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Amanda
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| Posted: March 19 2010 at 10:19am | IP Logged
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Next year, I’ll have an 8th grader (ds) and a 1st grader (dd) (plus a toddler). Ds and I have had a hard year slogging through a cyber charter school. Dd has not had much of my attention as I focus on keeping ds on track with the cyber.
I would dearly love to find a curriculum involving read-alouds that both would enjoy. Naturally, just to make things more interesting, ds is a math/science guy, while dd is a fairies-and-princesses girl.
I think I may have three options:
Use a Winterpromise or Sonlight core that I adjust up or down
Use a big-age-span unit study, such as Konos
Make up my own booklist and do the prep work over the summer (I’d like to have vocabulary, relevant nonfiction sources, etc. all ready before we sit down to read).
Is there something I’ve missed? Any thoughts on my ideas?
Would For the Love of Literature be helpful in this? I can’t really figure out what’s *in* that book.
Thanks!
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mom to ds '97, dd '03, ds '07, and dd 1/11
St. Margaret Clitherow Homeschool
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mom2mpr
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| Posted: March 19 2010 at 3:18pm | IP Logged
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Empathy here.
I have ds who is 12 (6th) and dd who is 7 (1st grade).
This year we did Sonlight 3 American history and reading the readers aloud was good. We could do it together and dd enjoyed the stories.
We also did science together and that was fun. I used the NOEO biology 2 and doing it with both went well--even though a lot seemed to be above dd, the color photos in the Usborne books helped keep her attention (I am beginning to think she is a visual learner).
They did their own math and I am still struggling to get dd reading. This was the hard part of the day. They both need me, for different reasons. I didn't do much LA wise with ds because he reads alot and tested well last year. I was using my time to try to concentrate on dd.
Religion was pretty much some first communion prep with Faith and Life and the catechism online--which was dh's idea and way far above dd's head.
It is hard and I have learned we need to be home a lot to be able to do this.
I am in two completely different worlds all day and no other playmates  But the blessings, when I see them, are outstanding 
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Anne, married to dh 16 years!, ds,(97), Little One (02), and dd (02).
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MaryM
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| Posted: March 19 2010 at 6:44pm | IP Logged
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Amanda wrote:
| Would For the Love of Literature be helpful in this? I can’t really figure out what’s *in* that book. |
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It could be very helpful for a resource for making your own book list. So many great books are listed by subject area and content - both fiction and non-fiction selections.
Basically. For the Love of Literature is a mix of types of books by topic. It includes picture books, chapter books, and non-fiction resources and has a key for each entry that indicates age appropriateness, whether it is Catholic, and if any discretion is advised. It also has a very short (one or two line) synopsis of the book (and publisher information if it might be a more challenging book to find). It is divided into sections by subject (math, art, history, science) and within that by specific topic.
It includes tips for incorporating living literature into the curriculum and looking at education from that perspective. I hope this helps.
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Mary M. in Denver
Our Domestic Church
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guitarnan
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| Posted: March 19 2010 at 7:34pm | IP Logged
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My children are 6 years apart. I empathize!
One thing I have tried to do, when possible, is have them study the same science and history topics. (One year we did ancient history, for ex. Another year we did U.S. history.) The science experiments are not much different for the grade levels you've mentioned. (Janice Van Cleave has some great experiment books!)
We have usually built our read-alouds around either the history curriculum - for example, reading The Golden Goblet as we studied Egypt - and/or around our family's interests. We read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe together - then ds read other books himself while I read the entire series aloud to dd, because she loved the first book.
We did math at the same time under this approach, and then we did religion and whatever grammar, foreign language, vocab, etc. work at approximately the same time.
Your math/science guy might enjoy helping your daughter learn addition facts with flash cards. They can play geography games together, too.
And, don't forget, if you're looking for book suggestions around a particular theme, we're ready to help! (I love history, so I tend to structure literature study in a sort of timeline, but you could choose books around the theme of animals, or friendship, or time travel...you get the idea.)
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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Topic: Help w/next year, big age gap
