This Year's Program

I have been very busy over the summer and this fall such that I have not been able to blog, so now that the first term is two-thirds over I guess I will post something about what we are using this year!  I am now into our sixth year of homeschooling and finally, finally have I found what works for us

Religion:  We are continuing using the excellent Faith and Life series, only this year my two older boys are going through the program online.  I purchased access through My Catholic Faith Delivered which not only has the text read aloud to them, it also has a lot of multimedia and interaction to reinforce what they are learning.  They very much enjoy working this way.

Math:  This is our third year with the Mathematics Enhancement Programme (M.E.P.), still a free download from the Centre for Innovation in Mathematics.  Ds#3 is about to start Year 2, while Ds#1 and #2 will move up to Year 5 and Year 4 respectively by the start of our next term.  We have a lot of living math books as well that the kids are free to read and use, but this is really our focus.  The program is truly excellent for teaching math.

Language Arts:  Ds#3 started Primary Language Lessons from Hillside Education.  It's been a slow start for him as he gets up to speed with his reading and penmanship, but he is at the stage where he is progressing rapidly.  The program is designed to be covered in a single year, 3rd grade, but I like to go more slowly and cover it in two.  I really love how this program prepares my kids for writing.  No, this program will not put them on "grade level" with grammar or spelling or vocabulary.  But I no longer do any formal spelling since I have found that for some children it comes easily (Ds#2) and for others not so much (Ds#1), and they have best learned spelling through writing.  Vocabulary, too, is best learned through reading.

Ds#2 began Intermediate Language Lessons also from Hillside Education.  He brings his writing from this program to a writing class at our co-op and together they have really improved his imagination and narration.  Ds#1 is on the third section of this program, and also has a co-op writing class, and he has blossomed into a talented creative writer--and this from the loudest complainer about writing!  These boys, they do complain, but eventually they grow into it and this program has helped.

As for grammar, I agree wholeheartedly with the philosophy put forth by Analytical Grammar, a program we are trying, and liking, this year.  They believe, as I do, that grammar is a finite subject that can be learned during the 3 middle school; no year after year of grammar.  The program consists of 3 "seasons" or 10 week sessions, one for each year for grades 6th through 8th.  The bulk of the grammar is taught in these sessions, one building on another; periodic worksheets keep the information fresh between seasons.  I had my doubts that Ds#1 would be able to handle something this intensive and fast-moving.  I made a point of giving him my attention as he learned each section.  It was rocky at first; now I am quite impressed with how well he parses and diagrams sentences.  If he can do it, anyone can do it!
 
World History:  This is our second year using Connecting With History from St. George Books. We are using volume II this year, from the Birth of Christ to the Battle of Hastings (1066).  Between the books and the activity suggestions, this is how history should be done.  While this is a Charlotte Mason approach based on living books, the program is designed like a Classical approach such that you revisit each volume every 4 years, each time moving up another stage.  The whole family worked out of the same volume, yet they each read books and so activities for their level.  If only such a product was available for American History!

American History:  Since we do not have something as great as CWH for this subject, I try my best to set up something similar.  I have decided this year that we are going to study early America--American Indians, The Colonies, and People of the Revolution and the Constitution.  Our focus will be on biographies rather than events.  I used LibraryThing to figure out what books I already have relating to these topics, and then I use the library to fill in anything I may be missing.

You can see what we are doing for Science and Nature on my two other blogs, At Home Science and A Private Eye Nature.  More about co-op, Charlotte Mason, and learning to come!

Grammar-land

Today the boys finished ILL and PLL early so I started reading from Grammar Land by M. L. Nesbitt. The book is in the public domain so if you live in the US you can download it free from Google Books. I printed and comb bound it at home (listed as Home bound in my LibraryThing, lol!)

The boys really enjoyed Chapter 1. Judge Grammar divided his kingdom amongst 9 different Parts of Speech, and they are quarrelling over some words about where they belong. So Judge Grammar, with his assistants Serjeant Parsing and Dr. Syntax, have summoned his parts of speech to present their cases to him. First up is noun, but that is chapter 2.

Parsing a sentence...now I have not heard that term in a really long time.

Back to school

I was not ready to start back today--I have not finished planning my Native Americans unit, nor even my Human Body unit. Between the power outage, Christmas, working extra shifts, and the craziness on New Year's Day, I am not prepared. But I trust in the Lord, and the day went well.

I followed the schedule we've been using, so we read Faith and Life, did PLL and ILL, then MEP. We read tales in the Eric Carle book.


Our Monday block time is set aside for Math or Language Arts. Ds#1 and Ds#2 did a few Mad Libs together while I read with Ds#3. Next I grabbed the magnetic word board I picked up at the beginning of the year. Ds#2 made sentences and then we put the words into the appropriate part-of-speech block. Ds#1 liked making silly sentences.

Tuesday is co-op an the dissection supplies have not arrived yet. What to do?

Quotable Saints for copywork

I just bought this affordable title from CHC and it is almost perfect for copywork. The print is very small, and on newsprint-type paper so it can be difficult to read. Ds#2 can use it fine but I know ds#1, who struggles a lot with copying of any kind, would likely need the quotes retyped and enlarged.

The quotes are grouped by theme; you can also use the index to find all the quotes from a particular saint. I'll be using this book a lot for cursive practice and dictation, too.