Random Review- Installment 8, Back to School
Yesterday was Elasa's official first day back to school at the white house with the green door.
In this school, there were no new backpacks or shoes, no packed lunches or yellow buses roaring about. There was, however, a stack of brand new books, a pupil with freshly-combed hair, and a teacher reporting for duty, and apparently that was all we needed, for second grade commenced without further ado.
Elasa was not required to register as a student with the school district this year, as she doesn't turn 8 until early winter, so our workload is relatively light once again as I am mainly focusing on math, reading and language arts. Subjects such as science and history will wait for next year, when she will be registered and thereby required to do them.
Christian Light Publications once again come to the rescue with two out of three subjects, and I am excited to be using them after the success I had with their math last year.
And speaking of math, we did indeed finish her first grade book in August as I was hoping to! Elasa only had 9 lessons left when we puttered out in May, so it felt a shame to let them go unfinished when we were so close! I guess that's the part of me coming out that likes to wrap things up and tie it with a bow, for I know it wasn't completely necessary, but it did give me a good feeling to really and truly complete first grade- even if it was only three days before starting second! The good part about finishing up her first grade math was that she was able to brush up on some of her math facts- and were they ever rusty!!! She was pretty crestfallen to get more wrong on her final math test then she ever did before, but I assured her that it had a lot to do with her long break from school and that second grade would actually start out easier than what she just finished...and indeed it has!
As mentioned, I really liked Christina Light Education's math curriculum last year, so there really was not a lot of debate over what we should use this year. While we are planing to switch over to Teaching Textbooks in the next year or two, CLE seems to provide a very good foundation for math in these early grades, and other homeschooling mothers are saying that children who use it are well-prepared to move to Teaching Textbooks.
Even after only two days with second grade math, I would say that they are already making it a point to make students more independent and responsible for their work. So far, there have just been pre-tests, review work and "just for fun" activities as a nice way of easing into the year. The pr-tests were new for me, but I like how the student's score helps to decide how much of the lesson you need to do or skip. For instance, Elasa passed her pre-test yesterday and that dictated how much of the lesson she needed to do today.
This is the first time we are using CLE for reading, as I used Eastern Mennonite Publications' Beginning Steps to Reading and Bible Blessings to teach reading up to this point! Elasa is very excited to about her brand-new readers, and I am excited that they just now printed the readers with full-color pictures inside, so apparently we're getting on board at the perfect time! Elasa was disappointed that there were no stories out of her readers on either of the first two days, but she did fine with the review work assigned and still enjoyed it!
The curriculum that I am probably the most excited about is Learning Language Arts Through Literature! This name has stuck in my head ever since I used it one year as a student! I am not even sure which grade I was in (maybe 5th or 6th?) and I know it has changed since then, but I do remember that year being a high-light in this particular subject. When I talked to a school-teacher friend of mine about this language arts program, she recommended that if I had a good feeling about using it myself all those years ago, and if I was excited about teaching it, then I should give it a whirl! I took that advice and am glad that I did! This language arts program covers phonics, reading, spelling, grammar, and higher order thinking skills, so technically I would not have needed CLE reading, but I liked those readers, too, and hated to skip them, so another good piece of advice from this school-teaching friend was to do both, but then feel free to skip some parts if they cover too much of the same stuff. Elasa enjoys reading enough that I don't think all the extra stories should be a problem! I especially love how Learning Language Arts Through Literature has its own little readers, but also incorporates "real" children's books into the program! We all know how I love children's books, so this has given me the opportunity to expand my library with some real classics! We decided to go ahead and order the books that Elasa will use throughout the year so that we will have them ready as we need them. We already owned two of the ones on the list, and I am sure most of the others would be available from the library, but I could just picture getting to a lesson that required a certain book and not having it, so this seemed like a good way to avoid that frustration, and besides, as I said, I don't mind expanding my library with the cream of the crop among children's books!
I think any curriculum that can incorporate a variety of subjects into one is ingenious, so I am very happy that this one book also takes care of handwriting and spelling, on top of phonics, reading and grammar. The book does involve the teacher quite a bit, and has a fair amount of "hand-on" activities, but it looks like everything is either really simple or included in the student's workbook, so this basic approach that keeps things interesting without having the teacher scurrying around to collect paraphernalia is good by me!
We have been starting our school days by reading The Little House books again, just as we did last year. We finished The Long Winter alongside the final lessons of first grade math, after taking an equal break on both, so now we are on Little Town on the Prairie, which I think is one of my favorites!
I think being organized plays a big part in how inspired I feel, so I was quite happy with a few improvements Wesley helped me make to our little school corner. Last year I had a shelf hanging above the school table for things like pencils, flashcards, timer, ect. but I kept all our books on the table. Well, eventually the table began to bow under the weight and it was also a pain to move everything off the table every every time we needed it for something else, so I got the idea that we needed to hang a second shelf under the first to hold my teacher's keys and the children's workbooks. Wesley obligingly got a shelf at Lowe's and hung it for me and I love the results! Sometimes the simplest solutions bring the greatest satisfaction...
A second huge improvement came in the door in the form of a seven-foot bookshelf that now sits in the living room right near the school table. This has provided the perfect place for all the CLE Light Units (each subject comes with 10!), teachers keys that aren't currently being used, and other school-related books and materials that need a home. I haven't been homeschooling for very long, and I am already realizing how much room all the books and other materials take up, so having plenty of room in one spot after having some things scattered hither and yon is just wonderful! We have hopes and plans of re-doing half of our basement to use for a schoolroom sometime in the future, but it's anyone's guess when that will actually happen, so for now I am very pleased with my set-up.
I have not started school with Gavin yet, but his schoolbooks for learning to read are waiting in the wings, so one of these days I will need to learn just how to juggle two students! Oh, yes...make that two students and one toddler...
I am trying to tell myself that teaching is the most important part of my morning and that if I get that done, then that is enough, but my housework does have a way of calling my name pretty loudly and there is a certain amount that does need to be done every day to keep things from falling apart, so I am still working on the balance! For the moment it looks something like bread from Aldi, lots of roast chicken & carrots, and putting up with a few cobwebs.
I am guessing that that those things would look like small sacrifices to people who would love to homeschool their children but the law or other factors forbid it.
Looking at homeschooling as a privilege helps me keep things in perspective, so here on the cusp of a new year I am choosing two things that I am pretty sure will keep me in good standing...
Gratitude.
And many cups of tea.
In this school, there were no new backpacks or shoes, no packed lunches or yellow buses roaring about. There was, however, a stack of brand new books, a pupil with freshly-combed hair, and a teacher reporting for duty, and apparently that was all we needed, for second grade commenced without further ado.
Elasa was not required to register as a student with the school district this year, as she doesn't turn 8 until early winter, so our workload is relatively light once again as I am mainly focusing on math, reading and language arts. Subjects such as science and history will wait for next year, when she will be registered and thereby required to do them.
Christian Light Publications once again come to the rescue with two out of three subjects, and I am excited to be using them after the success I had with their math last year.
And speaking of math, we did indeed finish her first grade book in August as I was hoping to! Elasa only had 9 lessons left when we puttered out in May, so it felt a shame to let them go unfinished when we were so close! I guess that's the part of me coming out that likes to wrap things up and tie it with a bow, for I know it wasn't completely necessary, but it did give me a good feeling to really and truly complete first grade- even if it was only three days before starting second! The good part about finishing up her first grade math was that she was able to brush up on some of her math facts- and were they ever rusty!!! She was pretty crestfallen to get more wrong on her final math test then she ever did before, but I assured her that it had a lot to do with her long break from school and that second grade would actually start out easier than what she just finished...and indeed it has!
As mentioned, I really liked Christina Light Education's math curriculum last year, so there really was not a lot of debate over what we should use this year. While we are planing to switch over to Teaching Textbooks in the next year or two, CLE seems to provide a very good foundation for math in these early grades, and other homeschooling mothers are saying that children who use it are well-prepared to move to Teaching Textbooks.
Even after only two days with second grade math, I would say that they are already making it a point to make students more independent and responsible for their work. So far, there have just been pre-tests, review work and "just for fun" activities as a nice way of easing into the year. The pr-tests were new for me, but I like how the student's score helps to decide how much of the lesson you need to do or skip. For instance, Elasa passed her pre-test yesterday and that dictated how much of the lesson she needed to do today.
This is the first time we are using CLE for reading, as I used Eastern Mennonite Publications' Beginning Steps to Reading and Bible Blessings to teach reading up to this point! Elasa is very excited to about her brand-new readers, and I am excited that they just now printed the readers with full-color pictures inside, so apparently we're getting on board at the perfect time! Elasa was disappointed that there were no stories out of her readers on either of the first two days, but she did fine with the review work assigned and still enjoyed it!
The curriculum that I am probably the most excited about is Learning Language Arts Through Literature! This name has stuck in my head ever since I used it one year as a student! I am not even sure which grade I was in (maybe 5th or 6th?) and I know it has changed since then, but I do remember that year being a high-light in this particular subject. When I talked to a school-teacher friend of mine about this language arts program, she recommended that if I had a good feeling about using it myself all those years ago, and if I was excited about teaching it, then I should give it a whirl! I took that advice and am glad that I did! This language arts program covers phonics, reading, spelling, grammar, and higher order thinking skills, so technically I would not have needed CLE reading, but I liked those readers, too, and hated to skip them, so another good piece of advice from this school-teaching friend was to do both, but then feel free to skip some parts if they cover too much of the same stuff. Elasa enjoys reading enough that I don't think all the extra stories should be a problem! I especially love how Learning Language Arts Through Literature has its own little readers, but also incorporates "real" children's books into the program! We all know how I love children's books, so this has given me the opportunity to expand my library with some real classics! We decided to go ahead and order the books that Elasa will use throughout the year so that we will have them ready as we need them. We already owned two of the ones on the list, and I am sure most of the others would be available from the library, but I could just picture getting to a lesson that required a certain book and not having it, so this seemed like a good way to avoid that frustration, and besides, as I said, I don't mind expanding my library with the cream of the crop among children's books!
I think any curriculum that can incorporate a variety of subjects into one is ingenious, so I am very happy that this one book also takes care of handwriting and spelling, on top of phonics, reading and grammar. The book does involve the teacher quite a bit, and has a fair amount of "hand-on" activities, but it looks like everything is either really simple or included in the student's workbook, so this basic approach that keeps things interesting without having the teacher scurrying around to collect paraphernalia is good by me!
We have been starting our school days by reading The Little House books again, just as we did last year. We finished The Long Winter alongside the final lessons of first grade math, after taking an equal break on both, so now we are on Little Town on the Prairie, which I think is one of my favorites!
I think being organized plays a big part in how inspired I feel, so I was quite happy with a few improvements Wesley helped me make to our little school corner. Last year I had a shelf hanging above the school table for things like pencils, flashcards, timer, ect. but I kept all our books on the table. Well, eventually the table began to bow under the weight and it was also a pain to move everything off the table every every time we needed it for something else, so I got the idea that we needed to hang a second shelf under the first to hold my teacher's keys and the children's workbooks. Wesley obligingly got a shelf at Lowe's and hung it for me and I love the results! Sometimes the simplest solutions bring the greatest satisfaction...
A second huge improvement came in the door in the form of a seven-foot bookshelf that now sits in the living room right near the school table. This has provided the perfect place for all the CLE Light Units (each subject comes with 10!), teachers keys that aren't currently being used, and other school-related books and materials that need a home. I haven't been homeschooling for very long, and I am already realizing how much room all the books and other materials take up, so having plenty of room in one spot after having some things scattered hither and yon is just wonderful! We have hopes and plans of re-doing half of our basement to use for a schoolroom sometime in the future, but it's anyone's guess when that will actually happen, so for now I am very pleased with my set-up.
I have not started school with Gavin yet, but his schoolbooks for learning to read are waiting in the wings, so one of these days I will need to learn just how to juggle two students! Oh, yes...make that two students and one toddler...
I am trying to tell myself that teaching is the most important part of my morning and that if I get that done, then that is enough, but my housework does have a way of calling my name pretty loudly and there is a certain amount that does need to be done every day to keep things from falling apart, so I am still working on the balance! For the moment it looks something like bread from Aldi, lots of roast chicken & carrots, and putting up with a few cobwebs.
I am guessing that that those things would look like small sacrifices to people who would love to homeschool their children but the law or other factors forbid it.
Looking at homeschooling as a privilege helps me keep things in perspective, so here on the cusp of a new year I am choosing two things that I am pretty sure will keep me in good standing...
Gratitude.
And many cups of tea.
What fun! I too have fond, if vague, memories of Learning Language Arts Through Literature from my own school days.
ReplyDeleteElasa looks taller than when I saw her last - very much the 2nd grader that she now is!
Blessings to you in this new school year. I look forward to updates!
And on another note, let me be the first to wish you a very happy birthday! (At least I'll assume that everyone else is sanely in bed. :)
I love to hear what other moms are doing for school - and especially how they balance school and housework. We did school for the month of July but took off in August for canning season. I'm trying to do some extra cleaning and baking so that we can start next week with a feeling of being caught up a little! But that feeling won't last long around here! Housework has a way of becoming undone quickly.
ReplyDeleteAnd gratitude is the key to a good attitude in many areas of life!
Gina