Warning – this is long. I’ll reformat it and make it more manageable …. later
When I was starting my research I originally wanted to do an online school. I did not end up going that route because I wanted to limit my kids screen time, I was not sure if we would consistently have enough reliable internet for my husband to work and have 2 kids on the computer, I wanted the option of not having a set schedule and the ability for us to change our schedule as needed, I also wanted our topics to be relevant to the location we were visiting.
I next looked at overall curriculums but I did not find one I liked enough to make that investment.
What I have ended up doing is peace milling different products in addition to online activities and hands on travel activities. I did print of common core standards and I routinely review those to make sure I’m not missing anything big. I’ve changed my mind about what works several times and for us homeschool is kind of a fluid process with things changing all the time. I’ll think I’m on to something and then it just stops working for my kids. We all get grumpy and then no one learns anything. I then readjust and try another angle. Luckily my kids started a little ahead so as long as they’re not dropping they should be able to return smoothly to their grade.
Here is what has worked for us and what hasn’t.
B (my son) first grade
– I love Starfall (online) for kindergarten and first grade. It is an excellent early reading activities. The cost is reasonable – $ for a membership. His early months he did really well with this program. He still uses it but I think he’s now outgrown most of its features.
– Moby Max – we have the free version. We started off using this program a lot. It has some decent early reading activities (although starfall is more fun). It has social studies, language, science and math. The math section is pretty good but lately my kids are just bored with it. The reading section does not seem to have a great bridge between early reading and more involved reading. Currently half the reading section is way to easy and the other half way to hard. I really wanted to like the science and social studies section but it’s way to repetitive for my kids. For example it’s about a 15 minute lesson to teach that the sun is a star. My kids would do better with shorter more advanced lessons. There is good info in there but for every 20 minutes they work they feel they are getting about 3- minutes of useful information. The language section was pretty good. The first month we homeschooled both of my kids went through a good portion of the language section.
– Khan Academy – this is better for my 10 year old. B has started the assessment and after we finish his other math we’ll be using this more. For my first grader we’re using this just for math.
– Prodigy, ABC yeah, – these are math games. Some have more math in them then others but the kids love then and at least they are using something
-You Tube – We do use you tube fairly frequently. Mostly to learn about countries we visit and to find science videos that relate to whatever topic we are learning about.
Math:
I started with primary math (Singapore Math). I thought the first book was OK but a little too easy. B finished the book in 1 month. It’s still a good starting point.
I also was given a book of manipulatives. This is definitely the way to go. I highly recommend starting with this way for most of early first grade math and adding in workbooks as needed. It’s way more fun and much easier to see the numbers. We even practiced Algebra and Mupltiplication this way. We would just sit down together and go over whatever kind of math problem we could come up with.
I had some smaller fun theme math workbooks for easy addition and early math that B enjoyed more than the textbook style books.
When I felt that B had gotten most of the first grade math concepts I went ahead and purchased a second grade math beast academy. I love this series. So far there is only one second grade book. The second one comes out Feb 2017. If you do not have the space for the guidebook then just getting the workbooks are fine. The guidebooks look to add more fun but when you’re traveling in suitecases every inch of space is needed. He’s about through with the first book. We just take our time but I do feel that it helps him think in different ways.
I also purchased Problem Solving Skills. I ripped the book in half and took the math/geometry half for the first part of the trip and the back half will arrive when my mother in law visits next month. I think it’s a pretty decent book. It’s fairly easy to just go through and looks at things in a little different angle.
For reading we started with Starfall and working together. We are now coreading the Magic Treehouse series and we’ll start the Box Car children Series. I think the trick here is to just practice, practice, practice. The more books the better. To be completely honest I kind of stink at getting enough reading in. I really need to work on this more. I love to read. It’s just a little hard for me to get enough read along time in. My goal is for him to be able to independently read box car children by the end of this year.
My main plan for writing was to have him do a journal. I wished it worked but for us it has mostly been a flop. I do think it’s something you should try but in our house the journal seems to get the award for the most common tear producer – which stinks because in kindergarten he loved his journal. I sometimes think the things I’m most excited about end up being the ones the kids like the least. I purchased a small notebook with the top half to be used for drawing pictures and lines on the bottom half. Lately he has been using it to write “stories” – which I’m totally OK with as long as he is trying to write but even that can be difficult for him to do. My plan is that he would draw a picture, write a small story then I would correct the story so he could rewrite it. I was aiming for 3-4 sentences. This has probably worked well 5 times. Otherwise it’s a battle.
I ended up purchasing handwriting without tears just to make sure kept working on his letters. I do think this is a good book to add to your list.
I also started with 2 larger brainquest workbooks. They were good starting places for “morning work.” He likes things he can do independently. He especially likes books he can do when he wakes up in the morning before the rest of us get up.
I have since purchased a smaller reading workbooks. I think these are going to be helpful once B is motivated to complete them. I’ll buy another small reading workbook for the end of next month when it is time to restock.
I did not purchase books for Science or Social Studies. I just haven’t found anything that seemed to fit just right. I bought an Usborn world history encyclopedia for my oldest and we scanned through that together. We do visit a lot museums which are helpful. Our first couple of weeks of homeschool we were living at the beach so we did a lot of marine biology. I got several marine biology text books and we went through those together. When we were in Oregon and Canada we visited tidal pools and aquariums. Prior to the eclipse we watched a lot of space science shows and focused on the planets. We learned about volcanoes at crater lake and when we settled for a month in Canada we did a paper mache volcano project. I also looked up common core standards and tried to review all the gaps. We did lifespan models, discussed the states of matter and some other basics – that took all of 2 hours. I’m planning on revisiting Science when we are in Ireland when we should have more access to materials.
I have paper and I try to keep pencils for drawing but otherwise we just don’t always have access to a lot of art supplies. I’m probably going to put the kids in an art camp over the summer. They do a lot of drawing but I’d like them to do more. For music B did a few days of online piano lessons but then lost interest.
I have used some Speekee for Spanish. Our younger kids have picked up some phrases that way but not enough to make a big difference. It’s $ per month. If you follow the recommended lesson plans your kids will probably do better but we have trouble doing lesson plans. I feel the best way to actual learn Spanish that’s going to stick would be spending one on one time with other kids and adults that speak Spanish. There are some kids workshops in the area but I seem to be finding them after they happen. The other thing that has worked some for us is to put a translator app on my phone then have a Spanish only dinner or Spanish only hour. It’s tricky but it does work. I was hoping after a month in Costa Rica and a month in Spain we’d all come back fluent but osmosis has not kicked in as well as we liked.
He’s also done a little work on Scratch more for fun then learning.
I have found that he does like mind benders. He does well with puzzles so the easiest way for me to get him reading is to read puzzles.
One thing that is very tricky with both of my kids but especially B is to get him motivated. We have days that he is so excited to do school work and learning activities then we’ll have several days where it’s tears to do anything. Last week he did not want to do any work. This week he’s decided that he’s going to finish each of his workbooks in a day. Monday he filled most of his journal with a story and poems. Tuesday he finished the last half of his Handwriting without Tears book, (Although it took 1 1/2 months to do the first other half). Today he finished his Critical Thinking Book. Tomorrow he says he’s going to finish his reading workbook. Which means after so much time trying to get him to do some work he’s going to finish all the workbooks I had for him in 1 week. He just decided that’s what he was going to do then all of a sudden everything was super easy and he breezed through them.
Now M (my 10 year old)
M has always been pretty good at math. I started with buying Primary Math (aka Singapore Math) and Beast Academy for 5th grade. I felt Singapore math was too easy and too repetitive. Beast Academy is awesome. I do not recommend skipping grades. M can do a lot of middle school math but the 5th grade beast academy is exactly the series she should be on. There is a lot of math in these books and they teach from several different angles. They make math fun. Many of the sections contain puzzles. The one thing to know about this series is that kids are not supposed to get everything right. It’s a thinking book. The answers are nicely explained in the back when M and I are both stuck. I’m learning new things from these books too. If I had the room I would have bought the guide and the workbooks but the workbooks are self explanatory and can be used on their own. This series is made by The Art of Problem Solving. If you have older kids they appear to have other great series and seem to specialize in Math Olympiad Testing. We are using Khan Academy for videos for reinforcing concepts when needed. M likes Prodigy as well – I have her setting on 8th grade and that works for her.
For reading and writing I started off with big plans. M started off blowing through books. At the beginning of the year I was working on 5 paragraph essays with her. She started off doing well with them but at some point in time she decided she couldn’t write and writing has now become a problem. This is when a non mom teacher would be really helpful. Mom as a teacher – it gets tricky. It turns in to mom why are you being so mean to me? Where as if she was asked to write essays in her regular class – it would be no problem. So I’ve dropped the essays for now. I’m going to go back to them at the end of the school year. She can write these essay’s really quickly if she tries. She use to fill notebooks up with random writing and stories but now it’s like pulling teeth.
She is still doing a good job reading. We do not have access to a library so I have bought some smaller books and then we all share the Kindle. She does not read as fast on the Kindle but it’s better than nothing. I look up quizes on the books she’s read and email her the quiz. I’ll put a link to her book list for the year. I try and alternate between a location appropriate books, learning books, and fun books. If I feel she’s slowing down then I add more fun ones back. I’ll add at least a couple of essays at the end of the year but she was disliking the essays so much that it was interfering with her reading.
M does have a journal and at this time this composes most of her writing. She has spells where she does a wonderful job then it’s next to nothing. I’m hoping this journal will end up being a keepsake (if she keeps writing in it).
At first I started with typical spelling lists. It did not work. Spelling was not M’s best subject in school and I felt she was spending so much time on the spelling and not having results. The lists were either way to easy or way to hard and I don’t think she was improving. I’ve tried spelling in salt, scrabble letters and several other methods without much success. If you do choose to do classic spelling lists I do recommend Spelling City. It’s a great website with games to help kids learn their lists. The list thing just doesn’t work for M.
We are now doing word ladders instead. It’s fun for her, keeps her attention and instead of just trying to memorize the words she is manipulating the letters. I think she’s going to learn better this way. I’m also going to buy a word roots book and she’ll complete the back half of a Critical Thinking book that has a vocabulary and analog section. I did get her a spelling book but so far it’s only been marginally more successful than the lists I made up. With the lists she spends a lot of time on them and will keep getting the same problems wrong over and over. I have a vocabulary book on the way that I’m hoping will help too. Once she’s done with the word ladder and word roots I’m going to try a few lists again to see if it makes a difference. I feel that her spelling has already improved some with the shift.
For language she was using Moby Max then a workbook that I picked up. I think she already had most of the language questions down so we haven’t focused on this much. We’ll revisit again before the end of the year.
For Science we started with marine biology while we were living on the coast. I got several text books that she read through then we reviewed the things I thought important. She wrote an essay and I found a test I thought would work. We reviewed the solar system prior to watching the eclipse. We added in a few PBS type shows to make it interesting. We studied volcanoes before going to crater lake. We’ve been to a lot of museums and aquariums. I bought the book “What all Middle Schoolers need to Know in One Big Fat Notebook.” This is a great book and it’s not that big. We went chapter to chapter, answered the questions at the end and used many of the chapters for jumping off points for discussions. I’m hoping when we are in Ireland to do more experiments but so far it’s been a little tricky to get supplies so we’ll revisit Science later. Currently she’s been in to several NASA shows and would like to be a NASA engineer. Khan Academy now has a NASA section so she’s been going through that.
For Social Studies: From what I can tell from common core standards 5th grade seems to be focused on American History. Well, we’re not in America so I’m planning on cramming a lot of American History in … later. I have a big fat notebook on American History heading my way in March so we’ll do it then. She’ll likely get most information when we travel back to the states in May. We’ll be staying near Philedelphia so we will go explore those museums and take a day or two in DC. She has read a few American history books and I have at least 3 more planned but it’s not our focus.
The first part of our trip I carried a very large book with us: Usborn’s Encyclopedia of the world? This thing is massive but it’s great. M spent hours just reading through the book and so did I. I think it’s probably the best way to get an understanding of basic human history. She also read the first book of …. ? I’d say that book was OK. I found the workbook not to be very helpful at all and I haven’t decided it it’s worth the time to read the next ones in the series. The enyclopedia was better. When we are stationary again I plan to get 1-2 other books or newer additions similar to Usborn’s just to keep as references in the house. I’d like to get the Science versions of these books as well.
One of the main things we do as we travel is to do a project on each country. M and I research each country including geography, government, the people, and history. She writes down the big points in her notebook. She transfers them to a google doc (most of the time or at least that’s the goal). Then she gives a presentation. I’ve put the videos on a private link on You Tube for friends and family to ask questions and make comments.
M probably gets the most out of her country projects and the museums we visit. It’s a little difficult to spend quality time in some of these museums with ages 3,6 and 10 but hopefully M’s been able to absorb most of it. The National History Museum in Denmark was really nice because the little kids could play downstairs while M and I could explore the exhibits and actually take our time reading and learning.
I’ve also bought a mind bender book, mad lips, and an investigation who done it puzzle book. M enjoys these. She also loves her art. She keeps a drawing pad and a fashion drawing book for sketches.
The last book I purchased is a critical thinking book. This book focuses on helping kids tell the difference between opinions and facts. I don’t ask that she does all the writing the book asks for but I do want her to read it and complete the tasks. I think this is a crazy important skill to learn especially in today’s environment. After we’re finished with that book I’m going to have her read through some of today’s more common misconceptions and see if she is able to pick out the propaganda. I’m hoping even at 10 she won’t be fooled the same way a lot of adults can be.
I’d love to say that I have this homeschool stuff down and that my kids are having so much fun learning on the road. The truth is simply we do the best we can. The kids sit down at whatever nook or cranny they can find and they work when they’re motivated. I’d like for us all to be around the dinner table reading books and discussing great topics but that’s just not how it happens. You may already be a teacher or you may have the teacher gift. I have to work on making things interesting. Things are interesting to me, I just have a hard time making it interesting for them My kids real teachers are great and they have skills that I don’t. Some days the kids learn a ton. Other days I’m just trying to help everyone keep their sanity and keep whatever house we’re renting from being destroyed. Most days the hardest part of home school for us is keeping the 3 year old entertained long enough so that the 6 and 10 year old can learn. Some days it’s great. Some days I look at what they are doing and I’m completely surprised at how much they have learned and what they can do. Regardless, I’m generally confident my kids are going to be able to keep or more likely excel when they return back to public school. What they are learning with travel, exploring, and in the museums is not something they could learn as well from the books. They are learning differently but they are learning.
