I have been meaning to post about this for a few weeks, but haven't been able to find the time to do so. For that matter, I have been meaning to post about a lot of things that I haven't. Someday life will slow down, right? Anyways, four weeks ago, (we were then in our 8th week of this school year), I decided rather impulsively that we needed to change our course work for the year. Living Books Curriculum was having a big 50% off sale and I liked what I saw on their sample pages. I have loved the literature selections on Ambleside Online, but I have had a hard time filling in some of the gaps on my own. I like that LBC focuses on American History and world history every year and they seem to add in more living books in history, especially in 4th and 5th grade. I also like that they include a lot of hands on activities and and map work (with maps that they provide). I still prefer some of AO's book selections to LBC's, so I am in the process of coming up with my own combination of the two plus a little bit of my own. Our first few weeks of this new plan have been very successful. I think the kids and I have really been enjoying the change. Here is a look at our new basic daily schedule.
I will try to post a copy of our course work once I've finished compiling it. I think the best part of this whole transition is that it has gotten me to take a fresh look at our approach to education and make efforts to get rid of what wasn't working and add things that we were lacking. That is one of the great things about homeschooling, you have the ability to tailor things to meet your children's needs.
So, what are your favorite educational resources?
4 comments:
This is great-- I love to see what others are doing. I would love to hear what you are using for math and writing. You are so organized! Very impressive!
I love Ambleside Online and Sonlight for their reading lists. It is so nice to be able to change things around when something is no longer working well. Thanks for sharing some of your resources with us!
Life will slow down? Ok, let me know when to expect that. :)
You seem so amazingly organized. I like your schedule. I am never able to write down a schedule like this that defines who does what when and who Mom is helping. Your boys are older than mine though, so I could see mine working more independently a few years down the road.
I've looked at this curriculum before, but just like with Ambleside, I can't get past the idea of doing separate "tracks" for each child. It's all I can do to just keep up with one period of history at the same time for everyone. But I'd like to see all the course work you're using. Change can be good, and it looks like you've got a good thing going here. :)
My life hasn't slowed down for 7 months. I'm hoping for January!
I like your schedule. I try to do schedules like that, but they change every week based on what is going on in our family. I need to do one every weekend. Maybe this weekend will be the one :) I am motivated after reading this post!
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