Things are going really well in our homeschool so I wanted to write about everything we're doing right now. If any pictures require an explanation, I'll do that too. Hopefully it won't be too disjointed.
I truly believe the most important part of our homeschool is having a solid routine. Everyone is so much happier when we follow our routine. This is thrown off course by Hurricane Ruby, who will not be subjugated by the laws of time and space. But she's getting better. Things have definitely been better. Knock on wood! Please don't punish me, Universe!
We do a ton of reading. We finished the whole Lemony Snicket series, which pissed me right off! They don't answer any questions. None. Nothing. 13 books! And 0 answers. Rude! Anyway, after that we read Matilda and The Witches and now we're reading Prince Caspian from the Chronicles of Narnia. Maggie just finished the Clementine series and now she's reading Ruby Lu (picked 100% for the name). One of her homeschool coop classes is a book club-type class and they are supposed to read at home and discuss in class. So she's also reading her third Magic Tree House book. We've finished Civil War on Sunday and Revolutionary War on Wednesday and she's reading Twister on Tuesday.
I try to read one book from our personal library every day so they don't get forgotten with our mountain of library books. I actually got blocked from checking out more. I didn't even know they had a limit. Anyway, we do a unit for Social Studies, Science, and Important Topics. For Social Studies, we're learning about America leading up to the Revolutionary War. We are reading some books about colonists and some about Native Americans and a deep dive into the Lost Colony of Roanoke. There are no age-appropriate movies I could find so for now that's it. I also got a game that teaches U.S. Geography to go with this study. And an app that teaches facts about the states.
For Science, we're learning about climate change. We have lots of books. I tried to find books that mainly focused on personal solutions. I want to empower not terrify. We also got Wall-E and a couple of documentaries.
For Important Topics, we're revisiting body safety. I had an unbelievably horrid dream and decided I would empower my own self by reiterating this topic. This is just books and lots of talks about touch and consent and staying safe.
For writing, we're doing several things. We're almost done with our Dolce words, which is crazy. That's 240 words. I'll probably continue spelling for a while and focus more on patterns and rules, since Dolce words are the most common words and not taught in any organized way. Maggie excels at spelling. It comes very naturally for her. She almost never gets a word wrong more than once. For grammar, she is working in a workbook. I don't teach this too rigidly. Grammar comes through in reading and will be reinforced through writing. I just want her to have a good idea of the rules.
We are doing a writing project right now based on fairy tales. We'll cover nine fairy tales. We get at least two written versions and a movie or show, if possible. Then discuss all the differences and similarities. Then Maggie will write a summary of each fairy tale and draw a picture that summarizes it. We'll put them all together in a little book. Right now, we're doing Rapunzel.
For math, we have several resources. I have her play a lot of online games and real life games (board games). We have workbooks and apps. We just started multiplication facts. Which she's strangely excited about. I guess she's heard about it often and is excited to actually be doing it. Maybe it seems exotic or something. We follow the scope and sequence for third grade and just cover each topic until she's got it down. We tried math books (like picture books around a math theme) because people raved about them but we haven't found any that weren't on topics WAY over her head and dreadfully boring. I'm not sure if I'll keep looking for not. She also has a problem solving book that incorporates word problems.
We use an awesome app called Newsela. You put in your kid's grade and it gives you modified news articles that are age appropriate. This is a great resource for grade level non-fiction. We've read about lemon sharks and orangutans and service dogs for soldiers with PTSD. I'm often surprised how much she knows about animals. She can tell me all these strange details from watching various cartoons. Who knew?
We also read poems every day. I read one and she reads one. Maggie's ability to read is excellent. She gets almost every single work right but she reads very slowly. I'm hoping some poetry will help with her confidence and build her fluency.
We also watch the news via CNN 10, which is a 10 minute news program for children. I.e. won't cause her to curl up in a ball convinced we're all going to die any minute.
We put pins in our map for places we learn about and places we hear about on the news. Occasionally we'll learn about somewhere or see somewhere and Maggie will add a pin for a place she wants to go. So far, it's Paris, Rio, Hawaii, and New York City. I think that's it.
We also do DEAR (Drop Everything And Read). I do about 30 minutes. She's loving graphic novels. She's read so many, I'm having trouble keeping up. I try to keep 5 or 6 in the house at all times. She goes through them fast.
At bedtime, she reads a chapter from Junie B. Jones and I read a chapter from the Penderwicks.
I think that's it. I want to add more games but you CANNOT play a game with Ruby around. Eventually Ruby won't be so hurricane-ish.
