Form I in Our Home :: 2017-2018 in Review

First: if you would like to know more about what a Form I rotation is, please click over and check out my post from last year! I have links there to several great posts on the topic from other AmblesideOnline moms as well.

This year's Form I rotation involved the same two students as last year: third-grader Cate and second-grader Xavier.  (Next year, Cate will move into Form II and Bridget will join Xavier for a new Form I combo of students!)

Since this rotation started with Cate, this year's selections were mostly from AmblesideOnline's Year 3 readings. I combine everything I can, leaving history and history-related literature separate (which means Xavier was doing history and some literature selections from AmblesideOnline Year 2). They also do math and copywork individually too, based on ability level and at their own pace.

Cate and Xavier are not yet reading their school books on their own, though both of them took off in their reading skills last summer (and I anticipate them reading quite a bit on their own next year :)). With the combination of that and it being a Baby Year, I really needed to find some ways of simplifying my read-aloud schedule. So we did several books on audio this year: This Country of Ours and Our Island Story (via Librivox) for both students was on audio. They follow along in the book and come to me to narrate immediately afterward. For longer chapters, I tell them where to pause the audio, and they come to me to narrate in the middle once or twice.

I read aloud Natural History, Geography, and Literature. Cate and I buddy-read her History Tales, and she read independently a couple of her religion books.

I made very few changes to the AmblesideOnline schedule. I cut Parables from Nature and Trial and Triumph to accommodate our religion readings. I also added religion selections for Cate specifically to highlight the untold Catholic history of the Renaissance and Reformation period. She read the Vision biographies of St. Thomas More and St. Edmund Campion, as well as Crossbows and Crucifixes, a free read, and I edited Our Island Story judiciously for bias surrounding this time period. (I still think it's a great book. :))

Religion readings included First Communion prep for Xavier (and Bridget, my kindergartener -- they received together just a couple weeks ago!) and My Path to Heaven for Cate.

They did experiments from The World in a Drop of Water with their Year 6 siblings

We did nature study with our weekly group, which is a joy as always. Cate and Xavier both became fairly proficient with their watercolor kits this year. They also did weekly challenges from The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling with their older siblings (and me!) in Terms 2 and 3. That included activities like making a map of our nature walk, doing some object lessons on wildflowers following the Laws' question prompts, recording a nature event, and other journal-stretching, observation-building exercises.

Handicrafts were time spent with older siblings. Cate learned to sew Felt Wee Folk with Gianna in Term 2 and did that plus beginning embroidery in Term 3. Xavier went through The Art of Chinese Paper Folding and My First Book of Knots with Vincent in Terms 2 and 3, starting with the easiest projects. They also learned quite a bit about baby care. ;)

They both took piano and art weekly all year, and had weekly swim lessons in the spring. Other than that, we had no regular commitments out of the home other than church.

Cate and Xavier are both enthusiastic notebook keepers. Cate really came into her own this year by requesting to do her own writing for her notebooks. I am not requiring written narrations from her yet in Year 3, but she doesn't realize that this is what she was doing! I still wrote narrations for Xavier into his notebooks, and he added his own illustrations and diagrams and such. They enjoyed working together on these keeping exercises, and I love seeing their personalities shine through as I look at their work side by side. They kept a Pagoo notebook (in Term 1-2), a Secrets of the Woods notebook (in Term 2-3), a map for Marco Polo, and a binder timeline.  They also chose to keep a little map for Tall Tales, which I thought was so cute.

she added flaps to the busiest centuries -- LOL

They also loved their Weekly Paintings. (A couple times during the year, they even chose the same subject to memorialize! :))

They worked through RightStart Level C and Level D at their own pace.

Cate began cursive this year using a small workbook for letter formation. She also began a Prose and Poetry book and a Reading Log like her older siblings. Xavier continued working on his printing by copying poetry of his choice with Startwrite pages.

They both wanted checklists even though very little of their work is independent at this point! I obliged because I think the habit is a good one to instill and because it kept our home routines and chores humming along.

Cate wanted hers very detailed -- everything she is responsible for, all in one place, with circles to bubble in "like the Big Kids." I made Xavier's simpler but still comprehensive. Different personalities! :)

And a quick description of their school day:

: Morning Block - First thing in the morning, I spend about 40 minutes between the two of them: about 15 minutes of math and 5 minutes of copywork with one, then the other.

:: Morning Basket - Our family work, including poetry, Bible, and religion.

:: Independent Work (Cate) - Cate does a reading either on her own or on audio right after breakfast, then comes to me to narrate before she heads outside for playtime.

:: Naptime School - I spend the first hour of naptime working with my Form I students.  That usually works out to one reading for my Form I students together, a keeping activity, and then one reading with just my Year 2 student. While I work with Xavier, Cate is usually working on something independently from her checklist or drawing. I bring them back at the end of the second hour of Naptime School to join us for the rest of our family work: Italian, composer study, picture study, rectiation, etc.

:: Afternoon Occupations - This block includes handicrafts since they did that subject with older siblings rather than with me this year. They also do piano practice and art in the afternoons, as well as finishing up chores and optional notebook work. (I'll have a few posts up about their chore routine soon, but you can see prior year's here.)

For more about our Family Subjects, see my write-up of my Year 6 students' work and scroll down. Our family subjects diverge from AmblesideOnline's selections since I am combining for so many children. We are kind of on our own rotation through those. :)

~~~

Hope that helps those of you managing multiple early elementary students in your home like we are!

Form I in Our Home

I add In Our Home to my planning posts because what I'm doing with my students is always specific to our family's needs and skill levels.  The same goes for my Form I kids this year -- perhaps more so, since I'm combining them in various places for various reasons.  Still, I think it helps to see that there is room to combine without losing the integrity of the programmes or overscheduling/underscheduling your students.  It requires some familiarity with the AmblesideOnline books, a careful look at the workload of each year, a sense of which children will work well together and in what ways, and a willingness to consider your reality and flex accordingly. 

It also requires an openness to be honest with yourself about what will most benefit your students and balance that with your own needs as a homeschooling mom rather than leaning too heavily one way or the other.  I could easily just throw them into the same year, but I honestly don't think that would be best for those two students, so I choose to give up other things instead -- like outside commitments, my own free time, enrichment activities I could be doing with my older kids, more picture book reading with my littles -- and only combine in ways I find effective.  Similarly, I could have them in completely separate years and attempt to read aloud more hours daily, including those with toddlers and preschoolers underfoot. But I know that will make school stressful and not as pleasurable as it is now, and I'm not willing to sacrifice that.  There is always give and take in any decision we make for our homeschools, particularly in the early years, when students are so dependent on mama for guidance and face time throughout their school day.  We have to discern what is best for now and then move along on our chosen path with grace.

Okay, on to some specifics and a bunch of logistical chat. ;)

My friend Virginia Lee wrote a fabulous post about her Form I rotation over on Afterthoughts -- her plan is more long-term than mine and very well thought out.  I originally thought I too would like to put effort into creating our own formal rotation of AmblesideOnline books for the early years, but the fact that I have so many students so close together means my needs are a bit different.  I do plan on cycling through the Form I years roughly, but I'm inclined to plan that year by year rather than make a grand plan now.  There are just too many factors at play: for example, if my Year 2 student is reading fluently next year, I may spin her off to do her own thing and combine my Year 1 student with his younger sister.  I may not have another new baby in the home for a couple years, giving me the opportunity to spend a larger chunk of my day reading aloud and to combine less.  I may decide to put my 12-months-apart daughters in the same year completely and won't need to do any swapping.  And so on and so forth -- it's hard to predict what our future routine holds in a house full of little ones!

However, this year, I am using the same general categories Virginia Lee does, keeping separate for history and skill subjects and mostly combined for everything else.  And of course we're relying on AmblesideOnline as our general scheme because we love it. ;)

This year, I have a Year 2 student (seven-year-old Cate) and a Year 1 student (six-year-old Xavier).  They are 14 months apart and very different personalities. Both are reading, but neither is reading well enough to handle school books independently, so I decided to do more combining for the two of them this year than I might otherwise do.  Xavier sat in a bit on Cate's Year 1 readings last year, so for the Form I work, we're basically pulling from the Year 2 list.  That means Xavier is the one whose reading list is adjusted most from the usual AmblesideOnline selections.  Cate is getting a pretty standard Year 2 with just a couple small tweaks.

(As a side note: once Cate "ages out" of Form I, my next oldest, Bridget, will start Year 1 and join Xavier as Form I buddies.  When Xavier ages out the following year, Clara will join Bridget and I'll have a Year 1 and a Year 2 again, like I do this year.  Drew will start the year after that.  And so on. ;)  So I imagine I'll be doing some kind of Form I combining every year for the next decade or so.)

On to the schedule!  The notes below are posted with the permission of AmblesideOnline.  As you can see, I have used books almost entirely from their Year 1 and Year 2 booklists with the exception of our religion selections.  Visit their site for a complete lists with links for purchasing, weekly break-downs, study guides, and more.

	Cate in Year 2	Both	Xavier in Year 1
Literature	Understood Betsy (T1)	Grahame's Wind in the Willows (T2) Pyle's Robin Hood (T3) Pyle's The Wonder Clock Lambs' Tales from Shakespeare Poetry by De la Mare (T1), Field (T2), Rossetti (T3)  *MB Dangerous Journey  *MB	Aesop (T1)
History	Our Island Story Child's History of the World The Little Duke  (T1-2) Joan of Arc (T3)	Keeping of binder timeline D'Aulaires' Leif the Lucky (T1)	Our Island Story Fifty Famous Stories Abraham Lincoln (T2) Columbus (T3)
Geography		Holling's Tree in the Trail (T1-2) Holling's Seabird (T2-3) Long's Home Geography  *MB Keeping of maps from Tree in the Trail and Seabird
Nature and Science		The Burgess Animal Book Weekly nature outing and journal entry
Religion		Lang's Book of Saints and Heroes  *MB Schuster's Bible History  *MB The Gospel of Matthew  *MB The Catechism in Pictures (Sundays) First Communion Prep reading with Xavier
Math	RightStart Level C		RightStart Level B
Copywork		Using Startwrite copies of selected poems
Family Work		With the Big Kids: picture study, music study, memory work, Italian, handicrafts, physical education

Some of the method behind my madness, so you can see how specific these plans actually are to us:

:: Morning Basket.  Form I readings I'm actually reading to the whole family are labled *MB.  I am incorporating a few books that are narrated into Morning Basket this year though I never have in the past.  For example, the Big Kids have additional religion reading that they do independently, but Cate and Xave have all their religious instruction in Morning Basket right now.  (The way it works: my Form I students narrate the Old Testament and Dangerous Journey, and my Big Kids narrate the Gospel reading.)

:: Literature. I wanted to use Understood Betsy for Cate and I to read together, just us two, so he did some additional Aesop this term instead -- although he listened to quite a few Aesop stories last year and remembers them well, they're great for new narrators and I didn't want to skip them entirely. Then Cate and Xavier will be combined for Literature in Terms 2 and 3.  I'm still not quite sure how that will go: Wind in the Willows and Robin Hood are challenging books for a Year 1 student!  But those are both long weekly readings that will take several slots in our schedule, so I didn't want to devote that much read-aloud time if it wasn't going to be for at least two students. ;)  Luckily he is an eager and attentive listener generally speaking.

In lieu of Just-So Stories and Lang's Blue Fairy Book (which Xavier remembers well and I do too! ;)), I opted to read him The Wonder Clock, an AmblesideOnline alternative for Year 1.  Cate insisted on listening in as well since she hasn't heard it yet, so I scheduled it for them both.

Instead of the original Pilgrim's Progress, we're reading Dangerous Journey since we hadn't done that yet and I think it's suited to reading as a family, with the littles along (like in Morning Basket).  We just do a few pages weekly.

:: Year 1 Biographies. Xavier loves the D'Aulaires' books.  Since he read George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Buffalo Bill with us last year during Cate's Year 1, I scheduled a different set of three for him: Leif the Lucky, Abraham Lincoln, and Columbus.  Coincidentally, Leif the Lucky  and Columbus are Year 2 history alternatives for This Country of Ours, so Cate will join us for those.  I also may add in Pocahontas if I have time since he's skipping Viking Tales after reading it with us last year.

:: Reading Practice.  I have a slot in the evenings when I sit down on the sofa and whoever wants to can bring a book to read to me.  I allot about 5-10 minutes per kid (more for Cate).  Currently, Cate is reading me from Milly-Molly-Mandy and Xavier is working through some of the later Bob Books sets.  But they're free to bring to me what they'd like to read and we do reading lessons on whatever they have in hand.  I don't do any formal reading program.

ha!  (my kids do like bob books)

:: Math.  I start my kids veeery slowly in RightStart Level B during their kindergarten year, just a few lessons a month.  This year, Xavier is working through the rest of Level B and Cate started Level C a couple months ago.  I do combine them for the math games when it is convenient.

:: With the Big Kids.  Obviously, we do much of our schoolwork as a family.  That includes our Morning Basket (both the reading I do over breakfast and the bit we do before lunch -- picture study, music study, nature journaling lesson, etc). We study the same Shakspeare plays as a family, with the Form I kids listening to and narrating Lambs' and then sitting in for whatever they want to of the "real thing" on audio. They're also working on a scene they'll be performing together for our homeschool Shakespeare Festival.  I take these four on a weekly 3-mile run as well as a bit of daily exercise, so PE is a shared activity.  We do memory work together (which comprises our folk song, hymn, poetry, Bible passages, and prayers).  The kids have been working on paper crafts together this term, with different projects scaled to their various ability levels and the older kids giving hands-on help to the Form I kids.  They do chores together: Xavier is training under all three older siblings for various tasks, and Cate and Gianna work together on lunch every day.  We may be studying different periods in history, but so much of our life and learning is together that the days run very cohesively.

:: Outside Activities.  Cate is doing piano and art weekly with the Big Kids, but I'm waiting to add Xave to those activities until next year.  We all do a weekly nature study outing with our friends. All four will also do swim lessons again later this fall and probably in the spring as well.  I have them doing semi-private lessons all in the same time slot: Cate and Xavier are taught together by one teacher and Vincent and Gianna with another.

And here's what their daily schoolwork looks like:

:: Morning Block with Mommy - First thing in the morning (as in 6:45am -- LOL), I spend about 40 minutes between the two of them: about 15 minutes of math and 5 minutes of copywork with one, then the other.

:: Naptime School - I spend the first hour of naptime working with my Form I students.  That usually works out to one reading for my Year 1, one reading for my Year 2, and one reading for them together.  In between that, we do some kind of "keeping" activity: mapwork, timeline, or looking up photos of the animals we head about in Burgess to draw on cards.  When I am reading with their sibling, they do their math worksheet from the morning's lesson and/or piano.  Then they go off to play together.  I bring them back at the end of the second hour of Naptime School to join us for family work: one "riches" activity, Italian, and recitation/memory work.

And that's about it!  We have Morning Basket (over breakfast time), Nature Study Fridays, and cover handicrafts on the weekend.  But the rest of their schoolwork is done in those morning and naptime blocks four days a week.  I'll chat more about that when I share this year's schedule, but hopefully that gives you an idea of how light their school days are.

That's a very nuts-and-bolts post for you.  For those couple of you still reading (ha!), I hope there was something there you might be able to use.  I'd love to hear how you've combined your Form I kids -- I'm always looking for ideas!