This year was a big year for me in my homeschooling “journey”. I firmly committed to a Charlotte Mason style education the summer before school started (I think August maybe of 2017, when I started listening to the ADE podcast) and it has been so so so great and I am really excited for the future of our homeschooling. We figured out our time tables (with adjustments each term) and introduced new subjects and really had such a great year.
It was hard, as always thus far, because of little ones, and half way through the year we moved all our school stuff up to the play room for a few reasons – having the whole downstairs available to everyone was distracting, to me primarily, and the babies had too much free reign and were impossible to control, and our school stuff was everywhere all the time.
Having a designated school room worked pretty well. It’s a little cramped and the babies are still a distraction to those trying to do lessons, but overall it’s much better so we will maintain that spot for the foreseeable future. As I learn more and more by listening to more ADE podcasts and reading CM’s words for myself, I get better and more relaxed and things go more smoothly. I feel a definite sense of rightness about what we’re doing.
I need to keep track through the years what we’re doing and what works and doesn’t and what people are reading at what ages to make it easier next time I have a kid that age come along, etc.
2018-2018 School Year Overview
LINUS (Form 1B):
Abella was great and he had so much fun. I’m really glad we did that this year.
He liked all his books, although I did read more to him than I thought I would need to. That’s partly because I learned that reading his lessons to him at this age is to be expected. The fact that he can read some of them on his own is a little unusual. He especially liked 50 Famous Stories, James Herriot and Viking Tales. By the 3rd term I was letting him listen to Just So Stories on Librovox and that worked out well.
Saxon math is working well for him, his handwriting improved from the beginning to the end of the year, and he enjoyed our Friday dry brush/nature lore lesson.
I didn’t change too much about his schedule except for moving his math up to the morning to be at the same time as Elliot and Gus. That was a little hard because Linus and Gus both needed me for 100% of the instruction of their lessons. It was hard some days but we did our best and it worked fine. I would have Linus do copywork while I got through Gus’s lesson, which just meant that Linus had writing and math back to back (not idea) but he was done with the two hardest things for him right of the bat.
TERM 1
TERM 2
TERM 3
BOOKS
GUS (FORM 1A)
I had to switch Gus from timed math lessons to a predetermined quantity of problems, which I didn’t want to do but it actually worked much better.
Thursdays were hard because they had to leave for Canyon Grove at 11:00 so we had to work quickly, which is not easy. I was stressed and high strung on Thursdays. Other days too, but especially Thursdays.
He didn’t like a lot of the books he read this year. Next year we are moving away from Ambleside and will be choosing more of our own books, which I think will benefit him. I switched him from TCOO to The Men Who Found America, which he liked much better. He listened to Men of Iron and Secrets of the Woods for the later terms.
He also really enjoyed our Friday dry brush/nature lore lesson. Gus is artistic and enjoys drawing and painting so we will also be doing more of that in our morning lessons next year.
TERM 1
TERM 2
TERM 3
BOOKS
ELLIOT (FORM 2A)
Elliot did well with all his books. His big struggle is writing keyword outlines and paragraphs with dress ups (IEW). So we will continue to work on that next year. He started doing more written narrations, which I’m sure he will greatly improve on this coming year as we practice even more.
He started violin lessons in September and really is enjoying that and also spends a lot of his free time playing the piano. He wants to perform movies and plays and spends free time writing “shooting scripts” and regular scripts along with his book. He is very interested in film making.
His hardest subjects were Shakespeare, Plutarch, grammar, and writing.
His favorite books were The Ocean of Truth, Famous Men of Rome, and Carry a Big Stick (about Teddy Roosevelt).
TERM 1
TERM 2
TERM 3
BOOKS
As of right now we are not planning on doing any extra on site school stuff in the morning so we’ll have a 5 day school week, which will be really nice. I’m working on schedules and book lists and page counts right now, and I’m almost done. The workload increases for Gus this year since he’s moving up from Form 1 to Form 2 but Linus and Elliot will be staying the same.
We will do Family Choir on Mondays, Dance and Orchestra for Elliot on Tuesdays, then on Wednesday Elliot and Gus are taking three classes (science, math, and tech) at a local museum. While they’re at that, Linus will get to play with his buddy each week. Thursdays Elliot will have Orchestra and Friday’s will be free. It’s less than last year which I’m glad about. We may do an outside art or swimming class…we’ll see…
