I mentioned that at the end of our "unschooling" season of homeschooling, we were ready for a bit more structure. I didn't hate the curriculum we had been using for pod schooling, but I wasn't crazy about it, either. At the beginning of our homeschooling journey, I had considered a free(!) online curriculum called Easy Peasy All-In-One Homeschool. It includes all the core subjects as well as special subjects such as art, P.E., and music. What I didn't like about it at the time was that I didn't want the boys on the computer so much, and I wanted more control over planning the lessons. Well, by April 2021, I figured this would be better than the hodge-podge things we were doing.
In May, I headed out for a 5 night solitude retreat and decided to have the boys start the program while I was gone. In hindsight, this probably wasn't the best strategy, but I had sat down with both of them to walk them through the program. They caught on pretty quick, and I was pleased that they had made progress while I was gone.
Since we started in May, we continued through the summer. I wasn't very structured with how many lessons in each subject they needed to complete, so it was definitely lop-sided with speeding through their favorite subjects and avoiding their least favorite subjects (usually language arts).
In the fall, I started combining them for history (world geography) and science (earth science) because it made more sense to work on the subjects together than me explaining it to them separately. We also started a co-op in the fall one afternoon a week. Carter's enrichment classes were oceanography, Lego STEM, and arts and crafts. Calvin's age group had gym, Spanish, and children's literature. Calvin, who is very social, enjoyed this time much more than Carter did. Carter didn't like the encroachment on his daily afternoon "self time" while the little boys took a nap. We also ended up taking a break partway through the semester when Covid numbers were precariously high again.
I used a grid notebook to keep better track of what the boys were working on. Each week, I would make a schedule for them of what they needed to accomplish on their own in math, reading, language arts, and specials. They'd also usually work on IXL skills on the computer in math and language arts. After our Bible time and history/science time, they'd have some individual work time on the computer -- Calvin on the desktop computer and Carter on the laptop in his bedroom. By December, we doubled up in many subjects to try to finish the "year" in each of their subjects -- Carter doing 5th grade math and 4th grade language arts/reading and Calvin doing 2nd grade math and 1st grade language arts/reading.
Overall, I liked the E.P. program much more than I thought I would. It gave us a structure but also gave us lots of free time, and we were usually able to go to a park or other fieldtrip on Fridays.
First day of co-op!
A Labor Day weekend camping trip along the Cumberland River
Lots of outside time and potty-training for both little boys (just not at the same time!)
They always love fall time at the apple orchard!
Our creek was completely leaf-covered!
Carter wanted to visit all the states surrounding Kentucky before he turned ten, so we took a quick family trip to his last state -- West Virginia (or, as Colson says, "Wessa Bajoinia"
Part of my co-op responsibility was to help some weeks in Carter's class, which was fun to see him in his element.
Christmas craft day at co-op!
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