I think we were getting a little stale before Christmas, we had fallen into a pattern, and were doing lots of paperwork, which was something I had wanted to get away from, since that was what they mostly did in public school. I found that we weren't doing alot of the fun things I had envisioned us doing in our homeschool, becuase I fell into a habit of lesson planning that just didn't leave much room for that. We had also spent ALOT of time covering the 13 colonies and the American Revolution in many different ways, and suddenly I realized "oh no! We're behind, school is coming close to being half over and I'm not half way done with what we need to cover in history!" But then I let that anxiety wash right away and I realized "behind? behind what?" because really the whole reason I wanted them to homeschool was because I disagree with the teaching practices of the public school, so why in the world would I be holding myself to a standard that was set by them and their teaching practices? Back at UCO, my Science & Social Studies Professor taught us over and over again that it is so much better to cover a subject and topic in depth and make sure they have a thorough understanding of it, than to cram in way too many subjects and topics and cover them at a very shallow level. Which is what the public school does, so then the kids don't retain much of it, proven time and time again by asking kids what they learned in history say 3 years ago, or the high school kids stopped and asked basic geography and history questions. That's not the education I want my kids getting. So maybe we are "Behind" what the public school says we should have covered thus far, but that's ok, because I have lots of time to make sure they learn what they need to learn, they will just do it at a much deeper level. We are definitely going to homeschool again next year, so that still gives me yet another whole school year to make sure they know what they need to. Starla will stay at Traub and go into all day kindegarten too, which will actually give us the entire day to be distraction free, instead of just 2 1/2 hours a day. Which means we might actually get much more done thatn we do now with her at school all day. It doesn't bother me at all to let her go to school, because really I think other than physical things like cutting and properly dressing herself, she knows about everything she will learn in kindegarten already. The girl can already read an amazing amount of words, and works with me in a 1st grade workbook, and does it easily. She loves school, loves playing with her friends, and won't be bored in school.
So before the Christmas break we were pretty much doing every subject every day, and the kids were getting burnt out. Thankfully the Christmas break gave us the time to recharge and change things up a bit. Now we focus on one core subject a day, and we might still have small assignments in the other subjects, but not all of them every day. We have Math on monday, Language Arts on tuesday, Science on Wednesday and Social Studies on thursday, which leaves friday for electives. We now have much more art, we have music, we have cooking, we have current events, and more time to enjoy board games together. We got a new one called Blokus that is a strategy game that helps strengthen problem solving skills, spatial awareness and strategy. We love playing it, all 5 of us, even Starla jumps in, and you know how competitive Alan is, so he loves it as well. Not only is that strengthening their skills, but it provides fun family time which is also another reason I wanted to homeschool.
So our new schedule is working out very well so far, it allows me to not have to lesson plan every subject every day, which gives me time to make more detailed and fun hands on projects for the main subject of the day. We have more projects that require a little bit of work each day for like a week before they are due, which allows the boys to learn how to complete projects and how to self-regulate and work independently as well.
We are now up to the westward expansion in history, which is fun. Bourbon has to make a 5 min. stop motion film about the journey of Lewis and Clark due this week, so I will post it when it is done.
We have started world geography and world history this new semester too. We are currently learning the countries of Europe, and they are planning a 5 day trip to their country of choice there, including gathering flight information, hotel, weather for the next week, currency exchange rate, and learning a few simple phrases in the correct language. We are going to do this for each continent, they are having lots of fun with it so far.
We are learing forms of poetry and reading poems from famous poets, and writing our own. We are doing lots of art projects.
We are learning about the human cell, DNA, genetics and heredity, and then we are jumping into how to classify plants and animals and more about the plants cells.
Roman is deep into fractions and Bourbon is learning about percents, ratios and how to calculate interest. They both are learning geometry.
We of course still have our days that one or both boys don't want to cooperate, or that we are bumping heads, but we are figuring it out. I don't ever expect it to be perfect, just to work for us. :)
Here are some things that we have been up to in the last couple of months:
We had a fun day at the National Cowboy Museum and Hall of Fame.......
We took a field trip to the Sam Noble Museum......
Starla loved the fingerprint art book we checkout out of the library.....
Right before Christmas break we had an art day at our friend Brennon & Gaza's house.
learning to draw and shadow by tracing pictures, the first 2 are the ones I did, I think I enjoy the art projects as much as the boys do. :)
Roman using marshmallows and goldfish crackers to learn more about fractions.....
Painting a bowl of fruit......
mapping the countries of Europe
We made edible cells out of jello and various candies. It was fun and gave the kids a visual image of the different parts of a cell. Starla wanted to join us, so she made one too. :)
Roman wanted to learn how to play guitar. Alan has a guitar and we have the one Bourbon used to take lessons years ago. Alan also bought this 13 DVD set on how to play guitar when he bought his a few years ago. So Roman & I are learning to play guitar with them. He has so much natural music ability and talent, it astounds me. We have only had one day of the lessons, basically learning how to tune the guitar, how to hold our fingers, what the chords are, and showing us how to practice chords each day. After just a couple days of practicing chords, Roman can already pick out most of one of his favorite songs, just by ear, the same that he does on the piano, which blows me away. I can barely hold my fingers the right way and play the chords, lol. But it's still something we can do together, so I'm not giving up yet, but he far surpasses me in talent. :)
Bourbon says he's happy with homeschooling another year, and then he will be in high school and I want him to start back then. Hopefully we can get him into good classes with good teachers that will keep him challenged and plugged in. Roman says he wants to go back to regular school next year because he will be starting middle school and he really wants a locker and wants to hang out with his friends. I told him those aren't good enough reasons, and he was stuck with homeschooling again for at least another year and then we would reassess. I know once he started back at school, he would just complain how he doesn't like it and would want to start homeschooling again. He will just have to deal with having friends at church, his acting class, and the neighborhood. Next year we might be able to join some of the homeschool groups too, since we couldn't this year because they conflicted with dropping off and picking up starla at school. Starla wants to homeschool, but I told her she just has to go to school. She is way too big of a distraction to the boys and wants my entire attention when she is at home, and so it would be too hard to homeschool her and them, and a challenge I have no desire to take on. :)
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