An Elementary School Retrospective: Curricula/Resources/Approaches I'd Use Again

I truly can't believe I'm writing this, but Finn is reaching the end of elementary school.  If he were in public school, he'd head to middle school next year. This means I've been technically "homeschooling" for six years.

I've learned so much. And I can't believe it has gone so quickly.  And I wish I hadn't stressed so much over so many things. And I'd do a few things differently if I could, but perhaps that's another post!

In terms of educational philosophy I'm most aligned with Charlotte Mason, whose principles resonate with me.  Her respect for the personhood of the child and her emphasis on building relationship--it's all about relationship (with God, with each other, with ideas)--are cornerstones of my thinking about education.  But I do things my own way, with her principles as a springboard, and using my own children's interests and inclinations, my preferences, our family atmosphere, and my gut instincts as my primary guides. I really think in my heart of hearts I'm a minimalist, and so I can't juggle a couple dozen subjects, even if they only take ten minutes.  Give me simplicity.

There are plenty of things I've looked into and declined to try, and other things I've tried and rejected. I began writing this to share actual resources, but in some teaching areas I use an approach more than a resource, so I'm including that, too.

Am I doing alright?

I don't know. I don't know how to gauge this.  When I look at Finn I see his kind heart, his musical inclination, his love of art and drawing. I see someone who enjoys reading.  I see someone who thinks voraciously--I don't know how else to put it. When he's obsessed with something he thinks about it so much!  I see someone who asks deep questions and reflects.  His standardized test scores, required by the state every year, indicate that he's above-average in all his subjects. I don't have any other quantifiable way to measure his "progress."  Occasionally I sink into a panic because I'm not quantifying his "progress"--and shouldn't I be more concerned with this??!!

Maybe. Maybe not. It's something I'm pondering as we face junior high.

But in the meantime, here's what I have used and liked for elementary school.  These are the things I believe are worthy and that I plan to do again with Annie.  

Math

Miquon (grades Kish-3rdish): I had a love/hate relationship with Miquon when I used it with Finn. On the one hand, it is a fantastic base for conceptual understanding; on the other hand, I struggled to figure out how to teach it (I think this had to do with having a toddler in the house...I felt constantly distracted).  I'm using it again with Annie and I must say the relationship is all love now.  It's an excellent basis for math; Finn's conceptual understanding has always been very good and I credit Miquon for that. You'll need the Lab Sheet Annotations for guidance. 

Math-U-See (grades 3rd-ish to 5th): I tried several other programs after Miquon before happily settling on Math-U-See. It's straightforward, I like the DVD teaching, and it's mastery-based. I doubt we'll use it once we hit pre-algebra, but my husband gets to help make that decision--he's the math whiz.

There are lots of good math programs out there.  I think the main thing is to pick something you can teach. If the teacher doesn't like it, it won't get taught!  

Language Arts

Learning to Read: My children learn to read with some combination of The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading, readers that grab their attention (for Finn it was Dr. Seuss, Harry the Dirty Dog; for Annie it is the charmingly-illustrated Dick and Jane books), and....magic? I don't believe in magic, of course; but reading does seem to just happen.  I don't use the entire Ordinary Parents Guide--just bits and pieces.  We read aloud a lot, and I very patiently support an emerging reader's interest in letters, writing words, sounding things out, asking questions, etc.  (That's where we are with Annie right now.) It just happens.  My children are not early readers; Finn took off the summer he turned 7 and nearly four years later he reads EVERYTHING, and well; Annie turned 7 in January and is still working through the most basic Dick and Jane books.  She'll get there!  

I also use a few pages a day of Explode the Code until a child is reading pretty fluently, then I drop it.  Does it help?  Maybe.  But we all kind of enjoy doing a workbook now and then.  It's like playing school! But it's not at all necessary.

Spelling: Lean in to hear a secret: I don't really teach spelling.  (Yet?)  Finn seems to read enough so that he can spell fairly well. We use the Charlotte Mason method of dictation off and on to work on spelling from time to time.  My children write a lot on their own, and I'm forever answering the question "how do you spell such-and-such?" I always ask, "how do you THINK you spell it?" And we figure it out together.  I have no plans to teach formal spelling to Annie, either. If Finn hits 7th or 8th grade and seems to need some formal instruction, I'll put him through a quick spelling boot camp, using some sort of straightforward program. 

A mother who is faithful and diligent to do dictation every day probably would enjoy good results.  I do dictation with Finn most days at the start of the school year, and that seems to suffice for us for now. 

Grammar: Junior Analytical Grammar (5th grade)--I don't do grammar in early elementary (I tried with Finn, but it wasn't developmentally-appropriate; with another child, it might work fine to do grammar earlier in elementary school).  JAG is straightforward and simple, and to my surprise Finn *loves* grammar now.  We also do Mad Libs for fun sometimes as a family--which introduces the children to parts of speech, and is good for a laugh.

Composition:  Reading, reading, reading.  Talking about reading.  Talking about everything. And, most importantly, I just let my children write.  Annie is in the stage of copying her favorite books....yes, she's learning to write this way.  She just does this in her free time.  I try to require Finn to write something most days.  He was recently obsessed with sloths and wrote a news story as he was a reporter, reporting from his visit to a sloth habitat.  It was so charming!  Sometimes I will ask him to do a written narration from his school-related readings, but I honestly prefer to just give him free rein over what to write.  Just go write something...and then we'll talk about it.  He also orally narrates from his readings some of the time. I am not sure this is all "enough," but I am satisfied that it's enough for now.  My child isn't burned out on writing, and that's pretty important to me.

Literature: We read a lot.  We have a few books for fun going at any given time (right now it's CS Lewis, Charlotte's Web, and The Wind in the Willows....the former two are re-reads, because why not??  They are excellent. The latter is our bedtime story.)  We do Shakespeare and my children LOVE it.  We read poetry because we like it--I have a master's degree in poetry, so it's a natural part of life. We memorize poems from time to time. I don't have a grand plan when it comes to literature.  We just love to read good books.

Handwriting: Finn has naturally near-perfect handwriting...what can I say?!... his fine motor skills have always been excellent. Annie is more like me: a little sloppy around the edges.  I used copywork with Finn in the early years; with Annie I'm actually using A Reason for Handwriting because it's easy.  Finn learned cursive with a Simply Charlotte Mason resource and now he has A Reason for Handwriting (cursive). I don't overthink this!  Handwriting exists so that we can effectively communicate our ideas. As long as we can do that, I don't belabor the method too much. 

Vocabulary: Nothing.  I realized I didn't need to teach vocabulary the day Finn said someone was being "impetuous."  I think he was about 8 years old.  Reading is sufficient, although in high school we'll probably do some Latin because it's helpful with vocabulary.

Bible 
I use The Child's Storybook Bible (by Catherine Vos), which I LOVE. I read it as the children eat breakfast and then they take turns narrating.  We always narrate Bible readings.  And these readings generate the best questions and discussions! My children sit through church with us and I can't say how many times they hear a reference to an Old Testament story we've read and they get so excited.  It's very important to me to give my children a solid and thoughtful foundation in understanding the Bible.  All of it!

Once we read through this Bible we will start reading the regular Bible together at breakfast.

History/Geography

I am not particularly interested in trying to get comprehensive with history content in elementary school. I like stories about history.  We love A Child's History of the World by Virgil Hillyer.  Our copy was purchased brand new and is now very nearly falling apart, and I'm looking forward to starting it with Annie in a couple of years. 

We've also enjoyed Jim Weiss' reading of The Story of the World on CD. I never was interested in using this series as an actual "school book" but they're fun listening for road trips.  Actually, all of the Jim Weiss CDs are fun listening for us here. 

We have also loved reading stories from the book my great-great-aunt wrote about her family, who lived in rural North Carolina in the years following the Civil War and Reconstruction. Fascinating and inspiring stories!

Finn has begun Plutarch (via a retelling) in our co-op.  I doubt I'd do Plutarch with a child so young if it weren't for co-op, since he's only 10.

We use the globe (Finn and my husband play a game of "find that country" which is not meant to be educational, just a competitive thing they do....but it *is* educational), sometimes play with Geopuzzles, talk about where things are, sometimes read stories and use maps to supplement what we're reading, look at books about other countries, and talk a lot, and that's how my children absorb geography.  I don't do anything formal and I don't think about it very much.  

I will add more formal history in as my children get older, because I do think it's important.  I love Genevieve Foster's books and may read those with Finn for middle school history...maybe. We'll see! 

Science

As in history, I'm not especially interested in comprehensive content coverage in the early years.  My children are basically autodidacts in science in the elementary years.  Finn's favorite resources are the encyclopedias, Ask magazine, the "Exploring Creation" elementary science series (he reads these textbooks for fun, not at my direction--they *are* fun!).  He did take a year of science at a local science school in third grade, but unfortunately they closed after that year.  Finn has an insatiable appetite for how things work and why the world works as it does, so he teaches himself science constantly. 

This year he is reading Fabre's The Storybook of Science, which is a sweet read, albeit somewhat out-of-date.  He's still enjoying it, though! We have also enjoyed some stories from Thornton Burgess, although these are less "science" and more "natural history." And I know better than to assign or schedule them into our lives right now.

We live on a farm, so observing nature (birds, squirrels, trees, cattle, chickens) is a normal part of daily life for us.  And I am a passionate gardener, so botany comes naturally as the children are outside with me in spring and summer. Sometimes we make journal entries and we each try to observe a tree in our yard during the year, but I don't make this formal.

I've examined and rejected plenty of things, and I remember when Finn was a kindergartner I actually planned to do science with him (what was I thinking?).  That plan didn't last long...not with a busy toddler in our midst! 

We will definitely add more formal science work in as we progress through middle school. This is especially important to my husband, who is an engineer. 

Arts

I hate to separate the "arts" out because they are such a rich part of our everyday lives!

Finn is in his fourth year of private piano lessons with a teacher we love.  He is excelling at piano, thanks to diligent daily practice. (Annie hasn't started music lessons yet.)

My children have both taken art lessons at a local art school, where the wonderful teacher really teaches them to *see* and duplicate that.  I love that he emphasizes the skill of drawing/painting and not self-expression; self-expression comes after those skills are developed.  My children's artwork is beautiful because they are learning these skills!  

Annie takes ballet at a classical ballet school.

We like to do casual picture study using Simply Charlotte Mason's picture portfolios.  I like these!

We love music in this household, so "composer study" is a natural thing.  I don't really do this formally, although sometimes we'll read a composer's brief biography for fun. My children have absorbed a love for good music; so much so that when we were making a request list for a friend's wedding a couple of years ago, I asked what song they'd want to dance to at the reception, and they both screamed "THE 1812 OVERTURE!!!!!"  Not exactly what we'd had in mind....we laughed and laughed over that one! We go to the symphony a couple of times a year. We listen to a lot of music and lots of kinds of music, and I don't feel the need to formalize this natural process.

Foreign Language

I'm struggling here. We do French using various resources.  Right now our primary resource is the French portion of the Charlotte Mason Institute's Alveary program. I love the way it teaches the language naturally, to the ear.  But it does require that I am sort of there to organize everything.  We love French with Alexa on Youtube. My children think she's hilarious!

Finn loves languages and wants to learn several before he goes to college.  I'm not sure how we'll manage that, or if he'll maintain that goal as he moves into middle school, but I'll pray about it and we'll figure it out. 

*               *              *

There are plenty of things I've tried, used, and rejected, and that I will NOT consider using again.  Poor Finn has been my guinea pig!  Fortunately that makes things quite easy the second time around, because I have a strong idea of what I prefer to use for teaching or facilitating learning.

There are other things I've tried that are lovely and wonderful and probably a great fit for another family but felt too stifling for me, so I won't use them again. But not because they're not wonderful....there's truly great stuff out there!  We just cannot do it all.

As I survey middle school I am torn between the pull to more academic work and the desire to keep our days light and give my children plenty of time to themselves.  We have the habit of getting up, doing chores, and doing schoolwork for a couple of hours in the morning (math/writing/grammar/reading) and then lots of freedom, and I don't want to over-complicate the pretty simplicity of this approach.  (Trust me, I *have* over-complicated it in the past, and then I get burned.)  I sometimes worry that I'm not making my children disciplined enough with this casual approach.  I sometimes worry that they are missing out on something.  But for the most part, I operate without too much anxiety.

And my children are happy, my husband is content, our home is generally peaceful. That's worth a lot in my book!