Learning Plans 2017-2018

We have just started our more formal learning again and with a new year there are a few changes. This is a list of my plans. Please note that what works for us may not work for you. Having made this disclaimer, I would add that many of my best ideas have come from other home educators' plans.

Younger Daughter is almost 11 so UK year 6 and Youngest Son is 8 which is UK year 4.

English aka Language Arts
English consists of multiple parts

-Reading. I am planning a time of individual reading, after lunch. This will be reading of the children's choice. Youngest Son will also read aloud to me daily.

-Writing. During morning time, I plan to work through the writing workshops in How to teach English at Key Stage 2 by Pie Corbett. Most  writing will be linked to topics in other subjects.

-Spelling. The plan is that one child will continue to use All about Spelling and the other will use Touch Type Read Spell.

Handwriting: Younger Daughter has been practising calligraphy over the holiday and will have some time to work on this. Youngest Son will use a handwriting workbook and copy work.

Typing: Nessy Typing and Touch Type Read Spell.

Poetry: we plan to continue to have a weekly Poetry Tea. This is much loved and has many benefits including reading aloud, enjoying and discussing poetry, reading dialogue poems with friends and writing. In additon to this, Poetry Tea helps with  planning a small snack and decorating a table.

Grammar and punctuation: we plan to use the Galore Park English books for this.

Extras: We hope to read Julius Caesar, this term, both in a simplified version and as the actual play to fit in with a Royal Shakespeare Company production of this play for schools in the late autumn.

Maths
We tend to start math with 10 questions which I write in the children's maths books the previous day. These tend to be short and cover topics which might need revision.                                                                                                                                            
Youngest Son has already started Galore Park Junior Maths book 2 and we hope to continue this.

Younger Daughter is using a different programme this year with the Schofield and Sims Understanding KS2 workbooks.

Maths games most days.

Science
Energy: its forms, changes and functions from the Elementary Physics Series.

Exploring Nature with Children: we are planning to use the new journal although work on one journal between the three of us.

Our home education group is studying science, this year and the group is also a judging panel for the Royal Society Young People's Science Book Prize.            

History  
This year we plan to study the Victorians and the First and Second World Wars.
For the Victorians, we plan to use Our Island Story as the core text and for the First and Second World Wars, The Story of Britain by RJ Unstead.
We hope to supplement with many other books, trips and activities.  This week, we have been consulting a rather old copy of Mrs Beeton to write a Victorian dinner menu.

Geography
I have planned three country afternoons during this term. In addition, we use Seterra and probably will use the geography from Valley Christian School Online.

Art
Younger Daughter is signed up for an Explore Art award and has done her first activity for this. While she is working on this Youngest Son will be working on coding using Code.org. 

Music
We plan to use Classics for Kids weekly during morning time. We sing each day and Younger Daughter has piano lessons.

Latin
We do a little Latin daily using Minimus. Younger Daughter is already familiar with book one so this is revision for her but new for Youngest Son. 

Physical education
This is mainly informal with visits to the park and time on the trampoline most days. Younger Daughter has been running with friends and has started to go to Park Run, on Saturdays. I would like to add in some longer cycle rides.



       
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Sources of home education inspiration: English

This is the second post with resources for home education. I don't pretend to list every resource. These are either programmes/sites which I have used, referred to or seriously considered using. The comments are my personal views.

• Early years: we loved the picture book based curriculum, Five in a Row which has ideas around picture books. Even if you don't use the books, it is worth checking out the book lists. Branch Out World has a similar type of idea but produces unit studies around UK based picture books.

• Learning to read. Opinions on learning to read vary and some children seem to learn with very little instruction. For the rest, programmes which teach synthetic phonics seem to have evidence based approval. We have used Jolly Phonics but found that there wasn't enough repetition nor explanation of some difficulties. 
I have written about reading programmes for children who need more instruction. If I were starting to teach a child to read now, I would use either All about reading or Dancing Bears. Reading Eggs is a popular on line programme. It is helpful re-enforcement for other reading instruction as is Nessy.  The latter is particularly useful for learners who find reading difficult.

• For spelling, we use All about Spelling. This is a methodical, teacher intensive programme with plenty of review built in. In the past, I have used Schofield and Sims spelling workbooks with an older child. These are a cheaper alternative for children who don't struggle with spelling. 
I haven't used but was impressed with Alpha to Omega which would cover reading and spelling. Again, I haven't used the Structured Word Inquiry but this sounds a fascinating way to help children with spelling. I haven't been able to find a book about this-I'm sure that someone should write one or tell me where one exists! Nessy is a painless way of re-enforcing spelling.

• Poetry. PoetryTeatime on Instagram has plenty of ideas and is linked to the Brave Writer site where, I think, Poetry teatime started. Other sources of poetry ideas are Poetryline which is a UK based site designed for primary schools, Poetry Foundation and the amazing list on Homeschooling without training Wheels.  Young poets may like to enter for the Betjeman Poetry Prize. How Poetry Tea works in our house is here. 
  

• Creative writing. There are an enormous number of programmes around and even more views on how to teach creative writing or, indeed, on whether it should be taught at all. Anyway, we have used WriteShop which has clear instructions; Bravewriter which has somewhat less clear information about what to do but plenty of encouragement for helping reluctant writers and a set of books: . Pie Corbett's books are helpful. I have used the Key Stage one book, How to teach story writing at Key Stage 1, and also Jumpstart: Literacy games for 7-14 year olds. A helpful set of books are published by QED and called How to write. 

• Grammar, punctuation, comprehension. We don't do as much grammar as schools seem to be doing for the year 6 stats testing. We tend to use the Galore Park books for this part of English although we have the older edition. The newer edition seems to include more grammar. Jumpstart, by Pie Corbett, has some games which can be used. This year, we have used Writing with Ease which has worked reasonably well for one child and not at all well for the other. This is sold as a writing course but includes copy work, dictation and close style narration. I find the narration questions similar to the comprehension questions in Galore Park. The premise of this book is that creative writing is not necessary at a young age. I struggle with this idea so wouldn't use Writing with Ease alone for writing.

• Handwriting. We have used several programmes: Schofield and Sims (we liked this but my children need more than two thin books worth of practice), Getty Dubay (this worked well until we reached cursive which looked too different to UK script), Morrell workbooks. I have wondered about Handwriting without Tears but rejected this as the cursive was unlike most UK styles. Please let me know if you have any recommendations. Ideally, I would like something which can be done for a short time daily.

• Extras: Shakespeare week has plenty of resources for introducing younger children to the bard. Don't forget the local library for books. Recently, I have used the library online search more and more rather than just looking at random when I arrive. 

Please do write about your favourite resources and let me know if I have left out some major area. 

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The Plan for Writing

This is the first year for about five years where I'm not having to teach daily phonics-phew! Whilst we have been knee deep in phonics, creative writing has been on the back burner: not completely ignored but not at the forefront. This year, I hope to remedy this.

Now,  I am well aware that some classical home educators do not teach writing during the early (grammar) phase of education. For various reasons, this isn't a route which we wish to take:

• the children want to produce creative writing. They spontaneously write their own stories and poems.
• writing is part of every day life. Fair enough, most of us don't write books but writing texts, emails and letters is something that we all need to do. 
• copywork is something that is difficult for some children. A child can be full of ideas but struggle with the mechanics. It is possible to write a story whilst providing help with the mechanical process but for such a child, just producing copywork is demotivating. 

Having said this, I don't find teaching creative writing

intuitive. The books which I have used are

• Partnership Writing by Julie Bogart. This has an emphasis on helping the child through a developmental phase when writing is difficult by acting as scribe when necessary. The book has some project suggestions which tend to take place over the course of a month. We use some of the elements of the BraveWrite lifestyle including Free Writing.
• How to teach story writing at Key Stage 1 by Pie Corbett. This places emphasis on hearing stories and retelling them orally before starting to write. Does this sound like narration?
• WriteShop Primary has a structured approach to writing and improving the piece.
• How to Write books by QED publishing. There are four books in the series; one each about letters and emails, reports, stories and poems. These books can be used by the child.

In an attempt to keep writing and to cover different genres, I have produced a plan. Please note that this is a plan not a hard and fast rule. In the past, we have had difficulty with keeping to other people's time schedules on writing. Usually, the writing has taken longer and the editing less long than expected. I am sure that the proportions will change with time but for now, my aim is to encourage the children to enjoy writing and to keep writing. 

Extra note: if a child has weak spelling, put in the first corrections on the day that the writing takes place. There is nothing more dispiriting than no one being able to read the work the following day. We  separate the process of writing from learning about mechanics of spelling, grammar and punctuation. 

The Plan:

September: 

• Writing from Branch Our World study of Tom's Midnight Garden 
•  Letters and emails to real friends and relatives. 
• Write to someone who is not known to us personally, for example, a missionary or the Queen. 
• Write to an organisation.

October: 

• Continue the unit study. 
• Celebrate poetry day on 6th October by writing poetry.

November: 

• Story writing-start by reading a story and retelling this before building in changes.
• Write a sequel to a favourite book.

December: 

• Poetry including rhyming couplets and limericks.
•  Possibly write a carol.

January: 

• Mystery story: work on planning the plot with mind maps and diagrams before writing.

February:

• Play: read a play to look at structure.
• Chose a simple story for a play
• Think of ways to perform the play
• Write a one act play.
• Possibly perform our play with puppets

March:Write about books to celebrate World Book Day.

• book report
• lap book
• diorama
• newspaper style book review

April:Adventure stories

• Find a favourite story.
• Retell the story and think of variations or a sequel.
• plan structure of the story possibly using a story mountain.
• Write an adventure story.

May:Non-fiction writing using different formats and topics

• illustrated 
• cartoon style

June:fable-using Partnership Writing

July: journal using different formats

• diary style
• picture journal

Do you have a view on learning about writing? Any tips?

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