Last fall I showed you how we were adapting Mystery of History to fit our family. We’re still doing basically the same thing now as we were last November. It’s working, what can I say?
And a few months ago I decided I finally wanted to try out Rod & Staff English 2 Preparing to Build with the boys (now ages 8 and 9). I have loved it. I had heard ahead of time though that there was extensive writing. And if you know my boys then you know any handwriting is a wail-inducing chore. But I liked what I heard and saw enough that I wanted to try it anyway. I’m so glad the “there’s A LOT of writing” reviews didn’t scare me away from such a treasure.
This is the lesson we did the other day. This is one day’s lesson for us. I read through the two pages just before calling the kids to the table for lessons. I figure out what I’ll do verbally with them, what we’ll put on the board, and what I’ll have them write in their Language Arts notebooks. Then I call them to the table, I read the information aloud and we do the “board work” or verbal parts together. Then I show them what I want them to write in their notebooks. The notebook independent writing is never more than about 5 or 6 sentences each. Sometimes it’s just a list of 10 or so words. Sometimes it’s just a Bible verse from the lesson.
On this particular day I read the first page there on the left to them then I wrote on the board 2 categories: Things We Can See and Things We Cannot See. I had them take a piece of chalk and I called their name and read out a word from the list in the book. They decided if that noun was something they could see or not and wrote it in the appropriate category. It was fun, biblically based, and reinforced the idea of abstract nouns.
I had them do the “More Practice and Review” from the pages above verbally with me.
Then I had them copy the definition of an abstract noun into their Language Arts notebooks.
That’s it. Each lesson is completely based on the Bible, gives you an understanding of why it’s important to learn proper grammar, and can be adapted for those who can write more and for those who can’t. Win/win.
You can see their cutesy handwriting in those categories on our chalkboard at the bottom in the picture below.
You can also see what the rest of our chalkboard holds of our learning for that day. From Mystery of History they learned about Elisha and the date, then they drew a picture of something from what I read aloud to them in their World History folders. They learned “overlapping” in art (the chain link up there to the left – a rather hard lesson for them). I’m using The Lamb’s book of Art 1, I run copies for each of the kids, teach the lesson, and have them complete the lesson and put it in their Art folder. That’s also our Astronomy from Jeannie Fulbright that I illustrated for them, reinforced with the globe and a flashlight and had them copy into their Astronomy notebooks.
Combined with their independent work: Math-U-See, cursive handwriting assignments, US States folders, and their American History reading that’s a full day’s worth of work. I’ll write soon on how I split up their independent work from what I actually stand before them and teach, how they can check off their own lists, and give you a little more detailed look at what we’re doing to learn the US States. Plus stay tuned for that Tri-Moms Beginning Homeschooling post not this Tuesday, but next!
Side note (and only downside to this curriculum so far) – I bought the teacher’s book to go with this one (this is the student text you see above) and haven’t found that I needed to buy the teacher’s book yet. A regrettable buy in my opinion. Can any of you tell me that I’ll actually need the teacher’s book down the road or do I need to just skip buying the teacher’s book for the next level that I purchase?
