Busy, busy, busy

We homeschool year-round, but the end of April/beginning of May is unofficially when we transition. Most of what we do just sort of plods on at its own pace, so grade levels are pretty meaningless. But this is the point when Aidan finishes one math book and starts the next (Oliver is about six months off, though; we ditched the last half of kindergarten and jumped right into first grade six months early). And this is when we finish up one year's worth of history and science and move on to the next. So we usually take a few weeks off here, or rather they do. I have a year's worth of planning to do.

There are lots of different ways of homeschooling, from completely boxed curricula like Calvert where you complete and mail in assignments to be graded (I looked into this early on but decided it was too constrictive for me. I have mentioned it to Quin as his best choice if something happens to me and he still wants to homeschool. He loves those sorts of conversations). Some parents practice unschooling, which has no curriculum at all (so not for me. You have to be willing at any time to take advantage of a teaching moment, to be spontaneous. I can't do that. Even if I didn't have to work for half the day I still wouldn't be able to unschool. I would find my own way to fill the day and then get irritated at being interrupted. It's a matter of temperament; I have to have a plan).

We mostly follow the suggestions in Well-Trained Mind. Mostly. Their history curriculum Story of the World we absolutely hated. Aidan was so, so bored, and although it was a global history like I wanted, I was displeased with the way certain culture's traditions were treated as myth where others were treated as history. So we ditched it. History Odyssey from Pandia Press works wonderfully for us, and the few times it references SOTW, we just skip over. Actually, the course is very reading and writing intensive, so we skip over things a lot or it would take us two years to cover a one year text book.

Science is more of a challenge. Not surprisingly, it's hard to find good science curricula for homeschoolers, particularly in biology. There are other homeschoolers like us who teach evolution, but we are definitely a minority. So the bulk of my prep time is made up of deciding just what we are going to do with science. This year for Oliver I'm trying a curriculum package for the first time, REAL Science from Pandia Press. I'm hoping it works out as well as HO, but we'll see. They don't have anything in Aidan's level, so he's getting the usual Mom grab bag of books and experiments (although he does the actual experiments with Dad when I'm working; he likes to do that sort of thing more than I do).

After much internal debate I decided to let Aidan stop Latin even though he hadn't yet finished book one of the two book set. It is, after all, very dry. I did talk him down from pursuing Hindi next. Although Quin and I both like the idea of learning along with our kids (like Professor Bernardo de la Paz did with his students in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress), I'm not sure if a foreign language is the best subject for that, or if with my current work load (part-time in name only) would allow for it at this point. So we'll be learning Spanish, something I took in high school and college so I'm a bit more confident I can't ruin him too badly with it. Latin is good for reading, but tough to be conversational in. I think he's going to like Spanish a lot more. But again, I'm not widely enthused by the curricula I've found so far so he's getting the Mom grab bag of lessons (which is fun for me anyway).

All that starts on Monday. I've been doing a bit of writing, but not as much as I'd like. My days of getting 1000 words down before dinner time are in the past, I fear. I'm lucky if I squeeze in 500. Still, it's not a full stop, and I'm liking the way this new WIP is shaping up. It's coming along slowly but I don't think it sucks. So that's good.