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kristinannie
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| Posted: June 06 2011 at 6:11pm | IP Logged
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mamaslearning wrote:
Well, I've done a complete 180 for next year. I am still so overwhelmed, and in talking with hubby we decided to try a packaged curriculum this year. This way my husband (or somebody else) can pick up books and lessons plans and begin teaching if something were to keep me from teaching next year. I'm still torn about this decision, but I'm willing to try it for a year. It's a good compromise between my ideas and hubby's needs.
The nice thing is that this package is mainly covering the basic subjects, so I'm still going to add in living books for the electives and to supplement the core. |
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What did you decide to go with? I think your original schedule looked fine. The way I am doing it this year for my first year (K) is have a list of subjects that are MUST DO and a list of subjects that are I HOPE TO DO. That way, if time runs short or attention spans are faulty, we can skip some of the extra stuff. Some days (like today) we did even more than I had planned. It really just depends on the day.
BTW, I know that people (especially on this forum) are always well meaning. However, please remember that how you run your homeschool is completely UP TO YOU. I would pray about things, take a deep breath, take a week or two to think about it and then make a decision! God bless!!!
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Dominic Michael 4.5
Katherine Elizabeth 8 months
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mariB
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| Posted: June 07 2011 at 6:43am | IP Logged
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AmandaV,
What a blessing to have your child doing so well and wanting to learn! Looking at your plan made me think how important it is to write a plan like that down. I do write down an outline but it is a lot less detailed. I used to write everything down in notebook that I carried with me making an account of everything we did througout the day.
I also remember stressing out if we didn't complete everything on the list for that week. I think a lot of moms do that...stress out I mean. Every single mother that I talk to that has homeschooled has gone through the "Am I doing enough?" phase. I still do that at times.
That's probably what I was feeling when I read your list. Every single family's approach to homeschooling is so different. That's the beauty, I think, of homeschooling. You can really learn together as a family the way you want to.
Reading through these posts, I think I will write down what we do daily again. Plus, it is a lovely account of what we do throughout the year and it is wonderful to have this list as the kids grow up so quickly!
God bless you and your family!
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marib-Mother to 22ds,21ds,18ds,15dd,11dd and wife to an amazing man for 23 years
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mamaslearning
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| Posted: June 07 2011 at 1:24pm | IP Logged
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kristinannie wrote:
mamaslearning wrote:
Well, I've done a complete 180 for next year. I am still so overwhelmed, and in talking with hubby we decided to try a packaged curriculum this year. This way my husband (or somebody else) can pick up books and lessons plans and begin teaching if something were to keep me from teaching next year. I'm still torn about this decision, but I'm willing to try it for a year. It's a good compromise between my ideas and hubby's needs.
The nice thing is that this package is mainly covering the basic subjects, so I'm still going to add in living books for the electives and to supplement the core. |
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What did you decide to go with? I think your original schedule looked fine. The way I am doing it this year for my first year (K) is have a list of subjects that are MUST DO and a list of subjects that are I HOPE TO DO. That way, if time runs short or attention spans are faulty, we can skip some of the extra stuff. Some days (like today) we did even more than I had planned. It really just depends on the day.
BTW, I know that people (especially on this forum) are always well meaning. However, please remember that how you run your homeschool is completely UP TO YOU. I would pray about things, take a deep breath, take a week or two to think about it and then make a decision! God bless!!! |
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I wasn't particularily overwhelmed with school work this year, it was mainly finding a balance in the home. I also needed a better way to put on paper my lesson plans for my hubby to read and understand. He needs more than just a checklist of subjects and books to be able to teach the kids (since he has not done the tremendous research that I have at this point).
Enrolling with Seton gives me the core structure I need, and still allows me to supplement as I see fit. In fact, there a just a few subjects that require testing to be sent in if you want a report card grade. Others are all parent graded, so I have the flexability to teach as I see fit (using their plans or not). Having this core structure is really going to help free up some of my time so I can get a handle on balancing my life.
What I love about educating at home is that I'm not stuck with something that doesn't work. If we find that Seton does not fit, then I can move on to something else. 
I'm planning on a hybrid method this year with hopes of going full blown CM in a year or two when the littles don't require so much hands-on direction and energy. I'm still too green to trust the method completely, but I keep reading and keep incorporating as much as I can.
I'm always open to what the Lord shows me! Thanks for your thoughtful words. 
ETA - I should add that my school age kids this Fall are 2nd and K. My comments on Seton are only for those grades, as I understand it becomes harder and less customizable the higher you progress.
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DD 11, DS 8, DS 6, DS 4
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SallyT
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| Posted: Aug 06 2011 at 11:05am | IP Logged
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Bumping up this discussion because I've been planning Grade 2! Just did it last year, but this year's 2nd grader is a totally different animal from last year's, and it's fun to look in on how others are approaching things.
Yes, as someone mentioned earlier, it's true and very worth remembering that what second grade *should* look like for a given family and child is what works for that family and child, with all needs and circumstances considered in the decisionmaking process. I thought your original list looked great, but if you look back at it and the vibe doesn't seem right, then clearly you have to listen to that and discern further. And sometimes it's a real tossup: sometimes I'm really inspired by reading other people's plans, and sometimes I totally fall prey to the Comparison Disease! (too much, too little, too structured, not structured enough, too much this, not enough that!) I've been at this for a while now, and still, with each child each year, it's a first time all over again.
Still, it's fun and interesting to compare notes, and I've found this thread really helpful. I'm using blogs this year to plan for my kids on a weekly basis, with the things we do together (for Grades 2 & 3) broken down into days, but individual assignments left more open-ended, so that the kids can work at their own paces, and we're not feeling pressured to get things done. Our approach is sort of CM-ish and sort of unschooly and sort of . . . just us, I guess.
Anyway, here's our planning blog for the year. Just to toss more second-grade out there for the sake of the conversation!
Sally
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AmandaV
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Sally, looks great!
For the books you are using from Main Lesson, are you copying and pasting for copywork? Does your children read on the computer or on an e-reader? We don't have a laptop anymore nor a kindle or ipad. I love the main lesson selections and my son reads on there, mostly for free reading, but I'm unsure about him reading online for all subjects. Some things I am going to purchase in paper from yesterday's classics, but it gets expensive... maybe I can convince someone we need a Kindle!
Thank for sharing. :)
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Amanda
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SallyT
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My thought is that I'll print out their weekly reading assignments (most of which are just a page apiece) to put in their binders so that they can find them there. Later we may bind everything on book rings as it outgrows the binder section, but for now I'm just going to print things in those small increments. I think it helps to have copywork printed out, too, though we've often used the whiteboard, and/or I've written selections on the lefthand page of the Mead Primary Journal for them to copy on the right.
My eighth grader will have his own laptop (thanks, Grammy!) this year -- he's also reading a lot of Baldwin books and has chosen to read them online rather than printing them out. As his reading is much higher-volume, that just seems to make sense.
Each child will have four reading selections a week -- the third grader can read his totally independently, but I will buddy-read with the second-grader until she's ready to take off. The rest of our reading, the stuff that's scheduled daily for "Combined School," is to read aloud, and I'll just read off the laptop to save on paper and ink.
And I really will just print the pages as they are. I've done copy/paste before, but it took forever!
Sally
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SallyT
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Or, well, the third grader can read most of his selections independently. The science and nature selections (School of the Woods, Secrets of Everyday Things, etc), we may buddy-read as needed. But that's third grade, not second!
Sally
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AmandaV
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SallyT wrote:
And I really will just print the pages as they are. I've done copy/paste before, but it took forever!
Sally |
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Sally,
I just wanted to let you know, in case you didn't see it, that you can customize your display preferences and it makes it much easier to print. For example, I just changed my preferences to not show the chapters/table of contents on the side, and decreased the font a bit, and it made the # pages of a chapter of a history book 9 pages instead of probably 15. You can always adjust the preferences back. The button is on the top left. You can still see the table of contents if you click the link at the end of the page. I might use this for some selections.
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Amanda
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SallyT
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Oh, right, I'd forgotten about that! I have printed some readings already -- I didn't want to cut and paste, because I wanted to keep the charming illustrations, and last time I c&p-ed, the graphics didn't copy (on the much-older and clunkier computer I had at the time). Anyway, they printed out all right, but the chapter listings at the side are problematic in books with lots of chapters.
Thanks for the reminder!
My second grader keeps saying how excited she is about school this year. It may be the nifty binder . . .
Sally
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4Real Forums : Planning and Ordering our Days
Topic: Planning for 2nd Grade
