Progress Report, Two
I let Millie play outside while the two younger girls were napping, but when I hadn't seen or heard her for a while, I walked outside to ensure that all was well. It was. She was finishing the last chapter of The Littles, and although she doesn't know it, seeing her read chapter books makes my heart leap. She has done so well in spite of my failures this year, and I don't feel guilty about not rigidly scheduling school before Buster arrives, which is a huge relief right now. I'm still planning on finishing Saxon 1 with her by summertime, but we skip the excess repetition that maddens her, so it shouldn't take long. We're almost to the other side of kindergarten! Though I'd like to do some low-key art, music, and science (i.e. nature walks) over the summer, may the days yet stretch long and lazily to September and all the towering--for greenhorn me-- new subjects that first grade brings with it.
It's been a good year, with my beginner's mistakes and frustration all strong-armed in the end by the joy of learning something new. It's brought a new taste to our days. I think I like this home education circus.
* Scoff at my grand plans to continue a bit of education over the summer if you'd like, but a few days ago we picked up a nice keyboard, stand, and karaoke machine from someone's curb, and we're in the beginning stages of learning how to plunk out sounds that may even someday be recognizable as music. Hoo boy- is it ever beautiful to hear! God bless our neighbors as they stuff cotton in their ears...
**Millie still sports her post-picnic moustache. Classy.
3 comments :
I like your phrase "home education circus." That's the truth! I have enjoyed my children more this year than ever before. I have been more intentional in my interaction with them and in doing so getting to know their sweet, funny, sensitive, mischief-filled spirits better than ever possible if they were off at school all day. Hearing Elijah read his first words and first books was just as exciting as seeing his first steps...and so many parents miss this!
Millie reads so well! What did you use to teach phonics, etc? I am thinking about using Saxon Math this coming year with Elijah. Would you use it again? I seriously have an addiction to googling "homeschool curriculum" and other such phrases.
As a side note, the phrase I like to use describing my daily family life with the boys is "controlled chaos."
Watch out! This is long. I hesitate to wholeheartedly recommend anything because each child is so different, plus I'm a complete homeschooling greenhorn and shouldn't really recommend anything with so little experience. This is what we used with Millie and plan to use with Annika, but just as we tweaked it for Millie, we'll probably tweak it in different ways for Annie.
We primarily used The Phonics Museum from Veritas Press, but I wouldn't recommend it because of its cost without the potential buyer first getting a chance to look over everything it includes. The balm to its high cost (nearly $200 for the kindergarten and first grade combination pack!) is that after the initial investment, each additional child only needs the $15.00 workbook. Since we were given a wonderful gift for some homeschooling materials, and we plan to homeschool all our children, this should work well.
We finished the primers months ago, and we also skipped much of the workbook because a lot of it deals with single alphabet recognition, sounds, and letter formation, which Millie already knew. I picked out worksheets here and there for penmanship practice or that required critical thinking skills simply so that she could get used to thinking about what she knew in different ways, but I think the workbook would have worked best for her as a four-year old instead of a five-year old (I'll be using it with Annie this fall, and I think it will be more her speed.)
I also used these phonogram cards from Wanda Sanseri (but not as part of her Spell to Write to Read program) to teach Millie the complete phonograms and ALL their sounds. Many phonics programs, Phonics Museum included, only teach the more commonly used sounds. I found these cards very valuable with Millie. They don't include consonant blends, endings, etc., though, so I was glad that the Phonics Museum did (i.e. br, dr, cr, str, squ, ing, ang, ong, and so on). Between the complete phonograms from Sanseri and the phonograms/consonant blends/endings taught by Phonics Museum, Millie has a superb well in her memory to draw from as she reads.
A few things I loved about the Phonics Museum, none of which are the bare-bones necessary to teach a child to read but which either facilitated it or helped hone other skills or areas:
It includes fine-art cards for the alphabet, phonograms, and blends with coloring page reproductions of the same along with information about each piece and its artist. This inclusive approach is great, especially as I think art history should be included in other subjects (i.e. history, literature).
I think I'll love the workbook for Annie, and she will, too. It approaches each section in various ways, which not only holds the interest of the student but also requires them to approach the material from different angles.
Another thing I think I may use a lot with Annie that Millie only used occasionally is an accompanying c.d. that has fun songs for phonograms/blends/endings/etc. Millie didn't need it, though we threw it in the mix to stave off the dull monotony of rote memorization now and then, but I think Annie will really thrive on it, whereas she may find it more difficult to flashcard drill like Millie did.
Almost all of the primers deal with subject matter that is historical or biographical, which differs from the typical Dick and Jane primers because they're valuable for learning to read while they also teach other content (stories deal with the Civil War, Ella Fitzgerald, Pan of Greek mythology, Benjamin Franklin, etc.). The primers deal with the subjects in a light story form and aren't dryly factual, but they provide a great springboard to continued teaching, if one chooses.
The Phonics Museum includes all sorts of manipulatives, some of which just collected dust on our shelf but others of which I plan to use with every child. One of the most valuable to us were their "puzzle pieces." The program includes linking pieces of heavy cardboard that have individual letters of the alphabet stamped on them, as well as phonograms, consonant blends, and endings. I backed each one with magnetic strips and used them on a dry erase board as Millie worked on memorizing them. Seeing them grouped together with like sounds helped her recognize and learn them, and she could link the pieces together to create words. The visual aspect of this really sped along her understanding of how words are built from letters and sounds, which in turn facilitated her reading.
The Phonics Museum includes lots more "stuff," but this comment is already sinfully long.
If teaching one's child to read is the only goal, then this program includes lots of unnecessary fluff. After all, children used to learn to read through instruction from their parents over an old KJV Bible, and no one worried about different methods. I do think, though, that the extra things it includes are valuable and can be helpful for reading skills as well as other areas, which is why we plan to happily continue with it.
I, along with nearly everyone else, would recommend Saxon. We used Saxon 1 for Millie this kindergarten year, and some of it is too basic and repetitive, but, again, some of our other children may need that same repetition to cement their learning. I didn't buy any of the manipulatives to go along with it, though. We just used the straight workbook (the teacher's manual mostly collected dust). I did alter things a bit as we went through. For example, instead of just teaching the beginning of time-telling (12:00, 1:00, etc.), I taught her the totality and did the same with coins. Instead of teaching pennies and dimes, she learned all the coinage. Oh, and in some places the curriculum asks for students to measure things with their linking cubes (which we didn't buy). By all means, use a ruler instead! :)
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