Best Laid Plans
It seems no matter how much time I spend preparing, once we get started on a school year there will inevitably be some tweaks that are needed.
This year, it was in the area of language arts for my younger kids. I'm not entirely surprised by this. I have a plan that I veered from this year. Typically, I use Cottage Press Primer for 2nd grade, then begin Writing & Rhetoric in 3rd grade. Levi is in a co-op class and the majority of his class was not ready to begin Writing & Rhetoric, and I felt it would be a stretch for him. So I had to figure out something else for this year to stretch him toward readiness for it next year. Meryn also just did not seem quite ready to take on Cottage Press Primer 1. Her handwriting needs work. She's just starting All About Spelling Level 2. Her reading is right on beginner 2nd grade level and we need work on that. So I had to find something to stretch her as well that was not part of my original plan.
Since I've been hearing a lot of buzz about Good & Beautiful curriculum, and they offer their language arts as a free download, I thought I'd try it. We got four lessons in and abandoned it. It assumed enough skills that my kids hadn't been taught (like it directed Levi to write a five paragraph essay with no other instruction... what?!?). It also was all over the place without a lot of repetition or continuity between the lessons. Lastly, it was overly moralistic to the point that it was really annoying for me as a teacher.
So I was back to the drawing board. Upon reflection, I decided that they both need a lot of practice on their printing/handwriting. Meryn needs intense spelling/phonics lesson to progress her reading. She needs LOTS of repetition, not lots of bells and whistles and spiral. Levi could stand a bit of challenging reading and some introduction to basic grammar before he starts Writing & Rhetoric next year. So I decided I'd focus on these things with resources I already have. We're doing the following things with them together:
-Spelling: All About Spelling levels 2 and 3. I'm focusing hard on this and being really diligent with them on their phonics and spelling.
-Handwriting: copywork from spelling, dictation from spelling, copywork from poetry, Scripture in pages that I put together for them.
-Grammar: Grammar Island, Sentence Island, Music of the Hemispheres by Michael Clay Thompson
I found some fonts that worked to make up copywork based on their spelling words and phrases/sentences for dictation for each level of All About Spelling. They're getting multiple opportunities to practice their spelling concepts while they work on their handwriting. This is what they both really need. It only took me about an hour to type out six weeks worth of worksheets for both of them, print them, and put them in their notebooks.
This year, it was in the area of language arts for my younger kids. I'm not entirely surprised by this. I have a plan that I veered from this year. Typically, I use Cottage Press Primer for 2nd grade, then begin Writing & Rhetoric in 3rd grade. Levi is in a co-op class and the majority of his class was not ready to begin Writing & Rhetoric, and I felt it would be a stretch for him. So I had to figure out something else for this year to stretch him toward readiness for it next year. Meryn also just did not seem quite ready to take on Cottage Press Primer 1. Her handwriting needs work. She's just starting All About Spelling Level 2. Her reading is right on beginner 2nd grade level and we need work on that. So I had to find something to stretch her as well that was not part of my original plan.
Since I've been hearing a lot of buzz about Good & Beautiful curriculum, and they offer their language arts as a free download, I thought I'd try it. We got four lessons in and abandoned it. It assumed enough skills that my kids hadn't been taught (like it directed Levi to write a five paragraph essay with no other instruction... what?!?). It also was all over the place without a lot of repetition or continuity between the lessons. Lastly, it was overly moralistic to the point that it was really annoying for me as a teacher.
So I was back to the drawing board. Upon reflection, I decided that they both need a lot of practice on their printing/handwriting. Meryn needs intense spelling/phonics lesson to progress her reading. She needs LOTS of repetition, not lots of bells and whistles and spiral. Levi could stand a bit of challenging reading and some introduction to basic grammar before he starts Writing & Rhetoric next year. So I decided I'd focus on these things with resources I already have. We're doing the following things with them together:
-Spelling: All About Spelling levels 2 and 3. I'm focusing hard on this and being really diligent with them on their phonics and spelling.
-Handwriting: copywork from spelling, dictation from spelling, copywork from poetry, Scripture in pages that I put together for them.
-Grammar: Grammar Island, Sentence Island, Music of the Hemispheres by Michael Clay Thompson
I found some fonts that worked to make up copywork based on their spelling words and phrases/sentences for dictation for each level of All About Spelling. They're getting multiple opportunities to practice their spelling concepts while they work on their handwriting. This is what they both really need. It only took me about an hour to type out six weeks worth of worksheets for both of them, print them, and put them in their notebooks.
For Michael Clay Thompson, we are reading Grammar Island first. When we finish it, we'll read Sentence Island, and then Music of the Hemispheres. I'm really drawing out the lessons in Grammar Island. We spent two weeks on the first three parts of speech and took the lessons off the page. I had them make notebook pages for each of the parts of speech and color them to match the colors used in Grammar Island (nouns=blue, pronouns=green, adjectives=purple). We're adding words to these pages as we go through the book. And as a first step at "sentence analysis," I had them copy sentences from the book onto their own white boards, and then use colored dry erase markers to circle the words with their corresponding color. I thought this might be a bit beyond Meryn, but that she would just be along for the ride. But I've been pleasantly surprised by how she's kept up so far! This seems to be really helping them grasp the ideas of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives! I'm really pleased with their progress with these things so far!
This has been a very streamlined, simplified approach using stuff I already had at my disposal, and I love that! We're just laying really firm foundations for language. I think this will prepare them both really well for what's up for next year!
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