I've had a busy busy few weeks, and came back to my blog to discover a few new followers, woohoo! I'm an introvert and my blog reflects that - so 31 followers was good; I'm actually amazed to see the number go up suddenly and so I'll be coming your way to check you all out soon my new followers:)
In the meantime I want to let you know we've been busy celebrating a certain someone's birthday, nursing a sick guinea pig with a few visits to the vet thrown in, organising play dates and attending homeschool park days with two different groups for extra measure :) - an essential when one homeschools an only child, working two part time jobs, volunteering at church and celebrating 10 years as a local church! So, please excuse my absence from your bloggy worlds but I will catch up with you all soon.
I told you some time ago we switched curriculums this year, so I thought I'd post an update with how it's all going with Ambleside Online seeing that we're in week 18 of the 36 week curriculum!
Well, the ladies over on those discussion boards are not wrong, it surely is a rigorous curriculum; don't let first glances deceive you:)
The books are quite challenging but not overwhelming for Rebekah which is right where she needs to be.
We follow the curriculum pretty closely but do our own thing for art study and hymns; we also added in and substituted some Australian material. And oh, we haven't gotten around to folksongs yet!
I started off adding in Australian material but quickly found out that this was just going to overload us so I have decided to substitute instead (where possible).
We now use "Old Bob's birds" by C K Thompson instead of the "Burgess Bird Book". This book was filled with American birds and while Rebekah enjoyed the stories I felt reading an Australian Bird Book would be far more fruitful in bringing natural history to life for her.
We still add in "My place" by Nadia Wheatley to the history selections but since this is a fairly easy book to follow we are managing.
Also, we don't do narrations for every reading; we just read and discuss "Tales from Shakespeare" and "Just so Stories". I felt narrating every reading was overkill for Rebekah and I didn't want reading for school to become a drudgery.
One thing that has happened ths year (due to the increase in work load for school work) is that our nature walks and craft activities were falling by the wayside, the latter to my dear craft-loving daughters chagrin:(
So, a rethink was done and now we have decided to make one day of our four day week an 'arts' day.
We do all our academic subjects from Monday to Wednesday and leave Thursdays for the arty subjects like picture study, composer, hymns, handicrafts (knitting) and craft. Those of you familiar with Charlotte Mason would know she didn't place too much emphasis on what we would call 'craft' activities, but one of my daughter's love languages would be doing craft together (if there was such a love language) :)
So, to fill her love tank in this area I schedule them in on Thursdays.
I've also decided to aim for one nature walk per fortnight at least. This way I don't beat myself up over not doing one every week. This is not to say that she hasn't been on nature walks this year! My husband is a nature lover so he does take Rebekah on bush walks regularly and while this covers that subject a little, I still want to do 'focused' nature walks with her and hence my new goals. Our backyard and informal nature study still continues due to her being exposed to it since she was much younger, so we have managed a few nature journal entries too.
I'll be heading over to yours soon.....
Showing posts with label Scheduling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scheduling. Show all posts
Monday, September 12, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Year 2 weekly schedule
As I am having trouble editing my post on year 2 plans, this is just an update for our weekly schedule! Here's the link.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
We're done, yay!
Hooray, this week Rebekah finished year 1!
I used the 'better late than early' approach and began formal studies using our Year 1 curriculum with Rebekah very gently when she was about to turn 6 which was a year ago.
It was a year of trial and error, chopping and changing books and methods, routines etc. Can I say we're in a 'groove' yet? Not sure! Sometimes it felt like we were in our 'groove' only for things to change, but hey, it's all part of the journey and we are still loving it!
At the end of each term we did our 'exams' Charlotte Mason style mostly and I was amazed at the amount that Rebekah retained from her books.
For instance, during these latest exams, she narrated back so beautifully an Aesop's Fable that I read to her just once more than one month ago!
Charlotte Mason was right about using 'narration' as opposed to 'fill in the blanks'.
We used mostly living books barring one text book for this last term. We had trouble with some of the more 'textbook' type of books with this curriculum and I found that she was not able to narrate back much nor recall much at the end of term exams for term 2. The one textbook we used this term was for science (Growing strong and healthy), and from this she did remember quite a bit and did well with her exam questions which I was pleased about.
We also did a combined term 3 and 4 as we were lagging behind in the schedule put out by "Living Books Curriculum". I adapted it and made our own schedule for this last term and finished it on time!
All in all, I am pleased with Rebekah and how well she has done this year. Great job Rebekah!
And oh, just to make it more 'official' I bought these certificates from ebay which I awarded to her at the end of each term. Well, I am her teacher after all, so I can do this right? :)
So, we will have a bit of a break before we begin Year 2 so Rebekah will have more time to do this (not that she doesn't already, but there will be more!):
this:
and this:
I used the 'better late than early' approach and began formal studies using our Year 1 curriculum with Rebekah very gently when she was about to turn 6 which was a year ago.
It was a year of trial and error, chopping and changing books and methods, routines etc. Can I say we're in a 'groove' yet? Not sure! Sometimes it felt like we were in our 'groove' only for things to change, but hey, it's all part of the journey and we are still loving it!
At the end of each term we did our 'exams' Charlotte Mason style mostly and I was amazed at the amount that Rebekah retained from her books.
For instance, during these latest exams, she narrated back so beautifully an Aesop's Fable that I read to her just once more than one month ago!
Charlotte Mason was right about using 'narration' as opposed to 'fill in the blanks'.
We used mostly living books barring one text book for this last term. We had trouble with some of the more 'textbook' type of books with this curriculum and I found that she was not able to narrate back much nor recall much at the end of term exams for term 2. The one textbook we used this term was for science (Growing strong and healthy), and from this she did remember quite a bit and did well with her exam questions which I was pleased about.
We also did a combined term 3 and 4 as we were lagging behind in the schedule put out by "Living Books Curriculum". I adapted it and made our own schedule for this last term and finished it on time!
All in all, I am pleased with Rebekah and how well she has done this year. Great job Rebekah!
And oh, just to make it more 'official' I bought these certificates from ebay which I awarded to her at the end of each term. Well, I am her teacher after all, so I can do this right? :)
So, we will have a bit of a break before we begin Year 2 so Rebekah will have more time to do this (not that she doesn't already, but there will be more!):
this:
and this:
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Year 1 Term 3
Ok, so I know that some of you that read my blog are not homeschoolers, so if that's you and you are not interested just skip this one:)
We started this year behind the NSW schools and we have been going at a slow...pace, so this week we started term 3!
I am finding that I am becoming less and less "tied" down to the curriculum I am using, so we are changing things a little this term.
I am still using Living Books Curriculum Year 1 but am changing the schedule to use their science book at a much slower pace than is recommended.
I love this curriculum but I am finding some books are a bit too fast paced for my liking so am even considering changing things around to another curriculum next year...watch this space:)
Also, I have revamped our schedule and taken out some of the things that are not part of LBC but ones that I added (like hymn study and folksongs, not that we ever did much of it, it was just there on my schedule to remind me:)). This is to allow one day a week to be a lighter day which will also serve as a catch up for anything we've not been able to do during the week.
I want to keep this term and next term more focused on the important essentials as we try to catch up a bit. Some might argue that hymn study and folksongs are essential of course:) Anyway, here is the link to my schedule:
Year 1 term 3
By the way, the science book I mentioned above is called "Growing Strong and healthy" and is in the public domain under a slightly different name. It is an older book of course but some of the information is updated by LBC in the ecopy I got. It is a charming little book to teach younger kids about health and nutrition. It has already won Rebekah's interest:) If you are interested, check it out here.
We started this year behind the NSW schools and we have been going at a slow...pace, so this week we started term 3!
I am finding that I am becoming less and less "tied" down to the curriculum I am using, so we are changing things a little this term.
I am still using Living Books Curriculum Year 1 but am changing the schedule to use their science book at a much slower pace than is recommended.
I love this curriculum but I am finding some books are a bit too fast paced for my liking so am even considering changing things around to another curriculum next year...watch this space:)
Also, I have revamped our schedule and taken out some of the things that are not part of LBC but ones that I added (like hymn study and folksongs, not that we ever did much of it, it was just there on my schedule to remind me:)). This is to allow one day a week to be a lighter day which will also serve as a catch up for anything we've not been able to do during the week.
I want to keep this term and next term more focused on the important essentials as we try to catch up a bit. Some might argue that hymn study and folksongs are essential of course:) Anyway, here is the link to my schedule:
Year 1 term 3
By the way, the science book I mentioned above is called "Growing Strong and healthy" and is in the public domain under a slightly different name. It is an older book of course but some of the information is updated by LBC in the ecopy I got. It is a charming little book to teach younger kids about health and nutrition. It has already won Rebekah's interest:) If you are interested, check it out here.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Our daily / weekly schedule
In one of my previous posts on our year 1 curriculum, I mentioned I would post about our weekly schedule.
So, here's the link (as I'm not too tech savvy, it's a link to my google document) and hopefully this will work for you:
Year 1 term 2 schedule and plan
In reality, the time's I've allocated are a general guideline only! Sometimes we are done much earlier and sometimes later than I've noted on my schedule! It's purely a "guide" for me!
We follow the Charlotte Mason philosophy of 1.short lessons(reflected in the schedule) 2. a liberal education (she likened it to spreading a feast before a child) so Rebekah is exposed to art, music, foreign language etc from a young age, 3. our language arts component is also different to more traditional curriculums; for instance at this age, we don't do "spelling" as such, nor grammar, etc, among other things:) (they begin at a later age with her method)4. I placed "habits" in the schedule to remind me to work on them as I need to be in the habit of working on developing good habits in Rebekah:)
For a good introduction and explanation of her method (if you're interested) you can check it out here: http://www.charlottemasoneducation.com/overview.html
Back to us: in term 1 we did 1 week of our curriculum over 1 and 1/2 to 2 weeks but as Rebekah has grown a bit over the last couple of months I'm finding I'm speeding things up a bit and we probably cover it in 1 and 1/2 weeks now. I know this will speed up even more as she gets closer to 7. (That's the beauty of homeschooling isn't it:)) That's why we are currently still in term 2!
Also, on some days, we throw out the schedule altogether and go to the park / for a nature walk / a play date! :) (Learning doesn't only happen with books or at a desk but that's a topic of it's own!)
So, here's the link (as I'm not too tech savvy, it's a link to my google document) and hopefully this will work for you:
Year 1 term 2 schedule and plan
In reality, the time's I've allocated are a general guideline only! Sometimes we are done much earlier and sometimes later than I've noted on my schedule! It's purely a "guide" for me!
We follow the Charlotte Mason philosophy of 1.short lessons(reflected in the schedule) 2. a liberal education (she likened it to spreading a feast before a child) so Rebekah is exposed to art, music, foreign language etc from a young age, 3. our language arts component is also different to more traditional curriculums; for instance at this age, we don't do "spelling" as such, nor grammar, etc, among other things:) (they begin at a later age with her method)4. I placed "habits" in the schedule to remind me to work on them as I need to be in the habit of working on developing good habits in Rebekah:)
For a good introduction and explanation of her method (if you're interested) you can check it out here: http://www.charlottemasoneducation.com/overview.html
Back to us: in term 1 we did 1 week of our curriculum over 1 and 1/2 to 2 weeks but as Rebekah has grown a bit over the last couple of months I'm finding I'm speeding things up a bit and we probably cover it in 1 and 1/2 weeks now. I know this will speed up even more as she gets closer to 7. (That's the beauty of homeschooling isn't it:)) That's why we are currently still in term 2!
Also, on some days, we throw out the schedule altogether and go to the park / for a nature walk / a play date! :) (Learning doesn't only happen with books or at a desk but that's a topic of it's own!)
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