Can you tell I’m excited? It has been quite a year for us, and honestly I am ready for a break!
There were many things that I think went well this year, and many that went not so well. Maybe abysmal is a good description. This was my second year on the Homeschool Crew, and while I really loved it and don’t regret my time spent there at all, I can’t deny that it did influence how much of “my plan” we got done.
The good–
My older children did a great job with completing their skill-based, independent subjects this year. My son (12) worked through 3 Life of Fred math books (Fractions, Decimals and Percents, and Pre-Algebra with Biology). He did 2 Editor in Chief workbooks and a large portion of Our Mother Tongue. We finished Elementary Greek Level 2. That was a subject we got half-way through last year. This year we didn’t start it until after Christmas, but still worked our way through the book.
My daughter (10) completed Rod and Staff English 5 and Latina Christiana I. In Math she finished Singapore 3B, 4A, and is still working on 4B.
My younger guy (8), who was in the 2nd grade according to his age, made great strides in his reading, writing, and math this year. He went from struggling with c-v-c words at the beginning of the year to being confident with those and has learned lots more phonics too. He finished Explode the Code books 2 and 3 and is starting on 4. He also completed All About Spelling Level 1. He’s working slowly through Math Mammoth 1B, but will finish this summer.
The bad–
My son (12) got through Unit 5 of Latin Alive Book 1. OK, that’s not bad, but I really don’t believe he knows the material well enough to move forward. Which leaves me a quandry. I guess we’ll start the year with “review” and have him practice vocabulary over the summer on www.headventureland.com. It’s not really the vocabulary that’s the problem, it’s the endings that are more troublesome though. He also was working through Introductory Logic. Good program, but he was supposed to be doing it with my husband, and unfortunately that didn’t happen often enough.
My daughter (10) did very little spelling. She likes Spelling Power. I personally think she needs something different, but maybe consistency in the future will show some improvement. Her problem is that she can learn the words in spelling, but makes really strange errors in her writing.
Which, we really didn’t do enough of for anyone. I was going to do the writing assignments in Tapestry of Grace, but…ahem…Tapestry of Grace belongs in the bad category for us. Not because the curriculum is bad (I still love it), but because I was very bad at implementing it. Things did improve after Christmas, but we’re going to be doing some history reading for a few weeks to finish up Unit 2 (of 4) for Year 2.
The ugly–
Science. Simply put, we didn’t do science. We completed a grand total of about 3 chapters in Apologia Zoology 1 and Zoology 3. The really pathetic thing is my husband is a science teacher and I’m an engineer! There is no good reason for us to not do science. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Just pure overscheduling.
What am I doing differently next year?
I’m not totally sure. One big change is that I’m not going to be on the Crew. I was planning on it until the beginning of this week. But I decided (with some strong encouragement from my husband) that I needed to put more focus on our chosen studies. Plus my job with HSB takes time, enough time that I don’t have the extra to devote to Crew reviewing.
My school plans for next year will be taking shape over the summer. I know what materials we’re going to use, I just need to come up with a solid plan for implementing them.
By Kristen H.