A Little Rebellion Every Now & Then

Homeschooling is difficult with a toddler. That’s a good summary for our homeschooling life since my last post. We’ve managed to find a new rhythm only in the last two weeks, but I’m feeling very optimistic in some respects. There are other places where I know we can’t really ‘make up for lost time,’ but in many ways, we can, because we kept up in the very basic subjects, and because Gillian is quite smart. We’ll be starting third grade grammar in next week, or when the book arrives, and her mathematics skills are above average for second grade. Her reading level is far above average, but we need to work on comprehension. All of this is easily done.The more difficult subjects arise when it comes to content. We’ve participated in an enrichment program for art, music, and drama this year, and she takes ballet and tap classes as well. It’s history, science, and Latin - the very things we enjoy the most - that we’ve let slide the most. I think it’s because the subjects are not seen as ‘essential’ by the world at large. I have a hard time deciding what to do, as far as supplementing our spine texts for science and history, which further makes us stuck in the mud.  At this point, the plan is to begin a fun, quick, mostly unsupplemented overview of the last of first grade history and science, moving quickly to second grade history and science, finishing sometime during the summer. During the summer, that will be the only subjects we’ll undertake, along with Latin, and we’ll be able to work with history and science during the week quite soon, as we make progress in other areas. Latin we may postpone longer, and really concentrate on it during the summer. I hope!