With our lives very much in flux, I have found it hard to jump back into our curriculum, it has been a struggle just to maintain the three R's let alone the fun in depth study of Rome to Reformation. I decided that the extra's can wait till the new year starts and then we will work through the summer. It might be better than taking long periods of time off after everything that has been going on.
Through this little fall/winter break I was planning on focusing when I can on some fun seasonal/holiday studies. I have always avoided the typical public school materials, no offense to anyone I just don't like the typical classroom mentality of certain publishers materials. But one series of teaching materials I really like is the Evan-Moor History & Literature Pockets, I have always enjoyed using these during co-ops and have tried to sprinkle them in our normal curriculum when I can. I like the end product and I like the fun hands-on low stress activities that help make a topic stick.
They have a variety of history and literature pockets, I have used:
Ancient Civilizations
Ancient Eygpt
Ancient Rome
Ancient Greece
Roman & Greek Mythology
Aesop's Fables
Folk Tales & Fairy Tales
This month I am going to try out Life in Plymouth for my 1st & 3rd grader. It is funny because I started homeschooling my two older children first I have always taught them together. I combined my efforts with those two where I could and took special time out to work with my 1st grader. It just occurred to me (sadly) that I will probably be able to increase my efficiency if I focused group effort on my 3rd and 1st grader and then worked individually more with my 6th grader. I am going to try that out over the next few weeks and see how it goes, I am going to spend that time helping my 6th grader really focus on developing her writing skills.
Hopefully this will be a nice slow easing back into a much fuller school day.
