My plan for the rest of the school-aged kids is simple. Math and language arts. If I have time, I will add history and science. But the most important thing will be sustained one-on-one instruction time with each kid in these two subjects. No more will they hear, "Do this workbook page and then you will be done. I have to work with so-and-so."
Everyone, from Ian on down to Fiona, will be using Saxon math. This is the easiest, most straight forward, affordable math curriculum. When Ian was in kindergarten, I bought all the instructor's guides from level K to 3 from another homeschooling friend. Saxon wasn't her style, but it is mine. I've tried other, more hands-on styles and I have no patience for them (see, when one is considering homeschooling, one must consider teaching style along with learning style). Evie has spent the last two years using RightStart math. She can add two and three digit numbers in her head with carrying, but she can't subtract worth a darn. So back to Saxon she goes! Ian will be in Saxon 8/7, Shane in 6/5, Evie will finish up some review in 2 and move to 3, and Fiona will finish K and start 1. Today I ran the girls through review exercises to target exactly where I needed to start with them. It was beautiful!
Everyone, from Ian on down to Fiona, will be using Sonlight's language arts. Most of the criticism for Sonlight is for their LA programs. Often, the writing portion of the daily assignments are way too difficult for the writing ability of the child. Kids learn how to read so much faster than they can master handwriting and spelling, so most people skip the writing part and just do the reading. I've done that too, but now I'm going back to use the writing part. The best part about using this curriculum is that I already own it all! Any books I'm missing I can get from the library.
Fiona is doing the kindergarten level, which is often called Sounds, Letters, and Easy Words. She is reading simple CVC words already (like cat, sap, bam), so we are starting halfway through. Today she circled rhyming words after she copied them and then spelled "pat" backwards. Her whole face lit up when she saw it spelled "tap!" Her enthusiasm rekindles my excitement for teaching. I love the younger years.
Evie is doing a modified version of the 2nd grade level. She read all the books this last school year, but did not do the writing assignments. Instead of moving her up to the 3rd grade level (with an increase in writing difficulty), I'm having her read the Magic Tree House series and then adjusting all the copywork, grammar, and writing assignments to match whatever book she is reading. Today, instead of copying a passage out of a children's Bible, she had to copy, "The vowels are: A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y." (If she still asks if T or D are vowels during tomorrow's spelling test, she can copy that phrase five times)
Shane is on the 4th/5th grade level and is doing the lessons as written. When we first started Sonlight, this level was called Advanced 2nd grade. I have never known a 2nd grader that can write several paragraphs on a topic! His first reader is More Stories from Grandma's Attic, a book that was sent to me by my Nana when I was a little girl! His first writing assignment is to record a story from when one of his parents or grandparents (or great grandparents) were younger.
History, if time permits, will be the second volume of Story of the World: the Middle Ages through the Renaissance. Evie will also be reading about some of the topics (castles, vikings, pirates) with The Magic Tree House books. Shane will get extra books and DVDs from the library. I honestly don't care what Fiona learns about the Middle Ages this year. She is in kindergarten after all. The rest of the kindergarteners will be learning about the fairness of rules in a classroom setting (no, I'm not kidding-it's a Washington State Learning Standard).
Science will be whatever books strike their fancy. Seriously. Last year was pretty intense with all the biology we did. I do have some science experiment books that I used with Ian, but I'm going to try to avoid all books about nature and habitats. We will instead read our monthly National Geographic magazine and discuss the articles. The library is filled with awesome DVDs too (Bill Nye, National Geographic, The Universe, etc).
Sorry this post is so long and boring! If you made it this far, you get a gold star!
