Solutions for 2012-13

I've been reflecting on the past year and evaluating what changes need to be made for a more effective learning atmosphere as we come to the close of this spring term. I have solutions....and still a few Iingering issues.

• I made a decisions on our math problem for my daughter! Can you believe I found this for $5 at our local used book sale? All clean pages, too. Score!

• I mentioned copywork has been inconsistent. That falls on me. Here's what I've been doing for the past several years for copywork: I like to cater the assignment day-to-day, so I can focus on a passage from a book they have been reading, a character trait we need to work on, or just lots of practice with a particular letter that seems to be troubling to them. But, that falls on me to have lessons prepared and to keep a stash of lined manuscript paper available, or to make sure the daily assignment had been printed from a copywork generator. I was at a book fair a couple weekends ago and ran across this from Simply Charlotte Mason. I'm using only the copywork book. I love that the size of the font becomes smaller as they gain experience. Yay, done.

• Written narrations: it's simply just going to have to be scheduled. That's just the only way to make it happen. My oldest son will be "5th grade" and my daughter "4th grade". We'll schedule him for 2 written narrations per week, and from her 1. My plan is to pick one narration for each kid every couple of weeks to edit and revise together.
• We're picking Latin back up. We did Prima Latina a couple years ago, but did nothing this past year for this language. I picked up Latina Christiana I for my son and my daughter will repeat Prima Latina in the fall. She was less than enthusiastic her first time through Prima Latina, so by about mid-way through she was going through motions at best. Repeating it will not be a bad thing.
• At the book fair I picked up sketch books for all three of us. This summer we're breaking out Drawing With Children and focusing on sketching simple things we find outside. Maybe we'll get adventurous and dabble in dry brushing. Hopefully this will get them started with their own notebook that they will be motivated to continue with indefinitely. Who knows, maybe I'll take a liking to it, too.

I'm still contemplating math for my son. That one has been a difficult decision for me.