This year we have had many changes in how our homeschool runs. I have implemented more structure into our day and more independent work for my older girls. I have added two more students as my 5 year old started Kindergarten and my 3 year old has started “preschool”. But one of the biggest changes is in how I am teaching Language Arts.
 |
| Disregard the laundry basket. As most mothers do I was multitasking! |
Now, instead of cracking open our English books each day and filling hours and hours a week with tedious repetitve sentences that don’t mean anything to my children we are focusing on Bible copy work, creative writing, and dictation. As they copy, write and create stories we correct errors, talk about good sentences and using adjectives and adverbs to make their writing better. We talk about words that need capital letters and where commas go. We go over spelling mistakes and they rewrite what isn’t their best and during their rewrite they add in all the needed punctuation that they left out.
 |
| Josiah is working on some wipe off books for his “kindergarten” work. |
I use Bible copy work from HERE and print handwriting paper for other work HERE. The children will often copy the same Bible verse all week practicing on penmanship and such while also memorizing the verse. They also will write stories telling about a fun day or outing that they had and other times I will give them a story starter and make them come up with the story themselves.
 |
| We have random “Pajama Days” at our homeschool. The kids think they are great and they break up the normal routine without interupting school. |
Even my approach to preschool and kindergarten has changed a lot. While my 3 year old loves book work and can do worksheets and coloring activities for hours my five year old just recently began to be interested in it. So for the first 3/4ths of the year his kindergarten work consisted of me reading to him, him using markers on the wipe off board and books, and just a little copy work and math. But now he is interested and wants to know how to read. So I did order him some school books to keep him busy and we are working through THIS A BEKA reader.
It is working for us, for now anyway. I am fully aware that it might not work forever but it is working right now so we will stick with it for now. But in the years I have been homeschooling I have learned that everything is for a season and their is nothing that will work for each child forever. Do you have a favorite language arts curriculum or way to teach phonics and reading?
Comments are closed.