Tuesday, October 7, 2008

10 Weeks in and Still Going Strong.

We are now into the 3rd month of homeschooling after summer and somehow, we're doing okay. I usually start to get bored and let things slip after about 8 weeks but Catherine and I are plugging away and Harry is joining in in a few things like math and penmanship.

Scheduling has helped, yes, but I think taking my time to pick all our programs has been the big plus. Math, penmanship, spelling, science, etc. all have enough variety to keep me interested and clear enough directions that I'm not floundering. I'm quite excited about the prospect of actually having a finished Singapore Math workbook in another 6 weeks.

The only change since the last update has been with writing. Catherine and I were both enjoying the Classical Writing approach but I recently stumbled on Modeling the Classics, Language Arts Lessons from The Hobbit (available as a PDF download, whoo hoo!). This happened just as we were getting a little tired of Aesop AND just as we were starting the Hobbit as a read aloud (Catherine had listened to an audio book version a couple of years ago but wanted a refresher before my next planned read aloud, LOTR). It's been a wonderful fit so far. It's got most of the components (copy work, grammar, outlines, etc.) that we liked about Classical Writing but also has some drawing assignments and runs ten weeks as opposed to, well, forever.

I also found a tool to add Greek back into the mix. Greek 'n' Stuff has Biblical Greek Alphabet Practice Pages (can you tell I'm a sucker for ebooks?) which is chock full of different puzzles, from wordsearchs to secret messages that will drill the alphabet into Catherine's (and my) head.

2 comments:

Jacqueline said...

Glad to hear things are going well. I wish I could say the same. I'm afraid I feel like I'm floundering.

Dawn said...

Anything you need help with?