Camden and I completed our first year homeschooling! If you ask me, I think it was great. We were able to spend a lot of time together and learned a lot. Camden was able to sleep in and work and a more relaxed pace while still getting a lot of learning done. I know there are some clubs/activities through his school that he's missed out on but I feel the benefits and flexibilities of homeschool have been so good. We plan to do it again next year for seventh grade. He is actually enrolled in a local charter school that offers resources, field trips, teacher support, and financial support but all of his learning is from home with curriculum I've chosen. Here is a list of what Camden worked on this year.
Mom - time together
Camden - finishing work quickly
Least Favorite parts of homeschooling:
Mom - finding time to do everything well without rushing
Camden - math, it was much harder
Math
- Mr. D's Pre-Algebra - completed this year long online-based course. Now is working through a Pre-Algebra workbook to review until the fall.
- Dave Ramsey Middle School personal finance online class - not finished
Language Arts
- Institute of Excellence in Writing - Level 2, Year 1 - completed this program where he'd write a specific type of paper each week (sometimes a few pages long) using techniques learned in the video lessons each week.
-Fix It! Grammar - one year of this program where you fix a sentence or two each day and identify grammar elements
- Spelling 6th grade - completed this 30 week workbook
- reading some assigned and most self chosen literature
- started The Good and The Beautiful Language Arts Level 7 to see if it would be a good fit for next year
Science
- Bookshark Human Anatomy - finished this year long program
- additional science documentaries on Fridays
- for semester two, he started a weekly middle school math course offered by his school
History
- we work together using Bookshark History Level G - World History year 1 of 2 (ancient history through Middle Ages). This is literature based but Camden had trouble getting into some of the books so we omitted them and switched to other literature. We're reading Story of the World together.
- US Constitution and Government course from The Good and the Beautiful - we've worked through this together and it is an amazing course and very interactive
- Khan Academy World History - started this 2nd semester
- geography and social studies workbooks
Spanish
- started with DuoLingo and while he enjoyed it, he didn't seem to retain anything
- 2nd semester he started Rosetta Stone (first unit is free through the library) and he appears to be learning more
Typing
- Typsey curriculum
Art
- first semester was an in person art class at the Westfield library
- second semester - online watercolor and acrylic painting class
PE
- flag football in the fall, soccer in the spring
Music
- started learning saxophone in case he decided to go back to public school and join the band like most of his friends were doing, but he couldn't get into it so we dropped it. Now he just casually plays piano which is self taught on an Ipad app.
Morning Work
- Cam reads Bible stories, writes in a journal, practices handwriting and we do spelling/grammar during this time each day
We also added random items in on Fridays (his "fun day") as applicable. We did a unit study on Walt Disney before our Disney trip, a Great Courses series on Washington DC, a religion series, and a human body docuseries.
No comments:
Post a Comment