When I first started researching homeschooling I read the book the Well Trained Mind. I still love that book and find myself referring to it often. I agree 100% with the educational style of three stages. We follow that pattern. We also follow the Science and History cycles. The Well Trained Mind deals with something called Classical Education. In Classical Education there are three levels.The Grammar level which is younger children up to around 4th or 5th grade. In this stage we saturate our children with knowledge and the little sponges soak it all up. We memorize all sorts of things here. We memorize the books of the Bible, whole chapters of Proverbs, poems, math facts, science facts, history dates, songs...whatever. We soak it all in.
Level two is the logic stage. It is geared towards children 5th grade through about 8th grade. This is where we take all of the stuff we have memorized and learn to discover the whys. We learn logic. We learn why this happened or that happened. We learned why we believe this or that.
Level three is the rhetoric stage. This is more for your high school students. Here is where we take everything we have learned up to this point and learn to tell others the why. They will learn to express their beliefs and things they have learned. To have conversations with grace and intelligence.
We also follow the history and science cycles. I will talk about those in another post about our science and history education.
I started out 100% on board with WTM. I was going to do it just like that. Veteran homeschool moms everywhere are giggling. It's ok. I do that sometimes to. So, before we even adopted our children I bought all my books. Asked all my highly intelligent questions on the WTM message boards and got my paper, pencils, notebooks, colored pencils, ect... ready.We adopted on a Friday. I started school on Monday. I reenrolled my children in school on Friday. No! Just kidding. I still pushed through the year making my kids and myself miserable. Both of my girls were behind in their supposed grades. Instead of spending some time figuring out where they need help, I pushed. I yelled, they cried. I bribed, they dug in their heels.
This was not going to work.
I stopped for about a week. I regrouped. I saw that Karly needed some reading help. That Kelsie needed a little bit of review of her Kindergarten. I decided to start them over in the grades I pulled them out of. Kelsie in Kindergarten and Karly in 2nd grade. We breezed through the stuff they knew and took extra time on the stuff they were not sure about. Sounds a lot easier, right? It was for the most part. But then I discovered something else essential to homeschooling.
Discipline. Not just for the children but for me as well. There were so many days I just wanted to stay in bed. So many days I did not want to tackle schoolwork. My kids were still whining about being taken out of school. Karly was trying everything she could think of to not do her schoolwork. Kelsie was lazy somedays and acted like she did not know how to do the simplest things. I had to make myself work with them through all of that. I scaled most of our work down to the bare basics. Reading, math, spelling, and handwriting. I found ways to motivate them to do their work. Kelsie improved a lot. Karly, I'm happy to say, is just now coming to a place where she understands that she is going to do the work, like it or not. It's been a long journey for both of us.
The basics are great. I still use the same math program. I switched grammar programs three times. I decided to go back to the last one we used next year. I dropped spelling and added copywork. I think I will have to pick up some spelling though. Karly is done with handwriting so I started something else with her. I finally have Tamara and Adrian included. They are doing math, handwriting, and learning to read better.
Tomorrow I will talk about the curriculum's I have tried and the ones I am still using.
Be Blessed!
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