty much let them loose within given boundaries. When you buy the CDs (or, apparently now, they have an online version), you get the how tos, and this HUGE book list. The idea is that the child learns by simply reading. Instead of reading the very much flawed, rewritten history books, they are reading about the life of the person or the event by people who lived through it-or told their story to somebody else. You are also encouraged to use Saxon Math (not newer than 2nd edition ideally).. The website explains it all-I'm still learning. The child does math first, a set number of problems a day and then moves on to reading. Once they get past the basics of learning math facts and learning to read, they are essentially on their own.
I've been watching videos on YouTube from Our House. She does an awesome job at explaining exactly what to do with the curriculum.
Now, since I've spent SO MUCH time getting curriculum together for next year-and I'm mostly done with it... we're are going to go ahead with my plans-next time I get a chance, I'll give you a run down and the plans. A few things I'm going to implement is the reading list from Robinson and the method of doing math... We do not have the Saxon but we can use basically the same way... Give them the tools to learn it and let them figure it out.. As long they have the basic tools, they are good to go-let their minds figure it out.. They can do this!!! And, quite frankly, I'm going a bit insane with the messy house and having to repeat a math word problem 10 times until it "clicks". I love my kids, I love homeschooling, but there's only so many different ways you can explain something, sometimes they just have to work through it.
Now, Robinson is very much a reading-heavy curriculum. All of the books on the list are open source, meaning their copyright is expired so they are public domain... Meaning you can print them (explained on RC website and Our House linked above), or if you are lucky you can find them at a thrift store in good condition. Or if you are ok with your kids using Kindles, Amazon has a lot of classics as free Kindle books. I pulled out my Robinson set when I realized I didn't have reading comprehension for Grace... Now, they do have some books with reading comprehension and end of book test questions, but really the easiest way to know they learned is to have them write a book report.. So we're learning that next year as well.
I can easily say right now we can't do everything as Dr. Robinson created his curriculum (no TV, no sugar, school 6 days a week)... BUT I can say we'll do most of it. Winter might be different...but we'll see... Next year will be sort of our transition year... Getting the older kids especially used to doing everything on their own. I grade papers for grammar, spelling and grade math. They learn grammar and spelling through reading because they will be reading the classics, which have correct grammar and spelling. RC does have spelling list and vocab words-I'm still learning...
Well... That's everything for now..
~Tabitha
