Do you homeschool year round?
The three kidlets and I are just about to finish up our first official year of homeschooling. Public schools begin letting out for the summer a little later this month, so I’m thinking . . . what shall WE do for the summer?
We’ve had quite a lengthy break from our normal routine the past few weeks while traveling and house hunting in Texas. We don’t follow much of a schedule even during normal times, but I really let it slip during our trip. Not that this means they didn’t learn anything. We still did many things which were educational along the way. We studied the atlas learning about the states and cities and map reading. We read the newspaper together and discuss current events. We listened to the complete Cronicles of Narnia on CD. (Amazing stories by the way. Why did I not know of these stories as a kid?)
Our move into our new house in Texas is scheduled for June 15th. We’re going to be so extremely busy getting moved out of here and into there. So I’m just thinking . . . should I take a summer break and not even try to keep up? Or try to get back on some sort of schedule? Here is what I am thinking to do at the moment.
READING:
I have one child, my son, who is now reading well. He is probably above average for his age in reading as well as math so I think I’m really not going to worry too much about working with him through the summer. Although I will still fit in reading when I can such as reading road signs for me and map reading on our next drive, reading newspaper headlines, and such. Really just fun type stuff which he enjoys and yet will keep him reading and learning and improving. We may even continue with Sequential Spelling because that was something which he is really enjoying and it takes only 15 minutes a day.
For the girls, who are not yet reading well I think I need to continue my work with them. I feel that much more of a gap would be a negative thing at this point. They enjoy sitting down to learn reading so this is not a big chore at all and I think we will try to keep it light and fun. They are having more difficulty learning to read, but they enjoy trying and I want to make sure it stays that way. I have complimented them over and over on their perseverance. 
At least their vocabulary is growing.
We will, of course, continue with our bedtime reading. I’m not even sure my kids could get to sleep without it.
MATH:
For math I am wanting to start something a bit different and I think this might be a good time to do so. We had been loosely following a math curriculum, but I’ve been reading about what is being referred to as “Living Math”. For anyone who has not heard the term, it refers to exposure to real math in real settings. Math Power: How to Help Your Child Love Math, Even if You Don’t is an excellent book which gives more information about this educational philosophy. An excellent online source for discussion about methods and materials is the Yahoo group LivingMathForum.
Living Math shuns the use of textbooks and workbooks (unless yours is a child who happens to enjoy this) and instead focuses on learning math in more enjoyable ways. Reading to children stories which include math facts is one way and I have an excellent example to tell.
We recently found the book Keep Your Distance (Math Matters) by Gail Herman at a garage sale. It is a cute story about sisters who share a bedroom. The little sister is always no more than one inch away from the older sister. Older sister asks her to stay at least two feet away. That is still a problem so older sis moves to the bedroom across the hall (8 feet) and then to the neighbors and on and on it goes. We had our tape measure out measuring as we read. For fun after we completed the story I asked questions such as which was further an inch or a foot? a foot or a yard? a yard or a mile? etc. My three little first graders, answered correctly every time without any hesitation. I was very impressed and now I want more of these books. The kids loved the book and have asked for it to be read over and over and they’re learning math as we do it. What could be better?
SCIENCE:
The kids are begging for more science. Here in California we are part of a science co-op which meets every other week. I will probably try to fit in what I can and plan to get more organized by fall and hopefully I can keep up with the amount of science they are requesting.