Math: Math U See. It’s working and I’m not changing anything that works
Science: Chemistry. Sadly this is my absolute worst science. I barely passed it in high school and am already a little confused about our lessons this year. I need to find more easy chemistry books that can explain it in a way that I can understand and explain. Then I need to read them first so that I’m not just sitting there confused when the boys ask me a question. Fortunately I'm married to a brilliant scientist who can more than make up for what I lack.
Latin: Harry loves this. Sam likes it. Which is perfectly fine. It’s been Harry’s dream to learn Latin and Sam has been along for the ride. For both of them it’s pretty much optional.
Language Arts: This is where the biggest problem is. Sam doesn’t mind Writing With Ease, but for him it’s pretty easy. He also does his grammar with very little problem, but that’s probably partly because he doesn’t have much writing to go with it. Most of it is oral.
On the other hand, Harry hates writing. He hates it with a passion. And I’m torn on what to do. On one side, he hates it and he’s only in third grade. Is it vitally important that he does a writing program yet or is it something that he can pick up as he enters middle school? Also, he is not at all fond of his grammar program. Doing both seems like overkill to me, but I’m not sure which, if either is more important. But not doing anything at all feels like walking off a plank with sharks underneath. What if I mess him up completely?
The other question this brings up, is it okay to just do formal grammar and writing with my younger child and not with my older? That seems kind of weird to me.
History: We have never had a problem with history before. At least not to the extent we are now. I made little notebooks for the boys with a sheet for each chapter so they would know what was expected of them. For each section there are a couple of questions for them to answer so I’d know if they were paying attention at all.
We do most, but not all of Sam’s work orally. He still has to write parts of it. But Harry is expected to write the answers to the two questions on his own. He’s been throwing a complete fit lately over it though. This morning he had answer one question in a complete sentence and freaked out. He finally did it after crying and worrying over it for thirty minutes. Looking back on it now, I should have told him to stop and put it away until later, but it’s hard not to get caught up in the drama.
Reading: I count this different than Language Arts because it’s just reading. Each of the boys has a book the two of us are reading together. I don’t expect a narration or any work from it because I want this to be something that we can look forward to each day.
Other stuff:
I want to add in Geography and continue with Shakespeare. I don’t ask the boys to do too much in addition to listening and talking about the what we’re reading, and it’s a lot of fun. I really look forward to that. I will eventually add geography into the mix, but it’s tough to add more in when I don’t feel confident about what we’re already doing.
Also, we’re kind of skating by with art and music by looking at a painting or two one day and then waiting a week to look at another usually by someone completely different. That’s frustrating, but again, I need to get everything else in order before I can add to what we’re already doing.
