Oh boy, here we go… Debating and fact finding this morning!
This is how it went… First it was asking about shark facts. Which leads to how to prevent a shark attack and why sharks attack humans. Then wanting to know which animal kills more humans every year. To how hippopotamuses kill more humans than sharks. Which they discovered why hippopotamuses are super territorial. Then somehow spiraled to why can’t freshwater animals can’t survive in the ocean. That lead to how some saltwater animals can’t adapt to freshwater, but some can because marshes and swamps bridge the two waters.
Diving into that rabbit hole surely spirals quickly… That’s the fun of learning on a whim.
I just realized I’m going to have a 8th grader, 6th grader and two 3rd graders in Public School terms.
The levels these kiddos are scattered across the board. I had to learn this lesson the hard way. When I wanted so badly to “bring them up to grade.” I tried pushing and using different techniques. Nothing worked.
When they finally had grasped several pieces of the puzzle through lots of work at home….. then and only then did I notice their knowledge begin to blossom. I had to let go of my ideals of what a grade level consisted of. For them now, we just finished up what would be 7th, 5th, and 2nd grade in public school, they are doing math at a 5th/6th and 2nd/3rd grade level, history at a 7/8th grade, geography at a 7/8th grade, science at a 7/8th grade, reading at a 8th, 2nd/3rd and 1st/2nd grade, and spelling/Language Arts at a 6th, 2nd, and 1st grade.
And it’s all perfectly okay.
Because what this shows me is that they are neither behind nor ahead; they are precisely where they need to be. Their educational needs are being met in ways that access their strengths and support their weaknesses.
That’s exactly what education is supposed to be.
I suck at fractions and geometry. You won’t hear anyone one say to me, as an 39-year-old woman, that I am “behind” because I didn’t understand these concepts in high school. So why are we pressuring our kids to conform to such arbitrary rules?
If your kiddo struggles with a subject, they aren’t behind. They have a weakness.
Well this is our last week for the 2022-2023 homeschool year. Five whole days left! Then it will be summer break until July 10th when we once again begin. It seems like such a long time ago when we first started this journey, and now it seems to be just a blink of an eye some days.
I’ve been stressing myself out over next year’s curriculum and have come to the conclusion. That I need to branch out and take control by creating what my kiddos need instead of trying to bend curriculum schedules and materials for the boys. So in June I am doing a full overhaul of the curriculum and schedule.
Not only will I be rearranging our curriculum, well the only curriculum technically being used for next year will be for language arts and math. For the rest of the subjects, I will be using a mixture of old or vintage educational books along with newer up to date books as well to give the boys more well rounded lessons. I’ve done a lot of research working all this out. One thing I plan on implementing more of is the Charlotte Mason method of notebooking. We did it for a short time about a year ago. I’m hoping this coming year will be different as we use it for more than one subject.
Anyways look forward to the next post about what I will be using and some alternatives I have for backup.
Ugh… Planning! There are roughly 228 days excluding weekends and holidays between July 10, 2023 and June 7, 2024. Minus the holidays we take off for which gives us about 210 to 215 days depending. Which gives me leeway to make 40 to 44 weeks of lessons. So that means I need to roughly print out about 30 double sided sheets of my week planner and 120 double sided of my day planner. Printing extra for wiggle room if needed. I don’t do monthly or yearly because that makes it way too complicated for 4 schedules. I’m going to be busy tomorrow 😏
Well I’m not really sure I can call them fails, but more of they just didn’t work out for my kiddos.
Minecraft Math with Fun-school Journals
This one simply didn’t work out do to how long I had to divide game time in order for each kiddo to have a turn. Then while the others waited I tried to work on something else.
Unfortunately, my main focus was when they could have their game time. So this just was more of a distraction then anything else. Maybe it would work if you only have one kiddo instead of four.
Wild Math
While I loved the concept and thought it would be wonderful to try. It was hard to implement especially to four kiddos with various forms of learning disabilities and ADHD. It just wasn’t a good fit for them.
The Good and The Beautiful Math
Beautiful and well structured. We used it for the first half of the year before it was get way to advanced for their ability. I was going to just drop them a level and then start again this coming year. It unfortunately didn’t go as planned. So I had to try something different…
Grammar Galaxy
While it was a hit and works for my eldest, it fell flat with my other three. They loved the story, but the work was too confusing for them.
I hated to have to change and find something so late in the year, but I rather have them understand what they are doing then having them confused. So off researching I went…
Plain and not so plain
It should be called plain and simple! Lightly structured and easy to use. There was only two down falls I can say with this curriculum.
One is that it’s a loop curriculum that doesn’t focus on one thing before mastery. Which is fine if your kiddos learn better that way. Unfortunately, mine don’t so…
The other issue is as it progresses through especially in the upper grades, if you don’t know your language arts or math terminology it’s going to give you a headache 😅 No, seriously you just need to make sure you brush up with a YouTube video or something in order to help your kiddos understand the material.
Overall it was great in a pinch, but we will be changing for the upcoming year.
Curriculum wins will be coming up in a future post. So stay tuned…
I love every aspect of homeschooling. Not just the teaching, but planning the year of curriculum, researching the curriculum and then learning with my kiddos. It’s surprises me how much I didn’t know and was never taught in public school. It’s a very eye opening experience that I will cherish always.
Ok got everything minus about 25 books I just need to mesh things together. I decided to create a more well round language arts and math curriculum by piecing a mixture of modern secular and late 19th century/early 20th century (modernized) text and living books. The same will be going for literature, poetry, art, geography, history, government, science and health. I’m also creating a speech class for the kiddos to help them with their pronunciation of words and letters. All I need to do is finish creating my lesson plan 🥴
The reason I’m going this route is simple. The newer curriculum likes bounce around or loop instead of focusing on mastering the skills. So I found some wonderful old education books for elementary through highschool when the education was rigorous and straight to the point. Later, I will update on how I piece everything together and give links to material if anyone is interested.
Thank you Sherry, Marissa, and Emily for all your help and direction.
Ok I’m a crappy blogger 😔 It happens… I’m going to try and do better for the upcoming homeschool year. As it stands we only have a few weeks left. So I’ll keep you posted as I plan for the 2023-2024 homeschool year.
Let’s just say my homeschool brain is working overtime. Like I have everything lined up, I’m still tweaking it. Why? Because I’m not sure it’s going to be a good fit or unsure if it will work for the kiddos. Gah! I’m going crazy here😅 No seriously 😒 Ok, so I know I said I had everything worked out. Here’s my thing… I found some new curriculum so I’m researching and now questioning whether this would be a better fit. I don’t know maybe I’ll just stick with what I have planned and use these as back ups. There are so many possibilities! Better yet I just tested the kiddos to see what level I could put them in with what I had planned. Someone tell the curriculum fairies to quit dangling new sources of curricula for me to go crazy. Anyways, I’ll probably update sometime around June if not before for my final picks for the 2023/2024 homeschool year’s curriculum. I might even break it down into levels not sure yet 🤷🏻♀️
There’s a wonderful book we read this week that is quite interesting. It’s called The Librarian Who Measured The Earthby Kathryn Lasky. My kiddos loved this book! Even though this book is short, it’s packed with lots of history, geography and math. It amazed the kiddos that this man from the third century was only off by 200 miles in his calculations. That’s pretty spectacular in my kiddos’ eyes. If you’re interested, you can always read more about Eratosthenes.
Homeschool Aunt Chaos 