This post is really two posts smashed together: Easing into the home-school year and What we’re planning to use this year.
This post does contain a few affiliate links (Amazon and All About Reading), which means I get a tiny commission for sharing them with you, but your price is the same either way. I only share things I personally have and do use and love.
Easing into homeschooling
I personally think it’s hard to start a whole new routine for your day. Actually, I think it’s hard to even start an extra little thing for 15min a day routine. So, of course it’ll be hard for kids to go from ‘free time all the time’ to doing school, no matter how unschool-ly you are.
What we do is ‘ease into homeschooling.’ By that I mean we do not, I repeat, DO NOT pull out math and writing and phonics and assigned chapter books and history worksheets on day 1. After talking to some other homeschooling friends, I found out this is quite common. Some people call it easing into school, I’ve also heard the term zero point entry for school (like those wave pools that slowly get deeper) So. What DO we do?
Day 1:
Yay- back to school day! We take a picture on our front porch, as a group and individuals. We have a little chalk board we write (or Eva writes) their name, age and grade level and take a picture next to it.
My kids all have a binder with a clear sleeve front, so they ‘decorate’ the front of their binder. (AKA draw a beautiful picture on a piece of paper). I rarely let them just pull out anything they want to draw with (we have many options), but on this occasion I let them. Markers? Yes. Crayons? of course. Glitter?! <cringes but> Sure. They have fun decorating their covers with whatever they happen to be into at the time (flying unicorns and fast cars were last year’s picks).
These covers have a dual purpose. They go in the front of the binder all year, so we know whose is who’s. And then at the end of the year, I laminate it and use it as a cover for a ‘portfolio’ book of a sampling of all their work, and have it bound at Office Depot.
Then I print off an “all about me’ sort of page. There are a million of them, just search Pinterest and pick one you like. We did this one last year.
Then we make cupcakes and call it a day.
I imagine in a public/private school, they get about the same amount done because this would also be the day the teachers introduces herself/himself and they do icebreakers to get to know other kids names, and learn how to line up for the bathroom, where to put their backpacks etc… we don’t have to do all of that.
Day 2:
I introduce a little more of our morning school routine. Usually it goes: gather them all up, prayer and pledge of allegiance. Three years ago, we also did “America” songs like the National Anthem, America the Beautiful, This Land is our land etc… because Tour 1 CSH focuses on American History/geography/art etc. We’ll probably do that again this year. I’m not the most patriotic (or college-team-fan-ish) person you’ll meet, but I do believe we should all at least know the words to the National Anthem and the pledge.
Then we have a book “introduction.” I pull out any/all of their actual curriculum (more on that later) and let them thumb through them and check them out. We don’t actually do anything in them, even if they want to. (ha it’s nice when it’s new and they’re excited to get started).
Then I’ll read a story and we call it done.
Day 3:
We do the same beginning routine, then I start adding morning basket in with a story or two. Sometimes I let them pick the story at this point, sometimes I go ahead and jump into something we will be learning about in history/science/etc. And we do one subject, usually we start with math, and just half a lesson.
Day 4:
Same as Day 3. Just do the other half of the math lesson, and then pull out your phonics/reading/writing or spelling program and do a half of that lesson.
Day 5:
Full Morning routine. Then a full math lesson, the rest of the phonics/reading/writing and then a small part of whatever other boxed curriculum you might have- for us it would be history.
Week 2: I continue slowly building up to what our ‘normal’ routine will be. Here’s what my plan is for this year:
Prayer, Pledge, America Songs
Morning Basket books (30min-1hr) read alouds that go with our topics of study.
Eva (4th grade) and Elizabeth- go do the Pre-K stuff together (All about Reading Prereading… more on that later)
1-on-1 time with Charles to do phonics/reading, writing and get him started on math. If Eva and Elizabeth get done faster, then Eva does science journaling, until I’m done with Charles.
1-on-1 with Eva for Math and spelling, then independent work on writing.
Lunch
Fun subject of the day. One day we’ll do an extra history activity, another day it’ll be a science activity, etc. If I have a lot of ideas this part of the day could take a long time.
SO that’s how we do it. Maybe you ease into it differently, or more quickly, or more slowly- let me know in the comments. Maybe you don’t need to ease into it- maybe going cold turkey works better for your family. I’d love to hear about it!
What we’re using this year
Picking curriculum is some of the toughest decisions to make. Sure, you probably have bought a car or a house and those were tough… but not as tough as choosing what book or books you hope to teach an irrational little version of yourself from all year. You know I’m right. So I’ll tell you what we use, but you also have to figure out what works for your family. We all have different strengths and weaknesses, interests and all that, so don’t feel pressured by me or anyone else to use these products or any others. I just felt like sharing what we do and why I love it, in case it helps you in your decision making.
Let’s start with the youngest- she’s the easiest:
Elizabeth- 3yrs old going on 4 early in the school year.
I have used this will both my older 2 and have loved it. The teachers manual walks you through all of it, the student workbook is simple but also fun and interesting. The workbook is basically big letters and instructions on the back for ‘coloring’ them in. But sometimes it says to use paint and a q-tip, or glue scraps of yarn on, or cut out little pieces of aluminum foil in rectangles to be the ‘cans’ that the goat is eating, etc. So much more fun than your average worksheet with a letter. BUT the best part, kids this age can’t read. So if I’m really not up for glue and scraps of yarn, I just say, “oh today it says color with markers, but only pick 3 colors! ” So easy. We have done well going from this Pre-Reading program straight into Little Angel Readers.
Math for Elizabeth is just the $1 workbooks I find in the front of Target this time of year. (or Dollar Tree if you can’t find them at Target) It’s shapes, colors, writing numbers etc.
Then even though she’s 3 she’ll still participate in anything else we do as a family. That means, she gets to help point at countries or states on a map with the giant finger from the dollar tree, as we sing them. Or listen to the history story and then make a model of the Alamo with play doh (ok, so she’ll just play with play doh, but you get the idea). Or go outside and see how many different birds we can spot. Or draw a picture of a bird (again, it’ll just be scribbles but she’ll get her own clipboard and paper). ETC.
Charles (1st Grade):
Reading/writing: Little Angel Readers C and D
He did A and B last year, and we’ll do the last two, C and D this year. I LOVE these. They teach incrementally and slowly build on their reading skills from a phonics background, not a pure ‘sight words/ memorize words.’ There ARE sight words in the program, but a couple every week. It mostly teaches how letters and letter pairs/groups sound and then how to read those words. This was a great foundation for my oldest and transitioned really well into All About Spelling (because the phonics rules are the same!). Added bonus, these are Catholic and have super sweet stories in them to read, where the kids are learning virtues and catholic culture, along with some popular fables or classic stories (like the Little Red Hen type stuff).
Extra writing practice: Draw Write Now
We are doing Draw, Write Now Books 2 and 3, since they go along with Tour 1 subjects (Book 2: Columbus, Harvest, weather) (Book 3: Native Americans, North America and Pilgrims) These are really fun. You need to get a primary lines journal to be able to do them, but then they are good forever (like the kids do not write in the Draw Write Now books, just in their journals.) Inside, it shows them step-by-step how to draw something, and then has three or four sentences about that thing for them to copy. We use this as our handwriting practice at this grade level.
Side note: when it comes to handwriting, I only request perfection when they are actually doing handwriting. So for Charles he focuses on handwriting when he does his Draw Write Nows, but when he wants to write about birds for science or Columbus in a history activity I do not make him do perfect handwriting.
Math- Critical Thinking Company’s Mathematical Reasoning Level B and C
He flew through A last year and started on B (1st grade), so I anticipate him finishing B and starting C before the year is up. These are colorful and fun looking. They are also IMO very spiral. As in, it teaches a concept, and then goes and does a review, and a maybe another review. It’s never 2+2=4 and then 4 pages of practicing simple addition. I think the fun colors and the variety in assignments is what makes these math books great. What I don’t like is when you get to the harder stuff, it feels harder for me to plan my time. When Eva hit 2nd grade in this book, I felt like some days I needed 20min to explain math to her for a page one day, and then some days she needed no help, and not knowing how much time to allot to her math was driving me a little crazy.
Also with this book, it is not divided by days or weeks or even lessons. It’s just a giant book of math. I just take the number of pages of the book and divide it by the days of school we plan/hope to do (160 in Alabama… not sure in TN yet), which has typically been 2-3 pages a day, or 10 pages a week.
Eva (4th Grade)
Reading- mostly on her own. I’ll pick out some chapter books I want her to read, but she reads a lot just for fun. I’m still working on the list for this year.
Writing- We’re trying out Wordly Wise this year. It’ll be new to us, so I’m hoping it goes well. Last year we did Critical Thinking Company’s Writing Detective, along with random assignments I gave her. It was ok, but got repetitive. We’ve also done IEW in the past, which was also ok, but got repetitive. Maybe the thing with writing is that it’s repetitive. Wordly Wise should help us incorporate more grammar/ Language Arts into writing this year also. I naturally did a lot of this with her ‘free’ writing assignments, which we did about once a week last year. Those were something like “write about whatever you want, but it must be 7 sentences long and include alliteration” or whatever LA thing we were on that week with CSH. Hopefully Wordly Wise will help me fill in any gaps I may have missed last year.
Math- <sigh> We’ve done MCP the last two years, and I really like it, but Eva thinks it’s boring. So we are switching back to Critical Thinking company’s Mathematical Reasoning Level F. I think MCP is a whole grade faster than CT’s Mathematical Reasoning. So instead of buying 4th grade, I bought 5th grade in Critical Thinking Co for this fall even though we only finished 3rd grade in MCP, if that makes sense. Hoping the fun colors and sprial-ness helps bring a little joy back to Math this year. MCP is/was very traditional and not spiral. Learn a thing, practice a thing with easy practice, practice a thing with hard practice. Learn a new thing, practice practice…. take a test. Repeat x160 days. That was MCP Math. Critical thinking company will be less of that type of work book.
Spelling- All About Spelling Level 4
I just love All About Spelling. It teaches spelling from a phonics angle, which is also how I taught her to read (Little Angel Readers). It has all the lessons written out, it’s mostly open and go and I make it flexible to suit Eva and my preferences. So sometimes it says dictate and write these sentences, and I’ll actually ask her to write those sentences and also draw a small picture to go with them. It might say write these words, and I’ll say ‘write me a sentence that includes this word’ etc. We also abandoned the tiles. Not because they aren’t great. They are great. But she was tired of the magnet tiles and wanted to just write everything on the dry erase board. And as a homeschooler, I feel like any extra writing is a plus- so we do that instead of using magnet tiles. You should totally get the magnet tiles and use them though. And when Charles is the right age, we will use them for AAS level 1 with him.
History- The Story of Civilization: The History of the United States
Tan publishing has really done a wonderful job on all the Story of Civilization sets (We’ve done volumes 1-3 over the last two years). The kids love listening to the book whether I read it or we listen to the audio version (which is AWESOME). I don’t get any affiliate or commission for sharing this one with you- I just love them and so do many others. The book tells history, but then throws in a few short ‘historical fiction’ mini-stories, which is really fun. We also do some of the activity book and teacher guide suggestions.
The activity book is… ok. I am so blown away by the story, the activity book is a little of a let down to me, but I also am not sure what I would ask them to do differently. It is filled with coloring pages, crosswords, and a few cut and paste type of activities. The teachers manual has other ideas for expanding on and having fun with the chapters in the book. I’m not too concerned though, as I usually come up with my own ideas for fun with history.
Everyone (Eva, Charles, Elizabeth)- Catholic Schoolhouse Tour 1
We will be memorizing Tour 1 materials this year and build off of it for all our other subjects. That means for geography, we’re all memorizing the United states. So we’ll probably draw the US, do some various state-specific activities and things, cook food from those regions, sing the songs for the states, and point to our wall map etc. For Art, we will do the CSH art book, at home this year because we don’t have a Chapter where we moved to. Same thing with Science. History is US history this year, so it goes with the Story of the United States (or vice versa however you want to look at it). Everything else we do will be living books that go with Tour 1 subjects and crazy ideas I come up with (many of which have been blogged on the CSH blog).
One little extra is this year I’m having Eva do a Science Journal. She’ll have a little notebook and be expected to journal something in it every [school] day about the science topic in CSH. So Week 1 mammals- write some facts about your favorite mammal, list as many mammals as you can think of, draw your favorite mammal -things like that will go in the journal. This will be independent work, and I’ll check it, like once a week.
What are your plans? What are your favorite curriculum? Are you a one-type homeschooler, or a mix like me? I consider myself a classical/Charlotte mason/unschooler because I love the memory work of CSH, the living books of Charlotte Mason style, and then the fun in learning outside of text/workbooks in unschooling.
Phew that was a long post. I hope you enjoyed it. As always, thank you for being here and may God bless your school year~!
-Kristen
