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folklaur
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| Posted: Sept 14 2008 at 10:11pm | IP Logged
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What have you already changed, tossed, etc?
Two weeks in, and I am needing to re-vamp.
sigh!
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joann10
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| Posted: Sept 14 2008 at 11:06pm | IP Logged
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We started with Sonlight (which I totally love) but my vvveeeerrrryyyyy slow 3rd grade reader (Mark-8)needs extra help. I have added CHC Spelling B and CHC Language B and MCP Phonics C.
The Sonlight Core 3 Language arts and spelling were just way too hard for him. We will certainly be sticking with the Sonlight history/ science/read alouds.
Reading aloud is just how I love to teach and the kids love to learn.
I kind of feel like I am cheating, going the workbook route for Mark, but in the long run, I think he will move ahead faster using this method.
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folklaur
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| Posted: Sept 15 2008 at 12:32am | IP Logged
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Oh, how funny. Not funny ha-ha. But funny as in that is exactly what I am having to ditch, Core 3. It was just too much for my 9yo. When I called SL and talked to them about it, the lady I was talking to said she just used it last year with her 11 yo.
sigh.
And I didn't want to do the History w/o the LA as it works together so well.
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12stars
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| Posted: Sept 15 2008 at 1:11am | IP Logged
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I have decided to leave a couple things out, that's for sure I had this idea in my plans that we were going to be able to do all things great new things. I either cannot get to them or time runs out and have decided that for now we will just go slow.
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Claudia in Southern California
Wife to George,
Mom to DD 14, DD 10, DD 7, DS 4, DS 2, 1 in heaven, and now due 5/11.
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5athome
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| Posted: Sept 15 2008 at 8:39am | IP Logged
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Perhaps we can start a support group! 3 weeks in & finding core 3 too much for my middle boys (I don't recall this from when I used it for my eldest but perhaps life was just less challenging then). We were recently given Swallows & Amazons so we are using that for a read aloud right now.
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Margaret
ds '93, dd '96, ds '99,
ds '01, dd '04, ds '06,
ds '08
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Martha
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| Posted: Sept 15 2008 at 9:08am | IP Logged
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ditched doing history and science every week.
we'll be doing history this semester and science next semester. there's just not enough time to delve into both properly at the same time.
added explode the code for my 4yr and 6yr olds
for the first time ever, I may have to diviate from MCP math. I can tell already that my 4 yr old is just not going to take to that method. He can't even stand the color of the cover.  So I'll switch to something hands on for him. Probably "nothing" for a while. Just living math books and things to count.
we added winter promise animal worlds for the 6 yr old and he's loving it. so is his trailing 4yr old brother.
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Martha
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Yes, they're all ours!
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Michaela
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| Posted: Sept 15 2008 at 9:30am | IP Logged
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cactus mouse wrote:
| What have you already changed |
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Our first day of school. 
I had hoped to start school by now, but we have never started until after Nicholas' birthday.
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Michaela
Momma to Nicholas 16, Nathan 13, Olivia 13, Teresa 6, & Anthony 3
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joann10
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| Posted: Sept 15 2008 at 10:10am | IP Logged
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cactus mouse wrote:
Oh, how funny. Not funny ha-ha. But funny as in that is exactly what I am having to ditch, Core 3. It was just too much for my 9yo. When I called SL and talked to them about it, the lady I was talking to said she just used it last year with her 11 yo.
sigh.
And I didn't want to do the History w/o the LA as it works together so well.
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We are still using the readers, but I am have ds8 read a little, and dm (darling me) read alot.  I also love how they fit with the history.
I have Faith and Freedom readers that I have used for other dc in the past, so I will use these to help increase his reading ability.
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hereinantwerp
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| Posted: Sept 15 2008 at 9:41pm | IP Logged
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well I'm planning in pencil----and I seem to change and adapt things every day! Today dh was unexpectedly home and willing to dig some spots in the garden for me so----most of our schoolwork didn't happen at all, and Calvin had a great lesson in babysitting/making lunch for/playing with his little sister. (This is what I love about my new "planning in pencil" method!)
BTW we really enjoyed Core 3 several years ago WITHOUT the Language Arts--I've made a few tries with the LA thinking it would be so integrated and neat and it never worked that way for me! The "level" did not fit the particular child, too much or too little or we'd get off track with the readers or I didn't like the quotes they had to copy, whatever . . . If I use Cores 3 and 4 again someday I will only do 1/2 the read-alouds (the favorite ones  ), and let the child use the readers at her own pace--just thoughts---!
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Angela Nelson
Mother to Simon (13), Calvin (9), and Lyddie Rose (3)
my blog: live and learn
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Shari in NY
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| Posted: Sept 16 2008 at 11:19am | IP Logged
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Three weeks in and we've changed math. I was using Making Math Meaningful by Jamie York who is a Waldorf teacher. The twins enjoyed learning the "math tricks" like casting out nines but were still missing too many problems per lesson. Frustrating. Now they are happily doing Saxon 7/6 with no complaints. Ken was struggling to remember the math facts from last year and couldn't pick up the pace of Saxon 3 where he left off. I got the new Math 3 workbook from Seton and amazingly he loves it! He will sit and do a page of drill-maybe 30 problems- and tell me how much he loves-loves-loves it. I never expected this in a million years! I think he likes that he is not confused. Ditto the twins with Saxon.
I also am using workbooks for spelling this year. I just don't give spelling the attention it needs around here if left to my own devises. Adam and Ken both had to go down a level (several levels for Adam ). He is doing much better. Ken still doesn't care if its gone or goen or gawn. Sigh....
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Paula in MN
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| Posted: Sept 16 2008 at 11:49am | IP Logged
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I'm thinking about removing Latin. We've tried for three years, and actually made it to lesson 5 this year! However, I find ways to put it off daily.
I also think I'm overloading them with religion. We are studying the Pauline year using Colleen's schedule; discussing one Church Doctor every week; reading and discussing one chapter of Faith and Life; reading and discussing Magnifikid for either past Sunday or upcoming Sunday readings; going through one lesson from the Baltimore Catechism every week; and weekly Saints or feast days. Oh, and they start mandatory Religious Ed. this week with our parish. It seems like all I'm doing is planning -- more than I'm sitting with them and teaching.
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 Paula
A Catholic Harvest
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Joelle
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| Posted: Sept 16 2008 at 10:29pm | IP Logged
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Two weeks into the school year here! We nixed Seton's English 1 for my first grader. Are you kidding me, they have homonyms as the first chapter??!!!She's still learning to read and I have to explain to her the difference between "sail" and "sale," neither of which can she read fluently on her own. Now, I remember just pushing my first son through this book--she is the third coming up and I started to cover the lesson and decided, "hey, we could be spending this precious time doing something other that a workbook she will struggle to do and will not build her confidence!"
We also decided to try a "spelling/reading" workshop/class once a week for my 8 year old (my 6yo comes and watches and loves it). They are working on a new reading/spelling curriculum and meet with 10 kids and their parents to distribute and explain hands on activities and games for letter sounds. So far, this is fun for my 8yo & 6yo. So we are backing off doing all of the phonics workbooks.
I'm really not anti-workbook, just this year seems to be not quite the thing for us!
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God Bless, Joelle
Mom to 7: Boy (96), Girls (00, 02, 04), Boy (05), Girl (07), Boy (09)
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vmalott
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| Posted: Sept 18 2008 at 7:41am | IP Logged
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Let's see....everything is going at a slower pace than I had scheduled out, especially my plans for history and science! I'm not letting it bother me, since the plans really need to just serve as a framework to work within and not something set in stone.
For history, I've relaxed the "required" reading for each level in lieu of a read aloud for all, with only a sprinkling of "assigned" readings for the 3 oldest. I'm trying hard to incorporate hands-on projects, which they seem to enjoy.
The kids are enjoying the more hands-on approach for science and are constantly begging to use the microscope to look at something. My original plans were to kind of race through animal classification, studying each phylum??? for a short amount of time. However, after starting a cool earthworm project last week, I'm seeing the value in lingering a bit longer. I also came across some nice read alouds (Arabella Buckley and Henri Fabre) online, so I'm looking forward to using some excerpts as we head into studying insects. Also online is Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study, which can also be downloaded as a pdf. I once owned this great book, but hardly ever used it. Now I'm thinking of referring to it for our hands-on science inquiries.
What else has changed? The two older kids ditched the Good News planners for the tried-and-true weekly checklists that I introduced last school year. We're still reading through Ruth Heller's language books for our grammar study, but we've given up making pages a la Serendipity. After reading about Morning Time at the Dominion Family blog, I'm now trying to incorporate a morning review time that includes the Baltimore Catechism, prayers some children need to learn, grammar, etc. I'll be adding more in as the year progresses.
Math, vocabulary, handwriting, and Latin are all still the same.
Valerie
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Valerie
Mom to Julia ('94), John ('96), Lizzy ('98), Connor ('01), Drew ('02), Cate ('04), Aidan ('08) and three saints in heaven
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JennGM
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| Posted: Sept 18 2008 at 7:58am | IP Logged
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Michaela wrote:
cactus mouse wrote:
| What have you already changed |
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Our first day of school.
I had hoped to start school by now, but we have never started until after Nicholas' birthday.
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Ditto. I still haven't started due to funeral and birthday stuff!
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to  & ds1  '03 & ds2  '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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Martha
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| Posted: Sept 18 2008 at 8:52am | IP Logged
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Joelle wrote:
We nixed Seton's English 1 for my first grader. Are you kidding me, they have homonyms as the first chapter??!!!She's still learning to read and I have to explain to her the difference between "sail" and "sale," neither of which can she read fluently on her own. Now, I remember just pushing my first son through this book--she is the third coming up and I started to cover the lesson and decided, "hey, we could be spending this precious time doing something other that a workbook she will struggle to do and will not build her confidence!"
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LOL oh yeah, we nixed it too. I've done it with 3 older kids without an issue, so I guess it just depends on develoment. My dd can read "okay", but I just don't think it's important for a 7 yr old to know that much grammar stuff. We dumped it and she doing the much less stressfull Ruth Heller's World of Language. I own all of the books in the series. She reads the page and then draws a picture about it. So compound nouns = drawing rainbows and sunshine. She seems to be retaining it okay and she's certainly enjoying it more.
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Martha
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Yes, they're all ours!
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SallyT
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I've ditched any pretense of formal study for my 6yo. We do some time together in the mornings: prayer, Great Moments in Catholic History, some kind of read-aloud (right now some science from an Usborne book, plus a literature read-aloud), before I let both the youngers (6 and 4) go so I can work with my 10yo. The 6yo vociferously resists any kind of LESSON focused on him, though he'll cheerfully sit and answer Catholic history questions aimed at his brother. So I've gone to just waiting on handwriting, snatching reading reinforcement while we're doing read-alouds (he'll read chapter titles, for example), giving him free rein to look through books, and doing math as it comes up -- today he was enumerating the lego things he wanted to bring downstairs, and I said, "So how many is that in all?" and had him do the addition. This seems to be the only way I'm going to accomplish anything with him without a major fight, and at this age I don't think daily major fights are worth whatever they might accomplish. So I'm trying to get at him through the example of his brother, through having him present for things that are aimed at his brother, and through learning opportunities that just happen to come up.
I keep thinking I'm going to get these younger kids TRAINED better than I did the older ones, and things are going to be all orderly . . . not even. So I think my real academic goal for this child is to learn to cope with a little bit of sitting still and a little bit of question-and-answer/narration, and otherwise just let him life-learn for a while longer. I guess I fall into the later-is-better camp . . .
Oldest daughter is doing Latin at the college where her dad teaches -- we were going to do Henle again, and I think right now she's wishing she still did . . . she was comfortable with Henle, and college-level Latin 2 is a bit of a challenge. Her dad really, really wanted her to try it . . . we'll see how it goes. She's not happy right now, but that's largely because she bombed a quiz yesterday because she thought she remembered conjugations better from last year than she apparently did, and didn't study. So that in itself is a useful learning experience.
10yo is doing pretty much what I had planned for him. We still have books in storage, which means that my US history plans are on hold for now, but he's working on science with Ye Hedge School's Periodic Kingdom book (plus a lot of free reading), LOVING sentence diagramming with their Elementary Diagramming Worktext, doing a rabbit-trail on propaganda (inspired by a chapter in a book called Fallacy Detective), and working on long division. I had planned to do Latin at home, but our priest is teaching a class after the Latin Mass on Thursdays at noon, so I'm going to have him do that, starting today. And he's just reading a lot . . . he stops by our neighborhood used bookstore at least once a week, and he also took himself to the library and got his own library card, so he's been devouring Redwall books continually.
And I'm sitting here with him right now, trying not to do all the division steps FOR him . . . I have to make myself not watch!
Sally
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Connections
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| Posted: Sept 18 2008 at 11:40am | IP Logged
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I seem to have entirely switched gears...again.
I had planned to follow the alphabet path with science tie-ins. I had topics for the whole alphabet planned. I even started it. I had planned to require some math worksheets and copywork. We even did some.
Although they were cooperating. It is not the way we learn best here. It was meeting my need for planning but it was not meeting their needs for learning. I LOVE worksheets and workbooks. Not so with my DSs. Sigh.
My DS are 6 and 7 and I have tried to implement requirements and schedules time and again (I love checklists- especially when there is a little box I can put the check in!). Then I always back off because a more relaxed way of learning is what works best here.
The question is: will I ever learn?
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Tracey
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mom2mpr
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I have ditched getting the kids up at 7:30 am. It just isn't going to work. Nighttime is just to hard and I really struggle to go in and wake a peacefully sleeping child.
Other than that we are still ramping up and we are enjoying SL3 history. Math is still a struggle.
It'll all change in a few weeks I am sure
Anne
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Donna Marie
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I ditched a LOT! for now...but we add in a lot of the plans anyway here and there where they seem to naturally be called upon...this is especially true of the younger ones (3-9yo dc)
much child interest-led learning here...
science kits, montessori projects... lots of read-alouds in various subjects and art work..I am always looking for interesting connections to point out to them and teachable moments...even if they are just practical life skills like hanging up the towel in the bathroom..ha ha I am deliberately going slow...funny thing is, more is getting done. I guess it is the building of confidence on their parts. I have seen this especially with my 9yo. I think he was strutting around yesterday feeling empowered by his new knowledge he gleaned during the day. He was explaining himself to dh and dh's friend and felt his conversation was adult male-worthy...lol ..hey! whatever works!
the older ones are given a book and told to read a chapter together and discuss what topics are worth remembering and figure out amongst themselves what should be recorded in their notes and how. (note taking 101..the infant stage...ha ha )Interesting stuff. If I just said "here, take notes" I would get a deer in the headlights look...now they "feel" intelligent from what I have been told...LOL dh says I am growing a think-tank from scratch
We have been discussing with them at every learning opportunity their view of themselves in the future and how what they are doing now is like apprenticing for that future so the pep talk goes on with encouragement not to waste this gift of time . I have to admit..."high school" still intimidates me, but it is kinda neat to see the good stuff unfold. The intimidation factor is only kicking in because I have never been here before with anyone and I have a baby coming in 3 weeks....no pressure
God love you!
Donna Marie from NJ
hs momma to 7dc + one more due 10/08!!
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God love you!
Donna Marie from NJ
hs momma to 9dc!!
Finding Elegant Simplicity
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Topic: What have you already changed...
