Hello everyone. So its Monday and the question of the week for the The Old Schoolhouse is: Do you homeschool through the summer? Why or why not? What do you do?
Usually in the Reed family household we enjoy taking the summers off. There has been a few years (those after Maggie was born) where we had to school through the summer and we maybe were fortunate to have three weeks off before starting the next round of schooling. The last few years we've been able to dodge the bullet and enjoy our summers.
This year will again be the acception to the rule as our summer will pretty much start off with going back to Cincinnati with Maggie for bowel managment. We are going to attempt to get her in big girl undies so she can go to preschool school this year at St. Thomas. Of course if all else fails she is going to have to stay home and I'll have to homeschool preschool. With that said honestly out of my four children Maggie is my one that REALLY needs to be attending school. Since birth the poor child has been poked and prodded by strangers and so now she is four years old and now is forming the opinions that those who are different from mommy and daddy must be out there to hurt her. Who can blame her? She's only has been poked, literally prodded and has had countless tests and surgeries. I think I would feel the same way.
The older girls are going to need to continue to work on their math. Hannah is working well with her Saxon 1 and Katie is doing VERY well with Saxon 5/4 math. I do have Algebra 1/2 for Marilyn but I think I may need to back up a little and put her in maybe 8/7. I'll have to have her take the placement test and we'll have to see. This way the girls will go into school and not feeling clueless when it comes to the math. In the same breath it will only benefit them if they continue practicing math since most kids lose math skills if they don't practice them through out the summer.
We will also have to work on writing skills. I will say out of everything we do here at home this part of our homeschooling has been the weakest. My girls are NOT natural writers and they just resist this at every possible turn they can get. Boy are they going to be in for it when they go to school this year. But in the same breath I really want to help them get past this hurdle before they start school because it will be a true struggle if they don't.
I haven't decided on what to try and use yet because I can't seem to find anything that really fits what I am looking for. I'm looking for something spiral, to break down how to write sentences the right way all the way to being able to write something on their own that makes sense.
I'm possibly looking into maybe something like Writing Strands but I haven't made up my mind yet.
I'm still looking for any and all suggestions from others on the subject of writing.
The next thing we will work on during the summer is on lapbooking. I love to do this with the girls. My younger three enjoy it more then their older sister. But I make her do it just for my amusement. Plus whether she wants to believe it or not its good for her and she'll appreciate them someday when she sits with her own children someday and can remanice about the fun times and when they did this with me.
So as this year begins go to close we will be preparing for a new journey. In the meantime I'm not going to give up my reigns when it comes to homeschooling all to easily. There is always the summer time!
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