This is the last part in my "what works" series where I share and review which curriculum works for us. This time I am reviewing our "together" subjects. These are History, Geography, Science, Art and Music Appreciation, and Poetry Memorization. These subjects we do together and this is the part that I really enjoy in our homeschool. It's mostly Adrienne, Andre and myself, but Celeste tags along too sometimes.
First Canadian History:
We are learning about our country's history this year and really loving the curriculum we are using. The Modern History Through Canadian Eyes is a guide to study Canadian History using several resources. I chose to use the Story of Canada, the Spirit of Canada, and Footprints in the Snow. The guide also lists other core resouces. Every unit has a list of world events and people to match that time period, along with Canadian events and people, and additional reading suggestions. I use all this information to get more books from the library as needed. Some units also have suggestions for extra projects (writing, research, field trips or other). These types of guide/curriculum is what I really enjoy working with. It gives me a guideline but allows me to add my own selections as well if I want to. The kids have also said they have enjoyed learning more about their country's history this year.
This last subject, Science, also works but partly.
I pulled my own curriculum together this year for science. We chose to study physics, following somewhat the Well Trained Mind rotation. I decided to try the Physics Workshop kit from Thames & Kosmos to add a hands-on part to our study. This kit has over 70 experiments, all related to physics. We are using the Usborne Science Encyclopedia (Internet Linked) as our spine. We have used the suggested internet links a lot and learned from them. We also use notebook pages to record definitions, narrations, drawings and lab notes.
The Thames & Kosmos kit came with an experiment manual which I used as my guideline and is filled with information. I have used it also as a spine for certain topics. The part that my children and I have been disapointed with are the experiments and the workshops. Each experiment is preceded by a workshop where you build the item that you will need for the experiment. I am including a photo below of one of the workshops. You can see there is a little bit of text explaining what you are doing, but no other explanations. We have had to guess a lot of the time by looking closely at the picture. Our science lessons are sometimes frustrating because of this lack of explanations. That is why I said it works partly. Science isn't a subject my son looks forward to because so often we haven't been able to build the experiment properly!
In this third part of my "what works" series, I will be sharing what works and what doesn't for my youngest, Celeste. She is six years old.
We cover Language Arts and Math together while Adrienne and Andre do their independent work in the morning. This seems to work for us so far. Celeste "hangs around" in the afternoon while we do the rest of our subjects, History, Science, Geography, etc... She is picking up things but I don't require her to do any of the work.
What works for us is basically what we are doing.
I am using Explode the Code for phonics, spelling and handwriting. She enjoys working through these workbooks and I can see that she is learning as we go along.
To practice reading, we are using the Elson Readers Primer. We are past the halfway point in this and I can honestly say that we are both enjoying it. I use the teacher's guide to introduce the story to her and the new words, which I write down for her in the notebook. The stories in the teacher's guide match the ones in her reader, but are usually longer and give more details so she is familiar with the main idea when it's her turn to read aloud. We rarely use the worksheets.
For Math, we are using Miquon Math. Celeste really likes doing Math with these workbooks. She uses the manipulatives when she needs them. I haven't brought out flashcards, choosing the discovery approach instead of drilling. I personally don't like the teacher's guide that goes along these workbooks. I don't need it at this point but we will need to switch to a different math curriculum when she gets to higher levels, probably Teaching Textbooks.
I sometimes feel like I am not doing enough with Celeste, but at the same time I can see the benefits of not pushing her. She is enthousiastic about learning new things and gives herself copywork or other school-ish stuff to do, all on her own.
Even though this isn't curriculum, it works so I wanted to share! She has a basket where she keeps a lot of the books and things that she can go to if we're busy. In this basket, she has sticker books, her game boy and games, some of her favourite books and easy readers, pens and paper, an erasable board...
She also likes to pull out games that she can play by herself. I took a picture of some of her favourites. Rush Hour is a family favourite and she really likes working through this puzzle. FunThinkers is a fun and educational game (with the number tiles on the photo). The other is something to practice math facts with. It's called Sum Time by Jumbo. We also have a spelling one. We were given these, so I am not sure if they are still available.
The next post in this series will cover the subjects we do together.
...and what doesn't. This is part two in my series of "what works". You can read what works for Adrienne (who is 13) here. This time, I am writing about what curriculum is working well and what doesn't for my son Andre who just turned 12 yesterday.
My son is very different in many aspects than Adrienne, but they do rate Math as their top favourite subjects and Teaching Textbooks as their favourite independent curriculum. Andre started only this year with Teaching Textbooks (TT 6). He was using Singapore Math before, and was doing well with it, but didn't particularly like math. Now he enjoys math! I think he really likes that it is on the computer and that the program tells him right away if his answer is correct or not, and if it is incorrect, after giving him a second try, tells him the correct answer and how to get there. There's never any complaining about doing math from Andre now, and that tells me a lot!
Growing with Grammar is another winner when it comes to my son as well. The lessons are short enough and the exercices too. He definetely benefits from not having any distractions in the lesson book and the exercices. Photos or drawings would affect his concentration. Growing with Grammar also reviews previously learned material in every exercice sheet. I am able to see if he is retaining the lessons this way and when he doesn't, we ca go back to the particular lesson and read it again. Growing with Grammar works for him and he actually enjoys doing the diagramming!
The Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting Series is another curriculum that has worked really well for Andre. He continues to practice his handwriting every day.
We started Sequential Spelling this year. Andre is at level 1. He isn't a strong speller. He basically writes words as they sound. Sequential Spelling is working slowly, but I am starting to see a small difference. Andre likes that spelling only takes a few minutes every day to do. We will continue with this program next year. I think it needs a few years commitment to see a big difference.
For writing, we are using Write Source 2000 as a reference/spine and Story Starters for writing assignments. We haven't done a lot this year with these, but Andre participated in NaNoWriMo in November and he also regularly writes narrations for science and history. I think that Write Source 2000 is a good reference for Andre, but so far he hasn't enjoyed the Story Starters assignment very much. I might look elsewhere for writing prompts.
It is a little more difficult to write about what works for Andre but isn't his favourite. Anything to do with "school work" isn't his favourite. He much rather do anything besides lessons and exercices. The way I measure what he likes, after asking him, is how much he whines or complains about it. Yes, I wrote it..my kid whines about school work! The only one he has really complained about this school year is Science. Adrienne also rates this one as her least favourite. This is a subject we do together, so I will write about it more in another post.
This year, for Andre, there isn't any curriculum that is failing for him, which is great! It is nice to have found what works for him. As much as he doesn't like school work, he is the first one to start his independent work every morning and the first to show me what he has done. He needs structure and focus, and our current curriculum choices meet those needs.
Next post will be about Celeste...
...and what doesn't work for her. I was inspired to write this kind of post by Christina at Rockhound Place. She wrote about what curriculum works for her oldest.
Anytime is a good time to evaluate your curriculum and how it is working for your homeschool. This time of year is usually when I start thinking of the following school year, and it is important for me to evaluate our current curriculum choices.
I will be writing a series of posts, starting with this one "What works for Adrienne", then following with "What works for Andre" and then "What works for Celeste". In each post, I will also write about what works but isn't a favourite of my children and finally what doesn't work. The last post will be about the subjects we do together, again writing about what works and what doesn't. I hope you will enjoy this series.
Adrienne is 13 years old and technically in grade 8, but since we're homeschooling, we don't always follow that exactly.
On top of the list is Math. We are using Teaching Textbooks and this curriculum has been a great choice for Adrienne since we switched over a couple of years ago. I had mistakenly ordered the Algebra 1 for her this fall instead of Pre-Algebra. We decided to give it a try anyway, but after about 30 lessons, it proved to be too much. We took a break and she read a series of books on math. We thought this might help her, but when going back to Algebra 1, she still struggled. I ordered the Pre-Algebra level that she should have had and now she is doing great and loving math again! We skipped the first six units after she successfully completed the tests for those units. When I asked her which was her favourite curriculum that she did independently, she said Teaching Textbooks right away.
The next curriculum that works for her is Growing with Grammar. We have been using this grammar program for a few years. It works because it is clear and complete. Adrienne reads the lesson in her manual and then completes the exercices. I then correct her work and we go over her mistakes together as needed.
I will write more about our "together" subjects in a seperate post, but I have found that this year our Canadian History is also working well with Adrienne. She is more interested in history, maybe because we are concentrating on Canada.
I also noticed more enthousiasm with her when we do our World Geography.
Now for what works but isn't a favourite of hers. Writing has never been her favourite. There hasn't been one writing curriculum so far that we have tried that she has enjoyed. She is capable of writing, she participated in NaNoWriMo without trouble and writes letters to her penpals regularly. She also narrates for history and science. But I think she still needs a writing curriculum to learn how to write more involved essays, reports and research papers. This year, we are using Jensen's Format Writing. I personally think it works, but she doesn't enjoy it. Because of this, we'll still continue with it, at least for this year.
Finally, here are the choices that are not working as well as we hoped.
L'Art de Lire is a French curriculum by Nallenart. Adrienne and I are both finding that it isn't enough. The workbook pages are not that interesting. The teacher's manual is mostly a repeat of the workbook with the answers filled in. I think we both would prefer a textbook, with a lesson then exercices to practice. I don't need the audio portion since French is my mother tongue, but we do need an outline and lessons to read together. We will still continue using it for now, but we will be looking for something else for next school year.
Sequential Spelling is a great program, but for Adrienne who is a strong speller, it is not challenging enough at this level and it isn't interesting either. I have very good things to say about this curriculum, but not for her. I think she would do better with a vocabulary or a latin/greek root vocabulary program. We will finish this level and I am searching a few options for next year for this too.
A really great idea that just didn't take off in our house was the Commonplace book. I truly believe that we need to give this another try. We use narration, oral and written, for many subjects in our homeschool, but not so much for literature. I have noticed that when we do narration for novels or short stories, we do it orally. Adrienne did use her commonplace book a little bit in the fall. She loves to read, but did not enjoy writing down about what she read. As I said, it is something I will want to try again. As a side note, I have been keeping my own commonplace book this year. I noticed that I enjoy keeping notes of non-fiction books, but not novels, so I can relate to Adrienne's feelings.
Next time, I will write about what works for Andre...
