We don’t really have a start or end to our homeschooling year, but sometimes you just have to see where you’ve got to, and I’m in that mood now.\u00a0 Maybe it’s because I have to send off our homeschooling declaration for 2008-9 in just a couple of weeks.\u00a0 Maybe it’s because the social services are coming round a few days before that, and their visit will wrap up the requirements for our first year of formal homeschooling. So here goes:<\/p>\n
Maths:<\/strong> the 2nd grade maths book we are using is virtually finished, and we are on a roll which I hope will continue into the 3rd grade book.\u00a0 We spend half an hour on the maths book, 4 times a week.\u00a0 The work is very varied, so sometimes we finish one problem in a session, sometimes we do a page and a half.\u00a0 Sometimes, Antonia works by herself and I get the housework done, sometimes she needs my help.\u00a0 More often, what she really needs is moral support, so I am trying to encourage her gently to be more autonomous.\u00a0 We also do ten minutes of maths drill every day.\u00a0 At the moment it’s always multiplication tables, earlier in the year, it was telling the time.<\/p>\n Reading<\/strong>: We read all the time, all sorts of things, by ourselves, together aloud, whatever.\u00a0 Antonia is more drawn to stories and poetry than non-fiction.\u00a0 Tracking a child’s reading for record-keeping after they get fluent can be complicated.\u00a0 I’m recording our after lunch reading books, one is read by her, and one is read by me, and I’m leaving out all the rest.<\/p>\n English:<\/strong>\u00a0 the reading, writing and spoken language have all come together, so that Antonia reads and speaks well, and above all spells and punctuates the sentences that she chooses to write pretty well.\u00a0 We worked officially on spelling for a while, but now I see that the visual memory from reading is starting to kick in and she can spell many words I would not expect her to get right.\u00a0 She is writing about four sentences in English every day, usually a story, which is now turning into a saga, and sometimes a letter.\u00a0 She’s reading for fun, and beginning to read parts of her history book herself.<\/p>\n French<\/strong>: we are not quite at the same level as in English yet, alas.\u00a0 She reads at nearly the same level as in English, but even orally, she has a poor grasp or grammar and doubtful comprehension.\u00a0 She tends to read the way she speaks, where grammar is concerned.\u00a0 If she were left to her own devices, that would only reinforce the mistakes, so I am going to encourage her to read French aloud. Writing in French will be our big project for next year and at the moment things look fairly grim.\u00a0 She cannot even formulate a correct sentence to write, let alone set about spelling it correctly. I am hoping it will all come together over the next year.\u00a0 I will be so glad when it happens, because it is taking a lot of our time.\u00a0 We are doing written exercises four times a week, spelling four times a week, and reading a passage for comprehension twice a week. I can think of a lot of things I would rather do, and I’m sure she would agree.\u00a0 On a positive note, I should say that she has very nice cursive handwriting.<\/p>\n History<\/strong>: This is our big success at the moment.\u00a0 I waited patiently for ages for history consciousness to kick in and here we are.\u00a0 We are working through Story of the World twice a week, and keeping a Book of Centuries that works for us.\u00a0 We look through the Book of Centuries once a week to make sure we remember the main people and events.\u00a0 We do associated activities as and when we please, so we have all kinds of helmets, spears and cuneiform tablets all over the house.\u00a0 The child also found a broken mug in a yard, collected all the pieces and proudly tells everyone who comes to the house that she is an archaeologist!<\/p>\n Geography<\/strong>: Well, we are still travelling quite a lot!\u00a0 Aside from that, geography at the moment consists of learning the names of continents, oceans, countries, rivers and regions.\u00a0 Especially those we have travelled to or studied in history.\u00a0 Officially, we do this for 15 minutes a week, but in practice, she wants to do it more often.<\/p>\n In theory, we do one of the activities below once a week!<\/p>\n Science<\/strong>: Strangely, for a very science orientated family, we are going nowhere in particular with science at the moment. Pretty often, we do the shopping instead. I feel that Antonia is ready for something more than we had done up till now, but I haven’t found a resource I like.\u00a0 I am feeling like I have to make my own, and of course that is a lot of work.\u00a0 In truth, we have done a lot of science already, and if we didn’t do any officially in the coming year it wouldn’t matter, but we absolutely must have something for the year after.<\/p>\n Music<\/strong>: I like the Suzuki Piano program.\u00a0 I do not think I could say we are making fast progress with it, partly because up till now, Antonia has been practising its pieces for no more than a few minutes a day.\u00a0 And partly, probably, because I don’t know the best way to teach.\u00a0 We have averaged one piece per month we were at home, which puts us at piece five.\u00a0 Piano has probably been our most unschooled subject.\u00a0 Now, however, we are having one long music lesson per week, and will add music reading soon since Antonia has been saying she feels handicapped by not being able to read.<\/p>\n We also listen to a lot of music.\u00a0 I feel like Antonia would like to know more about musical forms, and with the arrival of history consciousness she is interested in composers and their biographies.\u00a0 At the moment we haven’t made time to do more than listen and stick their pictures in the Book of Centuries.<\/p>\n Art<\/strong>: This is like music, it’s one of the things that tends to get squeezed out, which hasn’t stopped Antonia filling her sketchbook with very individual drawings.\u00a0 I plan to try detailed study of individual pictures.\u00a0 At the current rate, I think it will take us about one month to study each picture.<\/p>\n Foreign language<\/strong>:\u00a0 We chose Chinese.\u00a0 Antonia is very enthusiastic about it.\u00a0 At the moment, it is mostly consisting of playing the CD in the car as we drive around.\u00a0 At some point we will have to sit down with the book, because there are other activities connected to reading and writing Chinese.\u00a0 I am not worried about speed of progress for now.<\/p>\n Nature study<\/strong>:\u00a0 This consists of a long outing once a week, which might be combined with a cultural or fun activity, and shorter walks several times as week.\u00a0 We are in a slightly similar position with nature study as we are with science.\u00a0 We go out a lot, we enjoy ourselves and see nice things, but it doesn’t feel to me as if we are in a different place from where we were last year.\u00a0 I very much like Anna Botsford Comstock’s Handbook of Nature Study, but there again, as we live in Europe, many of the species are different so I can’t just use it ‘off-the-shelf’.\u00a0 Antonia is certainly more into outdoor physical activities at the moment which is valuable in itself, but is more of a sport.<\/p>\n Sports<\/strong>:\u00a0 The sports are all on summer holiday, it would seem!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We don’t really have a start or end to our homeschooling year, but sometimes you just have to see where you’ve got to, and I’m in that mood now.\u00a0 Maybe it’s because I have to send off our homeschooling declaration for 2008-9 in just a couple of weeks.\u00a0 Maybe it’s because the social services are … Continue reading Homeschooling overview, or where we’ve got to<\/span>