I began homeschool "lite" this summer with a 6 week trial to see if it really was something I could commit to for the school year for our 6.5 year old and his 3.5 year old brother. It was a good, good thing, with lots for me to learn. Here's what we did (for future reference). In my next post, I'll record the aspirations for the next 6 weeks.
Morning Time: Very simply, we did 1-2 stories from the Old Testament part of the Children's Storybook Bible and a hymn. Sometimes following the Bible reading, I would ask questions such as, What does what we just read tell us about God? Does this remind you of Jesus? We are currently reading about David.
Reading: Used some of the material from The Good and the Beautiful (free) literacy curriculum offered online. I was really selective (I shy away from anything that I consider busy work) so we maybe did about half of what was suggested for each lesson. But I felt my son got a good overview of some basics and thanks to the readers, good guided reading practice. Each day, we'd start with less than five minutes of high frequency flash cards, do the lesson (about 10 minutes), and he'd read to me from either the readers or another book, mostly the Little Bear books. He is really interested in reading the Magic Tree House books, so sometimes he picks up one and makes it through a few pages. The literature read alouds were the two Pooh books, which both boys enjoyed.
Writing: Used some suggestions from TGATB, and every week did a sentence copy from the read aloud and talked about the writing conventions there. Also did dictation each week (either words that fit the pattern of the reading lesson, or a short sentence) and some writing where I encouraged phonetic spelling and exploration. He did an All About Me book, dictated a mystery for me to record for him (after hearing several Boxcar Children books), and wrote a couple of short letters.
Math: We started out using the free math program offered through CIMT, which I found very unwieldly for planning. My child is intuitive about some math concepts, but not others and although I had gone through the curriculum making my best guesses on lessons we could skip, combine, or extend, they just weren't working. So in the first week, I ordered the Singapore math resources and by the second week, we were right on track. The lessons are simple and targeted. Although he knew his basic math facts of addition and subtraction, the way the functions are taught with number bonds show they are inverse operations and the progression from manipulatives to pictures to numbers to mental math has gone really well, too.
Science: The boys were interested in earthworms after finding them on our concrete after the rains, so I gathered their questions, read some books, and got some fishing bait worms at our farm store to make a wormery for. Later we released them into our tomato bed. We did a few hikes as well.
Social Studies: We started with the Ice Age because that's where he was most interested. I read some Ice Age books and he ended up making a few harpoons. They used the charcoal ends of partly burned sticks in our fire pit to make "cave paintings" after we learned about those. For the stone age, the boys wanted to sew, so they did some handwork, and then as we learned about the Sumerians, we made clay and they made pots and did some writing into the clay "tablets."
Other: My husband has been working on his truck and motorcycle in his free time, so they are throwing around words like "carb cleaner." They both did swimming lessons for two weeks. Also, they are growing a little crop of wheat and are learning to share a room.
Morning Time: Very simply, we did 1-2 stories from the Old Testament part of the Children's Storybook Bible and a hymn. Sometimes following the Bible reading, I would ask questions such as, What does what we just read tell us about God? Does this remind you of Jesus? We are currently reading about David.
Reading: Used some of the material from The Good and the Beautiful (free) literacy curriculum offered online. I was really selective (I shy away from anything that I consider busy work) so we maybe did about half of what was suggested for each lesson. But I felt my son got a good overview of some basics and thanks to the readers, good guided reading practice. Each day, we'd start with less than five minutes of high frequency flash cards, do the lesson (about 10 minutes), and he'd read to me from either the readers or another book, mostly the Little Bear books. He is really interested in reading the Magic Tree House books, so sometimes he picks up one and makes it through a few pages. The literature read alouds were the two Pooh books, which both boys enjoyed.
Writing: Used some suggestions from TGATB, and every week did a sentence copy from the read aloud and talked about the writing conventions there. Also did dictation each week (either words that fit the pattern of the reading lesson, or a short sentence) and some writing where I encouraged phonetic spelling and exploration. He did an All About Me book, dictated a mystery for me to record for him (after hearing several Boxcar Children books), and wrote a couple of short letters.
Math: We started out using the free math program offered through CIMT, which I found very unwieldly for planning. My child is intuitive about some math concepts, but not others and although I had gone through the curriculum making my best guesses on lessons we could skip, combine, or extend, they just weren't working. So in the first week, I ordered the Singapore math resources and by the second week, we were right on track. The lessons are simple and targeted. Although he knew his basic math facts of addition and subtraction, the way the functions are taught with number bonds show they are inverse operations and the progression from manipulatives to pictures to numbers to mental math has gone really well, too.
Science: The boys were interested in earthworms after finding them on our concrete after the rains, so I gathered their questions, read some books, and got some fishing bait worms at our farm store to make a wormery for. Later we released them into our tomato bed. We did a few hikes as well.
Social Studies: We started with the Ice Age because that's where he was most interested. I read some Ice Age books and he ended up making a few harpoons. They used the charcoal ends of partly burned sticks in our fire pit to make "cave paintings" after we learned about those. For the stone age, the boys wanted to sew, so they did some handwork, and then as we learned about the Sumerians, we made clay and they made pots and did some writing into the clay "tablets."
Other: My husband has been working on his truck and motorcycle in his free time, so they are throwing around words like "carb cleaner." They both did swimming lessons for two weeks. Also, they are growing a little crop of wheat and are learning to share a room.
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