It’s hard to make the time to blog these days, but it’s good to think through what went well over the past year as I plan for the next. I probably won’t do a What Didn’t Work post, although I am thinking about that aspect of it, and have mentioned a few things that didn’t go so well here. 😉
- A weekly Keeping Time on Wednesday mornings: Some families work things like maps, commonplace entries, and Book of Centuries entries into their daily schedules, but for us, having a set time each week has meant getting more done more consistently with less nagging. We schedule it instead of Morning Time that day, and I indicate what Keeping items I want them to do on their checklists – some are every week, some not. Miss A wasn’t able to join us most weeks this past year, and she did struggle with Keeping consistently – I hope she will be able to join us more this coming year.
- Spelling Wisdom with D and E: Our routine for dictation is for them to study the passage Monday – Thursday, and I test them orally on any difficult words on Thursday. Then they write the passage as I dictate it on Friday. I don’t know if it’s the exact Charlotte Mason way to do it, but it gets done!
- Memoria Press English Grammar: We don’t do it exactly as written, and we are a bit behind in the recitation book from where we are in the workbooks, but it’s another one that’s easy to do just a bit each day (Mon. – Thurs.), and that works for both of my older boys (I’m ignoring the grade levels MP suggests 😉 ). I tried something else with Mr. D earlier in the year, and it fizzled out, and I didn’t do anything with Mr. E for a while, so we’re back to what was working before.
- Making a transcript: This may sound obvious, but how to actually pull it off – what courses to turn all those lovely books into and how to assign grades – has eluded me for three years! Finally this spring I had a deadline facing me in the form of online college-level courses that my daughter wanted to take, but which required a transcript to apply. The grading breakthrough came when I stumbled on this article by Lee Binz. I also searched for advice on the AmblesideOnline Forums and found several helpful threads about translating the curriculum into courses for a transcript, including a thread started by a lady in almost the exact predicament I was (made me feel a bit better 😉 ). Hubby and I discussed and wrote the transcript up together, and he read through and assessed many of Miss A’s written narrations. I highly recommend talking to your husband instead of stewing over it yourself. 😛 And it worked, praise the Lord – she was accepted and is in the final week of two art and design courses (they’ve been a challenge for sure, but she’s learned a lot)!
- Thoughtful culling of the booklist and adjustments to the schedule: There were several books this year that AmblesideOnline scheduled over a term or so, but that I decided to stretch out over a longer period (1493 being one of them). This meant that Mr. D didn’t do all the geography or literature books AO lists, and sometimes I worried that his reading assignments were a bit on the light side. But I would rather err on that side than to assign too much, which I think I did with Mr. E, who requested less reading during his end-of-year interview. And my husband started high school biology with Mr. D during the last term, which takes quite a bit of time, as does his math, so I think a lighter reading schedule was for the best. It’s going to continue to be a challenge to spread the feast of ideas and also make sure he covers the subjects he needs before applying to college, but I’m finding that sometimes less is more, as long you don’t cut out entire food groups from that feast. 🙂
Love this, Anna, especially what you had to say in #4 and #5. Thanks for sharing your insights.
Trish