Our third year of homeschool is barely a week in session and
I already LOVE, LOVE, LOVE our new style!
After spending a lot of time (and blog space) last year
researching Classical Education, I knew that was the direction I wanted to go.
The book I was reading, “A Thomas Jefferson Education,” is awesome, but the
recommendations are more for middle and high school students. Yes, they do have a list in one of the
appendices of books to read for elementary ages, but it just didn’t seem to fit
our family. Since my daughter is
starting 4th grade, though, I wanted to have some type of plan. (I don’t like “winging it” - for me, that
means we would probably not have much schoolwork.) My daughter’s interests are the same as many
4th graders, even though her low IQ and other special needs means
she is not able to do the same work, which presented a unique challenge. Since
Babygirl does not read on level, and gets frustrated if she has to read
anything for an extended time, I knew I wanted most of this school year to be
built around reading, but I didn’t want it to be just random books we picked up
from the library. Most series books that
she could read may be entertaining, but I was not very excited about building
an entire year of education on “Junie B. Jones” books. They’re good to read and have some moral to
them, but there still isn’t much depth.
A little more than a year ago, a friend of mine was cleaning
out some things in her house and came across a set of “Treasury of Illustrated
Classics” books. She gave them to me –
more than 20 classic books that were simplified for younger readers. They gave
me the perfect foundation to build our plans for building a great school
year. They are written for younger
children, but they keep much of the depth of character and morals, as well as
some of the dilemmas, that the classic characters face. They are also entertaining, able to keep my
daughter’s interest. To get my daughter
excited about them, I let her pick out the order we would read the books.
Another problem is that in the Classical Education
tradition, books should be read in a limited amount of time. In fact, in the “Thomas
Jefferson” book, it suggests finishing one book per week. I knew that would not happen. These books
usually have about 150 – 200 pages each, way too much for Babygirl to read (or
even listen to me read) per week. So, I
extended it to one book per 2 weeks.
Since our homeschool is arranged in 10 sessions of 4 weeks
of school, 1 week off, that means 2 books per session or 20 books per school
year. Was it possible for us to read
that many books this school year? Would I be pushing her too hard, only
frustrating both of us?
To add to the dilemma, the Classical method is to read,
write, and discuss the books you are reading.
Discussing our reading is very simple for us, so I knew that would not
be a problem. If we divided up the
reading, where she would read some and I would read a lot, I knew we could
probably get through the book. But –
writing??? That is another of her big issues. Writing does not come easy at all
for Babygirl. In fact, it is very
daunting for her – okay, terrifying would be a better word. She has come a long way in the 2 years we’ve
had to homeschool. She now draws every
chance she gets (I now have to hide copy paper when I buy a new ream or I may
find it scattered over the room with one dragon on each page). That is such an improvement, but letter
formation is still hard for her. How
could we “write” this year? I know we
need to, but I don’t want to overwhelm her, which can happen very easily. (Look back at my first year posts to see how difficult
she is to work with when she is overwhelmed)
I decided to journal, which is the main method recommended by
the “Thomas Jefferson Education” book. I also decided that we would keep the
notebook nearby when we were reading our classical novels and we would write
down “interesting vocabulary words” and important events from each
chapter. If nothing else, we would write
a sentence summary of each chapter. I
also decided that I would start writing the journal, letting Babygirl tell me
what to write.
Wow! On chapter 2 of the
first book, she was grabbing the pencil out of my hand so she could write the
vocabulary words. I am still writing the
summaries or any important events, but she now writes all interesting words in
the journal. We talk about what each
word means. Two or three times per week,
we read back over what we wrote about the book, letting us summarize the story
and remind us what has happened.
Babygirl LOVES the new style! She
is ready for school and she keeps up well with the stories. Right now, she
reads the first page of each chapter (usually about ½ to ¾ of a page), then I
read the remaining 4 – 6 pages of each chapter.
She is already asking to read more than that one page, but since we are
reading 4 – 5 chapters per day, I think she would get tired of reading too
quickly. Maybe next session I will add a
little more for her to read aloud.
Yes, we do other subjects as well, and we are still trying
to take 1 field trip per week and one trip to the library once every 2
weeks. Last week, we went to the
Oklahoma History Center, across from the state capitol building, since we are studying
our state in Social Studies. This week,
the temperatures are dropping to the 90s for highs, so we will start going to
the Zoo again a couple of times per month.
In Science, we’re studying about the human body. Zoo trips this year will let us compare the
different types of animal bodies. This session we’re studying skin, including the
sense of touch and hygene, so she can focus on differences between the animal
skins. We do a lot of discussion, videos, and research on the internet for these
subjects. Math is still very difficult
for her, so we’re taking it slow, making sure she understands basic concepts
before we move on. We are also focusing
on the “fruits of the Spirit” this year, taking one “fruit” per month. This month is Love.
Read, write, and discuss is a style which I think will be
fabulous for us. Letting classics be the center of our school day (we spend
about 45 minutes or an hour daily on reading), she recognizes the value of
reading herself. My hope is that by the end of the year, I can let her read
independently and then we can discuss it and I can read what she wrote in her
journal, but we are nowhere close to doing that yet. It is still the first time we have had such a
successful first week that I am afraid to get overexcited, but I am! I hope your child's year begins just as wonderfully as ours!
