Saturday, July 5, 2014

How Did We Do?


So, our main schooling part of the year is over, and we're on to our lighter summer program. This was The Plan set up at the beginning of the "school year."  And here's what really happened.


2013-2014 School Year Curriculum Plans:

We will be following the Classical Trivium plan laid out in the Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer.
  • Reading: Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading 4x/week, keep a reading log, make a narrative once a week     No reading log happened, nor did weekly narratives. We did, however, do pretty well being consistant with OPGTR, even though most of it is review for the boys by now. We're still plugging away though the summer and we'll likely be finished before we re-start in September.
  • Spelling: All About Spelling 4x/week (not starting yet)     We started AAS in late winter of 2013; in a very disorgnaized fashion and then we stopped for a while.
  • Grammar: First Language Lessons 4x/week     We finished FLL1!!!!!! We didn't move on to FLL2, but we finished the first book!!!
  • Handwriting: Zaner-Bloser Handwriting 4x/week     I'm trying to remember; did we do this....oh, right, Builder Boy finished his 1st grade book and then we took a break from it; for the rest of the year.
  • Writing: Writing With Ease 4x/week (starting November)     We started it! We didn't start in November, but we did start it and have made it more than a third of the way through.

 Extra Day:
  • Music     Uhhh, nope, unless you count that one time we looked up how many strings a piano has and all the Piano Guys YouTube videos we watched together.
  • Art     Another nope.
  • Holiday Study    This actually happened! Not as often as I planned, but more than nothing!
  • I Love America     This happened....once. Some year I'm going to make it through that awesome book.
  • various Scholastic workbooks      Hmmmmm.....I know I bought a bunch of those on the Dollar Days Deal....where did they go.......
Weekend projects:
  • Nature Connection    Another big nope.
BUT! They learned a lot of geography this year. That counts for something, right? And we also started vocabulary with Wordly Wise A which has been a great success.

So, I'm thinking for next school year, I'm going to keep my expectations a bit more simpler until I can prove to myself that I can actually accomplish what I plan.

Newbies to homeschooling: please don't read this and be discouraged. Rather understand that it is better to under plan, and add based on ability and interest rather than make a big, guilt inducing list. It's taken me two years to learn that. And to learn that just because I don't have something on The Plan, doesn't mean the kids aren't going to learn anything for that.

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