Lots of Rambling Links + A Small Pep Talk for My Very Own Self

We're in the middle of torrential rains. Surrounding areas are in a state of emergency. We live at the top of a hill, but our basement is flooded, and the water continues to rise. John is en route to Albany with a client and keeps finding flooded roads and roadblocks. What better time to give an unasked-for curriculum post? (It's all your fault, Sarah C.P.T., for that one harmless comment I just read.) Here's a rambling rundown of materials we use in each content area, but, first, please take this disclaiming apology for how many times I mention money. Sorry- scrooginess is in my blood, and I haven't yet been able to shake it.

This post is for nosy homeschool junkies. I give you many links to ignore. Please leave me some links in the comments! I welcome good ideas/tips/tools.

We start school on Monday. For those of you who've already begun, hurrah! Don't judge me. I've been trying to get everything done before school and just now accepted that it's not all going to get done, and that has to be okay. I'll continue canning and trying to clean and paint and prepare for winter, squeezing it into the few moments I hope to find and probably never finishing much, but now I need to prepare for our school year. (Yup, wasting an obscene amount of time writing this post counts as preparation.)

We loosely follow a classical educational model with a healthy dash of Charlotte Mason thrown in, which in theory and on paper is awesome. In practice, it's awesome, too, as long as I do my work ahead of time, which doesn't usually happen. Basically, we don't have a set curriculum from one source, we use living books as much as possible, and generally use an amalgam of resources in any given content area. I love this. It frees us to see everything as a potential teaching tool, it costs a heckuva lot less money than any set curriculum, and it releases us from some of the boundaries I so dislike about many modern educational models, in which teachers are tied to incoherently ordered textbooks and in which different content areas haphazardly lay out facts and tidbits that seem irrelevant and unconnected to one another. The detriment? Um...I have to do a lot of the work myself.

I have found The Well-Trained Mind to be quite useful, although if I tried to do everything that they include, I would have a nervous breakdown in the first week. It's enough a part of what I do, however, that I pull my old copy out each year in August as I begin mapping out the soon-coming school year, and I definitely recommend getting it out of the library to trawl through if only for ideas and the lists of resources at the end of each chapter. If one doesn't take their scheduling as a Must Replicate Exactly or Be an Utter Failure, it can be a great source of help.

What We Use Most
We use cheap composition notebooks a lot. We pair them with history and science instead of workbooks, and find them useful for just about every other subject, as well. The girls write down grammar definitions and parts-of-speech lists, spelling words, science questions, sketches and history narrations, etc. This year, I bought lots of cheap folders, too, because I want to also have the girls create a couple of lapbooks each quarter. We've never done anything of the kind, and I think they'll really enjoy it. Plus, it will be a fun way to pull together information on composers, artists, and whatever else we decide to compile into a lapbook. (Wish my good intentions good luck, please. They'll need it.)

Books. Lots and lots and lots of books. If you've been to our house before, you know we have groaning bookshelves scattered throughout the house. If you don't frequent library book sales, you should! Most of the books we own have been purchased for a dime each or in big boxes for a few dollars at these book sales, and, without them, I'd have to
1. work harder
2. plan better
3. find lots of money on the sidewalk (Charlie Bucket!)
4. go to the library regularly, which means a 35 minute drive-- not the end of the world but a pain, nonetheless.

I can't tell you how many glorious books (and not-so-glorious) I've brought home in the last ten years, and the slow acquisition of these books has been a great boon to our homeschooling adventure. I find great pleasure in looking through homeschooling catalogs or online lists (such as Ambleside's excellent booklists) and mentally checking off the books that we've picked up for pennies. This is a dorky admission, I know, but I'm among friends, right?

Another thing that saves us money (and for which I'm thankful for the Well-Trained Mind recommendations) is that the books I do have to buy for a heftier price through Amazon or another vendor are usually one-time purchases that can be used for all of our children. Most of my fellow homeschoolers are in the same place we are-- a place where no overflowing fountain of money for homeschool purchases exists-- and so it's a real blessing when one purchase can be used over and over again.

Literature:
Anything and everything. I told you about our bookshelves, right? They're a great source of classic works of children's literature (E.B. White, Lewis, E. Nesbit, etc.), Padraic Colum's Children of Odin, Children's Homer, and the Golden Fleece, D'Aularies' Greek myths, reams of fairy tale collections, these thrilling children's versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey, Arthurian tales, and Shakespeare, as well as supplemental science books, historical biographies and historical fiction (like Rosemary Sutcliff's excellent historical fiction; G.A. Henty fits here, too). I look on our bookshelves each quarter and pull off a few classic books that haven't been read before, as well as some books that go along with whatever we're learning in history and science (IF we're learning anything in science...see below). When-- or before-- these are exhausted, we go to the library and do the same. I've found that handing my children a stack of Good Books to read is the easiest and most rewarding part of homeschooling. I love it. They love it. Everybody wins.

We've not done any vocabulary before, but this year I'm giving the oldest two a-- you guessed it!-- composition notebook in which they write unfamiliar vocabulary as they read. These lists will form their lists of vocab. to look up and learn.

I generally have the older girls read aloud to me for a bit each week, but most of their independent reading each day is done silently at this point. I don't have them summarize or answer questions in notebooks for their independent reading at this point, either, because they do enough writing in the other subjects; any more would be overwhelming. Instead, I occasionally ask questions and have them summarize that day's reading orally for me. Book reports will come at some point, but I'm not worried about including them just yet. As their writing skills increase, I'll expect more finesse with their written accounts, but for now, my main focus for them is understanding and enjoyment, as well as developing the ability to orally recount what they have read.

Math:
Saxon
It's the most expensive investment we've made in our homeschooling thus far, but I like its solid instruction and ease of use. I don't think I've ever heard a bad review of Saxon math, which makes me feel good, not being a math nerd, myself. Now that we are in the stage of textbooks, which can be passed down to successive students, it costs about $15 per student per year for the test workbook, which isn't too awful.

Handwriting:
I buy handwriting paper at the least expensive supplier and employ copywork of quality passages from literature and the Bible. In kindergarten, we stick to the alphabet first, and then simple sentences-- say, from Frog and Toad. In first grade, we begin copying more complex sentences, and in second through fourth grades, we copy longer paragraphs from literature and large portions of scripture, as well as poetry. Starting last year, when Annie was in second grade and Millie in third, we began alternating copywork with other writing activity (e.g. Mon.: copywork, Tues.: dictation, Wed. copywork, Thurs. dictation, Fri. writing an original letter, story, or poem). I keep the dictation passages simple, as this is their first exposure to writing down what they hear, and it is overwhelming at the start.

Memorization:
The girls memorize poetry and scripture, mostly, but this year, I'd like to include passages from Shakespeare and other works of lit., as Millie will be reading her first Shakespeare play, and Annie will read some excellent storybook versions (as well as a crumbling antique edition of this, if all goes well). The scripture they've learned so far is in large chunks, such as Psalm 1, Psalm 100, and Deut. 5: 1-17, etc. I'd like to do a single verse each week this year, too, though. Maybe a "verse(s)-a-week" time, because the amount of scripture they have memorized is woefully small compared to what I remember from my childhood. Part of this is due to our church having an inclusive Sunday school so they aren't memorizing scripture outside of the house. In my childhood, one verse each week for Sunday School times 52 weeks times however many years = a goodly amount of scripture bound around. To be honest, I need this discipline just as much. It's been years since I memorized scripture with diligence, and I have no excuse save laziness, which isn't an excuse at all. Moving on, I use the Harp and the Laurel Wreath for poetry and literature selections to memorize, as well as just pulling books off our shelves for worthy poems (A Child's Garden of Verses, anyone?).

Science:
Oh, science. We have large periods of time when science falls off the map entirely, which is perfectly fine in the classical model, but when it happens, I still feel guilty for not preparing better. In the past, we've taken nature walks, and the girls have collected plant samples and sketched in their nature journals, but last year we didn't take as many. They're outside all of the time, and learn about the world year-round simply by playing and being, but that won't always be enough. We were given a microscope last year, so this past summer they looked at various nature treasures for fun. I loosely follow the science schedule outlined in The Well-Trained Mind, but we still haven't touched on some of the areas (i.e. astronomy). I just bought a telescope at a yard sale on our way home from the retreat-- the only sale I've been to all summer-- and we can't wait to begin star-watching this fall. I really like the schedule in The Well-Trained Mind and I think it's a great resource to have, but I don't feel capable of bound to doing it exactly as they lay it out, either. We've studied plants, animals, and the human body, but I don't think we'll do much with chemistry and physics this year apart from perhaps a fun experiment from time to time, even though that's what Annie and Millie are respectively "supposed" to be learning this year. Instead, I'll stick with studying more plants and animals this fall, and delve into astronomy, weather, and revisit the human body, since these are tangible, relevant areas to the girls at this time in their lives. Plus, due to those "periods of time," there's yet lots to learn.

Core science books:
The Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia
The Usborne Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Natural World (buy the used one for $6 instead of the new for $60. I did, and it arrived like new.)
The DK Encyclopedia of Animals
We also use a zillion science books we've picked up for $3 a box at library book sales, ranging from the Magic School Bus books to tons of vintage, 10-cents-a-pop Golden Book field guides to general books on nature to question and answer books to books on specific animal groups and weather and astronomy and chemistry and microscopes and.... well, too many to list. (Seriously, a zillion...)

Bible:
The Bible
and
The Children's Story Bible

Spelling:
I started homeschooling using only the Webster's Original Blue Back Speller, which can be used from K through high school, and then I added Wanda Sanseri's spelling rule cards to that. It didn't work out all that great, so last year, we began to also use the Spelling Workout books with Sanseri's spelling rule cards (found cheaper here). Webster's speller is for bonus words for spelling bees. I buy only the workbook of Spelling Workout without buying the teacher's book, and I also have the girls put a plastic page protector over whatever lesson they're on and use a dry erase marker so that we can reuse the workbooks from year to year. (Call me Scrooge. Or smarty-pants.)


Art:
Drawing with Children (easy to find secondhand)
Drawing for Older Children & Teens (I just found this for a dollar at a bookstore- yeah!)
Both of these books are top-notch, though they require reading beforehand to internalize the information before passing it along to your children, especially if you've never encountered it before. I've never had any art instruction because it just didn't find a place in the small Christian school I attended, so I've learned a lot through Drawing with Children-- basic stuff, mostly, like "fill the page," but needful! These books are both highly recommended by many, so if you find one for pennies, grab it and run. Last year I splurged on Discovering Great Artists, and I love it! It's definitely worth the cost, and it includes more specific art activities than Drawing with Children, as well as succinct artist bios, so it's a good companion book.
I also snatch up any artist biographies I see at library book sales, which doesn't happen that often. We have a few of this series from book sales, and I want to check out more from the library this year, as well as more great books like Anholt's artist series, which we haven't read. We have some hardcover, coffee table-type art books that we've picked up at library sales, which I need to use more than I do. A good art history survey book would serve the same purpose. I'd love to have a look at this one sometime, even though it's pricey, and we don't need it.

I try to have one formal art lesson and one craft per week, but art history has been hit or miss in the past. With last year's addition of the Discovering Great Artist's book, I think it will be easier to include that this year, as well as my discovery of this site, which has some great and free lapbooking ideas and biographical/timeline information for both artists and composers. And the library? Well, it has fun books like this.

Music:
We've picked up several folk songbooks at library book sales-- two favorites are Gonna Sing My Head Off and an older edition of American Folk Songs for Children. We also sing and memorize psalms from the psalter each week, and alternate between psalm memorization and silly folk songs and ballads. I'd like to eventually find (you know, just stumble across) a piano so that the girls can learn to play. For now, I found a keyboard (stumbled across it on the side of the road. See-- it happens!) that we'll use to plunk out tunes. We also have a fun toy band set and a genyoowine penny whistle, so we're a regular orchestra. Each year, I get this wonderful c.d. (which I just noticed is 60 bucks on Amazon...what?!) and this book out of the library, because they're great, as well as whatever classical kids c.d.'s and accompanying books I can find. This year, I'd like to hunt down Venezia's composer books from the library, as well.

We only did this with one composer last year because it requires planning ahead to get the c.d.s from the library, but this year, I want to do an immersion in the music of each composer we study, e.g. read a few biographies and then just play his more well-known music nonstop around the house for several weeks-- let the girls listen during handwriting and art, let them dance around to it in the afternoon, play it while I do mounds of dishes, etc. This promotes familiarity with his style and more famous works without having to work at it. We simply enjoy it and learn by osmosis.

Last year was the first year I felt okay about our art and music times, because we actually had them! (That lets you know what the previous year was like.) This year, I hope to include even more of this because we all enjoy it, and it's foolish to spend hours of frustration banging our heads against the wall in a different area to the exclusion of art or music. They are necessities and should be treated as such, along with math, reading, and handwriting.

History:
So far, we use the Story of the World series, which I really like. It engages the girls without being too fluffy, and I love its sensible, sequential order. It follows the classical pattern of learning about history from its beginning to the modern period every four years. The girls draw a picture in their history composition books and write or narrate a short summary of each day's chapter beside it. I've never plunked down money for the accompanying activity books, which are twice as expensive as the core books, but I've heard they're great. Over the last several years, I've slowly added the following supplemental books, which I highly recommend. I bought them used on Amazon, and they arrived in beautiful condition. They are set up chronologically, as well, so it's easy to couple them with the History of the World series.
The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia (for older readers)
The Usborne Book of World History (So great! This is geared toward younger readers, but I really enjoy it, myself)
The Kingfisher Atlas of the Ancient World
The Kingfisher Atlas of the Medieval World
Hillyer's A Child's History of the World, which I'll have Millie and Annie both read this year on their own time as a fun and worthwhile overview.
And, of course, we have a zillion biographies floating around our bookshelves, from easy reader to juvey fiction, ranging from Clara Barton and Helen Keller to Louis Pasteur and Patrick Henry.

Grammar:
I'm interested in the Shurley grammar books because they receive such glowing reviews but we'll never get them. EXPENSIVE!!! Instead, we use the First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind series, which I'm happy with, and, as with the spelling workbooks, I have the girls write with dry-erase marker on a page protector so the workbooks can be re-used indefinitely. I supplement their lessons with my own off-the-cuff additions, which usually involves dissecting and diagramming more complex sentences than the workbook provides, and which are implemented using a dry-erase board and their grammar composition notebooks. Fancy, I know! Plus, we make up songs. Memorizing the complete list of prepositions to the tune of Jingle Bells was a big hit last year, especially the last line..."Prepositions, prepositions, we-heee loo-oove yooou!" And we do. We really do.

Latin:
We begin Latin this year. Yikes! I was supposed to start with Millie last year, but I held off because I felt inadequate, and, plus, starting this year means that I can teach Millie and Annie together, which I try to do in as many subjects as possible. I plan to use Latina Christiana for this.

For kindergarten (Hello, Susie!), we use Saxon 1 for math and the Phonics Museum for workbook and primers. We bought the whole-kit-shebang when Millie was young, which includes fine art alphabet cards and cool interlocking consanent blends, all of which I've found useful but I can't recommend due to the great expense. Even the workbook is unnecessary and pricey for simple reading instruction, but I've still found it useful for everyone but Millie. Millie was bored by it, so we saved it for Annie. Annie found the writing exercises and "games" a lot of fun, and Susie seems to, also. The primers, on the other hand, I can wholeheartedly recommend to just about everyone. Enough Dick and Jane fluff! These are so much better, and I've never seen anything like them anywhere else. ("The first 10 readers are used in the Kindergarten program and cover topics such as Daniel and the Lion's Den, Greek mosaics, Benjamin Franklin, and the Civil War. The first grade readers, books 11 through 31, feature Cyrus the Archer, Ella Fitzgerald, moon missions, the bubonic plague, Sir Galahad, and more.")
For teaching reading, we also use the set of basic phonogram cards from Wanda Sanseri, which are really all a person needs in order to teach a littler person to read. The other stuff is all fun and good, but it's not necessary. If someone wanted/needed a bare-bones approach to reading, I'd recommend two things: Sanseri's phonogram cards and the Veritas Press readers, and nothing else. (And not even the readers if one's budget didn't allow it.)

I spent almost $200 on total school supplies for three girls this year, which is a lot, I know, but when compared to the cost of private school or homeschooling with a set curriculum, it's reasonable, especially considering most of that amount was for non-consumable books that we will reuse indefinitely (and half of the total amount was for math!). If I was a millionaire, I could have easily have spent a thousand dollars on books for the girls to read, encyclopedias, history and bible cards for organizing timelines (they're so cool!), and a host of other wonderful, helpful, but ultimately unnecessary things. It's easy to become enamored with what could be if only I had such and such and such a tool, but the truth is that learning is something that occurs all the time, and that most knowledge comes through living. If I deliberately use my time and the ample resources we have-- if I am wise and diligent and throw myself wholeheartedly into learning with my children, then they will learn and, more importantly, they will learn to love to learn.

One, two, three...LET'S GO, TEAM! RAHRAHRAH!

(So. Did it work?)