I need to sit down and actually go through more of Ambleside Online in more detail, it seems.
I was looking over Year 3 to see what books we need to find, and discovered that Marco Polo is the geography for year 3. We just finished up studying about Marco Polo, and really, Tree in the Trail would have worked better for geography for next year. I had a similar realization about Viking Tales earlier this year.
My poor LemurBoy. I feel like he's such a test-case for figuring this all out. I know the same thing doesn't work for all kids and I'll likely have to go through and figure everything out all over again for one his siblings. And I know I'll keep finding wonderful resources when I'm past the point where they would have been useful. That's life. But it feels like LB bears the brunt of my stumbling, as is the fate of all first children.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
A few years ago, I was at a booth at a small educational convention thingy. A teen came up and started playing with one of the computers. Somehow, it came up that she was homeschooled. I asked her about it, and she said it was boring. Her mom just spent all her time on the internet looking up ways to homeschool her.
I imagine I'm not the only one to whom that sounds uncomfortably familiar.
And that's about how I'm feeling right now, except that I am getting actual homeschooling done too, and not just meta-homeschooling.
I'm relatively happy with the curriculum we're using now, but I feel I need to find more to add on to it. I realize that, realistically, LemurBoy at least is not going to tolerate a few pages of Math Mammoth + MEP + NCERT textbooks from India, even if they each take somewhat different approaches and build different pathways and so forth. Maybe if we were getting through MM faster, and could reasonably take one day a week for a MEP day.
I think perhaps the heart of the matter is that I REALLY need to order more Math Mammoth. LemurBoy needs to move on, and now so does LemurGirl, who has recently developed great affection for math worksheets. She's 4, and I'm printing her out first grade math worksheets. The K ones are too easy. Anyways, she's pretty set on the K recommendations from Math Mammoth, so we'll be starting with that soon - once the tax return comes in and/or a big discount comes along. Because I really want to start her with the MM way of teaching from the beginning, so I feel like I'm spinning my wheels with her right now, since I don't want to progress her any further than she already is until I can teach it the "right" way.
In the meantime, I'm printing her out random first grade math worksheets, and she's happy with that. She loves math worksheets - as long as they're printed. We have workbooks full of similar worksheets, but she refuses to use them. I think she gets a special joy of having the printer extrude something just for her.
LemurBoy is still not reading fluently, but starting to find it enjoyable. We finished the second Boxcar Children book (read jointly) today. I have a feeling I may regret that we have quite so many of them before long, if I can't get him to accept some variety. But hey, he's reading! Kinda.
LemurGirl seems to have hit a wall with Hooked on Phonics (latter half of the K box) - she can do all the sounding out without problem, but the sight words are starting to get a bit beyond her. So we've switched back to Progressive Phonics for a little while. We've been doing that with LB's OLPC in tablet mode, and both of them get a kick out of that, though LB himself would prefer to just do the HOP and reading real books (specifically, Boxcar Children. Though I hope to try Magic Treehouse soon, too) together.
We're catching up to where we're "supposed" to be in history (have to keep on track, or my library holds are all thrown off). And now the baby is screaming, so I'll cut it short.
I imagine I'm not the only one to whom that sounds uncomfortably familiar.
And that's about how I'm feeling right now, except that I am getting actual homeschooling done too, and not just meta-homeschooling.
I'm relatively happy with the curriculum we're using now, but I feel I need to find more to add on to it. I realize that, realistically, LemurBoy at least is not going to tolerate a few pages of Math Mammoth + MEP + NCERT textbooks from India, even if they each take somewhat different approaches and build different pathways and so forth. Maybe if we were getting through MM faster, and could reasonably take one day a week for a MEP day.
I think perhaps the heart of the matter is that I REALLY need to order more Math Mammoth. LemurBoy needs to move on, and now so does LemurGirl, who has recently developed great affection for math worksheets. She's 4, and I'm printing her out first grade math worksheets. The K ones are too easy. Anyways, she's pretty set on the K recommendations from Math Mammoth, so we'll be starting with that soon - once the tax return comes in and/or a big discount comes along. Because I really want to start her with the MM way of teaching from the beginning, so I feel like I'm spinning my wheels with her right now, since I don't want to progress her any further than she already is until I can teach it the "right" way.
In the meantime, I'm printing her out random first grade math worksheets, and she's happy with that. She loves math worksheets - as long as they're printed. We have workbooks full of similar worksheets, but she refuses to use them. I think she gets a special joy of having the printer extrude something just for her.
LemurBoy is still not reading fluently, but starting to find it enjoyable. We finished the second Boxcar Children book (read jointly) today. I have a feeling I may regret that we have quite so many of them before long, if I can't get him to accept some variety. But hey, he's reading! Kinda.
LemurGirl seems to have hit a wall with Hooked on Phonics (latter half of the K box) - she can do all the sounding out without problem, but the sight words are starting to get a bit beyond her. So we've switched back to Progressive Phonics for a little while. We've been doing that with LB's OLPC in tablet mode, and both of them get a kick out of that, though LB himself would prefer to just do the HOP and reading real books (specifically, Boxcar Children. Though I hope to try Magic Treehouse soon, too) together.
We're catching up to where we're "supposed" to be in history (have to keep on track, or my library holds are all thrown off). And now the baby is screaming, so I'll cut it short.
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