While I homeschool 3 of them officially, Glow’s been expressing an interest in being part of homeschooling lately, so I’ve started doing more intentional learning lessons with her too. I’m thankful True and Brave are pretty much at the same level (makes my life a little bit easier), but it definitely takes juggling to cater to the 3 different stages the girls are at. We started off the year trying to include Glow, but she would zone out quickly, so I didn’t want to pressure her if she wasn’t ready. I would send her off to play (I believe a lot of learning is done in play too) and she would be nearby while the rest of us did school. Now though, I see she is paying more attention to what we are doing and wants to be part of it. It’s made my mornings a bit more full, but it’s exciting to see her interested.
The day I have Soul and Glow completely reading on their own, I’m definitely going to do a happy dance and treat myself to ice cream (or shoes). I thought reading was going to be the most difficult thing for me to teach, but math is where we have had the most obstacles. It’s been better lately and we all have grown to like math a little bit more (thanks to Life of Fred). With the end of the school year not too far from now, I’m starting to think about curriculum for next year. I was thinking about trying out a math curriculum with a video component. If any of you have any suggestions of math programs you have had success with, I would love to hear.
The girls’ rooms drive me a little batty because it isn’t the “clean” that I would like, but it is really cute to see their personalities come out in their spaces. Obviously, you know my girls love Star Wars, and Brave is really into super heroes, Rey and Spider-Man are her favorites (I love all the things she has taped up next to her bed). I’m in the mood to do some reorganizing and slight redecorating in their rooms. I’ve definitely been bitten by that spring cleaning bug. Anyone else get bit too?
I’ve been homwschooling a long time and teaching reading is one of the easiest, most rewarding things. Math is not. But we have had great success and understanding with right start math. Lots of games and real understanding of numbers. I’ve taught 4 of my kids with it so far and I feel like it builds a great foundation. My oldest had to put up with moving from Saxon to something else and it wasn’t to her benefit. RS then switch to teaching textbooks Around 7th has been working great for us.
Right start didn’t work well for us. I think math was going to be the easy one to teach; this difficulty sure surprised me.
I teach ESL and I have found some really cool lessons on Superheroes. I also I’m really passionate about teaching English through comic books. You can find some great resources online for it. Try searching ESL. Of course your daughters aren’t learning English as a second language, but some of the content may be easy for them.
Do you have a link to the superheroes lesson? My girls would love that!!!
Math can be tough. I’ve used Saxon with my girls (one is in college now), but did use Teaching Textbooks for Geometry. They have a video component, which some find great. I just talked with a friend about how she is happy about using them with both of her boys. I will say that I chose not to use the video component, because I wanted to stay up-to-date with how the book was teaching…so that I could help with trouble spots in their homework. I just found that it was easiest for me to “learn” along with them as I was teaching the lesson.
That was my choice…but Teaching Textbooks has video for solving each homework problem, if needed. That might be very helpful while teaching all your girls at different levels. There are times, however, when one explanation just doesn’t cut it…so I have to get creative about explaining it a different way. Lots to think about. 🙂
I will look that up! Thank you for sharing what works for you!
sorry- I meant to leave the link for Teaching Textbooks (not that you couldn’t find it- or don’t already know about it). 🙂
http://www.teachingtextbooks.com/Default.htm
I have been SO into cleaning out stuff for the past several months. Between spring and nesting and just generally tired of cleaning around so much stuff, I have managed to take several car loads to the thrift shop. What’s impressive to me is how little of that stuff we’ve missed. There have only been one or two things I’ve questioned but I still think it was best to say goodbye to those things.
It’s SO nice having less stuff to clean up and clean around.
Yes to less stuff!!! I’m pretty ruthless and then if I do it while mad, I’m even more ruthless. 😉 For every new thing that happens to come in, we like to try to send 3 things out.
we use math-u-see, it is especially good for tactile learners, I think. do your girls like comics and graphic novels? beast academy is a math curriculum that starts in third grade that looks great. we’ll start it next year who my oldest hits grade 3.
I will look this up. My girls do indeed love graphic novels.
Kahn Academy! It also has an app if you prefer it, but the videos and the practice are awesome. Just google it and see.
We’ve been using that and I’ve been impressed with it.