We're coming up on summer break, which is December through mid-February. Julia's school has already let out, which was a surprise to both of us; we thought she had a couple more weeks left.
Math
We did anticipate that the kids would get behind in Math if we didn't supplement with something. So before we came, we signed them up for K12, a company that provides online homeschooling curriculum.
We ordered the books and supplemental material before we came, and we pay a monthly subscription fee. It worked out quite well for the boys, but Julia's situation was a little more difficult.
Last year Julia was in an accelerated math class, where they covered 7th and half of 8th grade math. So when we signed her up, we signed her up for the 8th grade program, thinking we would start her halfway through, and then purchase the 9th grade curriculum. However, a few weeks into it we found out that K12's 9th grade curriculum is a different type of program, more expensive and with a more specific timeline that wouldn't work for us.
So I emailed the math teacher at Julia's Junior High, and she helped us gain access to the online version of the textbook Julia would be using were she still in Utah, plus she has a website where she outlines all the assignments. So that has been working alright, especially thanks to Julia's two friends in the class who have been helping her with problems that I can't figure out, and sending her scanned assignments that aren't in the textbook. The Junior High teacher said she could get us the final test at the end of the year, so we can see if Julia understands enough to go ahead with her class next year. We gave Julia the option to just finish up the 8th grade curriculum, but she wants to keep up with her class. More power to her.
As an incentive to encourage the boys to do their math, we gave them the option of finishing the material early, and earning from us the money we would have spent paying K12's subscription fee through May. That got Caleb moving. He dove in and finished the whole year's curriculum by the end of October, earning $140 which he plans to put toward an iPod Touch when we get home.
Dylan is making steady progress through his material, and is currently set to finish in April. The one complaint I have about his program is that it doesn't do times-table drills, and I think quickly recalling the times tables is very important for math further on. So we found a website Speedmath that drills times tables, and I have Dylan do that regularly, and give him prizes for passing off each number.
Jonah feels left out if he doesn't have homework too. So he does math in his preschool workbook and is actually making good progress writing numbers--though we do need to help him hold the pencil correctly, not in a fist.
Reading
In coming here, we were concerned that the kids would get behind in reading too. So we bought a few basic kindles, which would allow us to download books off Amazon. That's been a great way to go.
The kids have read on their own, and we've also read together as a family. Michael read Richard Paul Evan's Michael Vey books at night, and they were a big hit. I'm reading The Wizard of Oz to Jonah and Dylan; I remember liking the Oz books when I was young, plus I got all of them off amazon for about two or three dollars. Julia has been reading Les Miserables, Caleb has been reading Ender's Game, and Dylan has been reading Janitors. Our kindles don't work as well for Jonah; for children's books, having the screen only in black and white is not very appealing. However, Michael just told me that I could pull them up on his iPad and get the books in color. I'll have to try that.
Other Subjects
We knew the kids would miss out on other subjects at home, but we thought and hoped that this experience would more than make up for what they were missing. This whole experience is a major lesson in Social Studies. And for science we're having a lesson in biodiversity, like finding a huge hairy spider in the bathroom last night. And, of course, there's Spanish, in which we are making slow progress, but I think learning more than we realize.
Also, we've tried to find online resources to help the kids learn about other subjects they're interested in. Lynda.com is a website that has online tutorials about all kinds of technical, business and design subjects. After Caleb finished his math, Michael got him started on some programming tutorials, and he's had fun with that and written a few little programs. Julia has recently been watching some photo editing tutorials and playing around with her photos. Also, Caleb has been doing some origami as well, and YouTube is a great resource for that. If I can find the camera, I'll have the kids do some blog posts on some of their projects.
I'm hoping to get a basic homeschooling schedule worked out for these next couple months of summer break, which needs to include time to enjoy the outdoors and interact more with neighbors and friends. Of course, while I'm working all of this out, they'll probably be playing Minecraft.
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