Little Reasoning: How To Use LR

Overview

The kids are given a list of things to finish each day. I don't really see the point in either buying lesson plans or putting a lot of work in to making my own every day.

Sample List
3 pages English workbook
2 pages Math workbook
Computer:
Typing
Geography
Spanish
Music Appreciation
Read 1 hour.
Write one page.
Draw a picture.

Once a week, I sit down with each of the kids to talk about the books they have read, we go to the library to pick up the books for next week, and I use the library website to place holds for what I want to pick up on the next visit.

Below I will discuss each of these items in more detail, and then I will give some notes on the structure and organization of the booklists.

Philosophy

Almost everyone who is interested in education is trying to find the One Right Way To Educate Kids™. But there is no such thing. It's not just that different things work for different kids, or different approaches work for different families and their different situations. It's that there are at least seven different ways that I, myself, could teach any given one of my kids, and the end result would still be that they would have received a great education.

These booklists could fit into classical, Charlotte Mason, unit-studies, or Montessori approaches. Heck, you could probably even unschool with them. If you have your own ideas about how to use these booklists, do that. If you don't, and you want to hear how I use them, that's what the following sections are for.

I might as well just put it out there that a great deal of my approach is geared towards being the least amount of work for me as possible. Yup, that's how I swing.

Workbooks

The kids do their workbooks by themselves. If I'm feeling energetic, I might glance over their shoulders to make sure they aren't doing it completely wrong. I do not otherwise bother correcting their workbooks.

What I do do, is answer their questions. I try to make it clear that they aren't expected to know how to do everything already, and if they have questions, they bring their workbook to me and I help them with whatever they need help with.

Tips:

Use whatever workbooks you like.
2 pages a day should get you through a 200-ish page workbook; 3/day should get you through a 350-ish page workbook by the end of the year. (Leaving room for holidays, sick days, and 'Mom's too tired to do school today' days)
If 2 pages a day means the last page of a chapter and the first page of the next, or if it means 30-seconds of reading one day and over an hour of difficult problems the next, that's ok. I don't really see that as a problem that needs solving.
If more than one kid needs help at a time, one of them can wait. Waiting is a skill worth learning anyhow.

Computer Time

Since the kids share a single laptop, they take turns doing their computer work, starting with the youngest and working their way up. I have headphones so that the various sounds don't distract the others. The kids often listen to their music-appreciation while doing the typing or geography. They are allowed about an hour before they get kicked off, although it doesn't take most of them that long. If they finish their other assignments, they may do this extra States geography game.

Typing

This is the website I use for Typing. It's free. I expect them to finish one exercise each day.

To get rid of the banner ads across the top, I highly recommend the free and amazingly effective AdBlockPlus. (This also radically reduces ads on Facebook, Gmail, and other sites, although it does not get rid of them completely on every site.)
They start with Lesson 1, Exercise 1. When they can finish it with at least 15wpm and 98% accuracy, the next time they can do Lesson 1, Exercise 2. And so on up the list. I expect them to remember which exercise they are on. (If they get it wrong, I'm not concerned that this will forever blunt their typing skills.)
NEW: An alternative typing site that look fun, although I have not tried it : DanceMat

Geography

This is the website I use for Geography. The kids are expected to finish one map quiz each day.

If they don't know an answer, they can hit the "labels on/off" to find the right answer. (The site makes you turn the labels back off in order to continue.)
When they can get 100% on a quiz without turning the labels on, they may "pass" and move on to the next map.
They start with the "continents and oceans" map listed under the "World" button on the top. When they pass this, they move on to 'Northern Africa' (listed under Africa), and on down that list. I will have them do the All-Africa quiz (at the top of the Africa list) before moving on to Asia. And so on, moving down the list of continents. Capital, flag, and province quizzes will probably be saved until after the kids have learned country names and U.S. states.
Turn off the color-coding for extra challenge. Try it yourself if you feel like learning something new.

Spanish

I use Duolingo for Spanish. The kids are expected to finish one lesson each day. (If they lose all their hearts on a lesson, they can try again, as long as they haven't used up their time limit.)

Duolingo offers several other languages. It's supposed to be like Rosetta Stone, except free instead of really expensive. I'm using it myself to learn Spanish, and I love it.
Duo requires an email to register, so only my children for whom I have gotten email addresses use it. But, this means that Duo does all the tracking, which is nice. I don't have to tell them how to know if they've passed, and they don't have to remember which lessons they've finished.

Music Appreciation

Each of the kids has a browser bookmark that will take them to the music appreciation list - on this here website - for their grade. They click on the links I have there to listen to the song for that day.

They listen to the first song listed on every day of the first week. They listen to the second song on every day of the second week. And so on. (They can keep track of this themselves, for the most part.)
They may keep it playing in the background while they do their other computer assignments, if they want, although listening to music can make it hard to hear Duolingo.
Listening to the song more than once builds familiarity, which is an important factor in liking music.

Reading

In general, I let them read whichever of their schoolbooks they want during their reading hour.

When my kids are in first grade, they usually need me to read most of the books to them or with them. In second grade, they need/want help with some of the books, but not as many. By third grade, they are usually fine reading without me being involved at all.
There is absolutely no book anywhere that will single-handedly ruin my kids' education if they don't read it. Therefore, if my kids really hate a book and don't want to read it, I usually allow them to skip it. I do push them a little, though, to read books they don't like, especially if they have read everything else they have and still have time.
If it seems like they aren't going to finish all the books they have before the week is up, I may tell them they have to finish certain books first, to make sure they read whichever ones I care about most.
If they don't finish their books, I often have them keep the unfinished ones another week. But if the books are piling up, we will just return some of them unread. It's not the end of the world.
If they finish their own books, they may also read their sibling's books, if they want. Only when I am most tired or desperate will I allow them to read the books they picked out themselves (usually comic books) during the school reading hour.
Because I have them doing so much reading, I do not feel the need to get them vocabulary workbooks; they build up vocab from a wide variety of subjects through the natural process of reading new words in context. (They are, obviously, more than welcome to ask me what a word means if they want to know.)

Writing

1st through 4th Grades

In 1st and 2nd grade, I assign something like "Write 5 sentences." In 3rd grade, I'm assigning one page in a notebook that's about 7x9, but I'll accept something that's about three-quarters of a page. In 4th grade, I want a whole page.

They may make up their own story/sentences to write, copy from a book (any that uses complete sentences), or write "I hate homeschooling" on every line, for all I really care. (Although if they pick the last option too many times in a row, I will make them do something else.)
I generally look it over and make them fix their punctuation, capitalization, and spelling. Misspelled words they can write five times correctly. I consider this sufficient spelling practice, so they don't have to get separate spelling workbooks.
One of my kids last year balked and fussed like crazy when I tried to get him to write. He also had pretty illegible handwriting. So instead of focusing on making him complete his writing assignment, I got a handwriting workbook from the library and gave him one-on-one lessons most days, doing the exercises with him. By the end of the year, his handwriting was much more legible, and this year I am making him do writing assignments again.

5th Grade and up

Instead of "a page per day", they now have topic-specific assignments to finish. History and Science come with booklet projects that have to be finished each month; literature gets books reports, and poetry gets poem reports, weekly or so.

For book reports, I am looking for the kind of review you might find helpful on amazon: a brief recounting of the plot tension, followed by what the reader liked or didn't like about the book.
For poetry reports, I am looking for something that shows they thought about the poem and understood it...this is still something I am figuring out how it will work.
I'm still working out the scheduling on when these writing assignments get done. For now, they're kind of merging into the reading time.

Drawing

I expect one picture a day.

The default option is for them to draw something out of their Drawing book for the month. If they would prefer to draw something out of their own imagination, I usually let them. If they do that a lot, sometimes I will insist that they draw out of the book for a day, because I think it often challenges them more.
If their own drawing book has not arrived from the library on time, or if they just want to, they may draw from one of their siblings' books, copy something from an art appreciation book, or draw something from a favorite comic book. As long as they make a drawing, it counts.
Maybe a couple times a year I will sit a child down and draw side by side with them, so that I can demonstrate technique or point out ways that they could improve their drawing.
I believe that art, like most things in life, is something that anyone can become decently good at. It's a matter of practice, not temperament, and it's worth doing.
I think my kids would advance in their drawing skills a lot faster if I gave them more one-on-one feedback and a wider variety of practice exercises. But I think that just practicing every day will build their skills considerably.
For now, most of their drawing books focus on simple line drawings. I think that's a helpful place to start. The older grades work in a smidgeon of shading and perspective; I expect to pick books that will have an increasing emphasis on this in future grades.
I'm fine with throwing pictures in the recycling as soon as they have finished them (and I do this with any papers left lying out), but the kids each have a folder they may put their pictures in, until the folder gets too full.

Weekly Discussions

1st to 4th Grade

I start by asking the kids to tell me about each of the books they read, and then I ask questions of them, if I have any.

For history and science books, I'm looking to see how much they understood and what they got out of the books. I may fill in some basic facts for them, if it seemed like they missed something.
For literature, I'm looking for them to tell me the basic plot: who did what, and how did it end.
For art appreciation books, the kids often don't have a lot to say. There's little in the way of plot or facts to recount. This is ok. The point of these books is primarily to look at the art, get a bit more familiar with it, and enjoy it. They also don't need to review their drawing books, although I usually get feedback about whether they liked it or not.
For poetry, I mostly just get feedback about whether they liked the poems and whether they understood the poems. I may ask them if there was any particular poem that they liked best.
I think of these discussions as primarily being about reinforcement; the process of verbally telling about what they read helps them remember it better. It also sometimes is a way for me to help them clear up points of misunderstanding.
I personally use this time to refine my booklists, making notes about which books turned out to be over the kids' heads and which ones they hated or loved, so that I can improve the lists for the next child.

5th Grade and up

Figuring this out is still a work in progress. In general, I see the topic-specific writing assignments as a replacement for the weekly discussions. However, I still need to find out which books my child has finished, and I (personally) need to get feedback from them in order to continue to improve the booklists. So the weekly chat will continue, possibly in an abbreviated form. I may end up using this time to look over their writing assignments and discuss those with them.

Library

The basic idea of this is, well, basic. We go to the library, return any books we've read, and pick up the new ones.

Each of my kids gets their own library card after they've learned to read and can sign their own name on it.
The kids use regular backpacks to carry the books to and from the library.
In addition to their school books, they browse the shelves and pick out books that interest them. (Most often they pick comic books.) Sometimes I tell them they're allowed two of these; sometimes I tell them they can pick out as many as they don't mind carrying.

Ordering Books

I order books online a week or so before I want to pick them up from the library.

By "ordering" the books, I mean that I use the library website system to place a hold on the books, so that the librarians will send those books to my preferred library branch and put them on the holds shelf for me.
Sometimes the books arrive late. Generally, this doesn't matter. At the end of the school year, it's not going to matter if they read that book on Abraham Lincoln during the last week of March or the first week of April.
Roughly, I divide each month into four weeks. When a given week falls into two months, I generally assign it to whichever month has more of the school days. This almost always means four weeks for each month, but occasionally, as in October of 2013, will mean that a month has five weeks.
History, science, and literature all have four books per month; the default is to order one each week. Sometimes there are more than four books listed, under a "more" or "extra" category; I order these for the third or fourth weeks if the kid seems to be finishing their books quickly with time left over. Or I will order them if there's a fifth week.
I try to be 'top-heavy' with my ordering; ordering more books towards the beginning of the month, and fewer towards the end. This is helpful if some of the books come late. So poetry and art appreciation books I usually order for the first three weeks.
Drawing I order for the first week, since it's to use for the whole month.
If there is a fifth week, and they have already read all their books for the month, I might order books that previously got skipped (such as the "extra" books for previous months), or I might just let them have a week with little reading.
For 5th (and up) grades, I am experimenting with ordering all the history books in one week, and ordering all the science books in another week, so that they have all their books with them when they do their booklet writing assignment.
I'm trying to come up with some way to organize the booklists that will easily produce which books I need to order each week (preferably one that doesn't involve me re-typing the information for the 600+ titles I currently have across the grades), but I haven't come up with such a thing yet.
It sometimes happens that one of my kids has already read one of the books on their Literature list. In this case, I might just skip having them read it again, or I might order it and let them decide if they want to re-read it or not.
If I happen to own one of the books on the list, I still usually order it from the library, because otherwise I never remember to go get the book and make sure the child knows they're supposed to read it. I'm silly like that.

Booklist Structure

My approach divides the kids' schooling into three four-year cycles, as in the chart below.

Grade	History	Science	Music
First Cycle
1st	Prehistory - 400 AD/CE	Biology	Classical
2nd	400 - 1600	Earth/Space	International
3rd	1600 - 1900	Chemistry	Genre Mix
4th	1900 - present	Physics	Rock
Second Cycle
5th	Prehistory - 400 AD/CE	Biology	Classical
6th	400 - 1600	Earth/Space	International
7th	1600 - 1900	Chemistry	Genre Mix
8th	1900 - present	Physics	Rock
Third Cycle
9th	Prehistory - 400 AD/CE	Biology	Classical
10th	400 - 1600	Earth/Space	International
11th	1600 - 1900	Chemistry	Genre Mix
12th	1900 - present	Physics	Rock

Art appreciation, poetry, literature, and drawing are not arranged into a four-year cycle. Those subjects simply take the available library books and arrange them into an age-appropriate progression.

First Cycle
The emphasis here is on familiarization/introduction to the basic ideas of each subject. Kids read the books and sit down with me once a week for a loose discussion of what they've read.

Second Cycle
Here I want my kids to really get the basics down, so there are activities to reinforce the material. History & Science activities are mentioned in the lists; Literature books get book reports; Poetry gets a more intensive lets-figure-out-what-this-poem's-about treatment, and Music Appreciation gets musician biographies on top of the listening videos.

Third Cycle
I haven't gotten this far yet, but I am planning for the emphasis to be on more critical-thinking. Reading materials will include original-source material when possible and focus not just on what we know, but on how we know it. Music Appreciation will cover a greater selection, and Literature will include essay questions to answer.

Background History

In case you're curious how I got started with my booklists in the first place, I'm going to write that story here.

I first started homeschooling because I felt that God wanted me to. I did not, however, have an immediately clear idea on what the "right" way to homeschool was. I had read Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius by Angeline Lillard and been inspired to try to work Montessori principles into my homeschooling as much as possible, but that was a pretty vague goal. I decided that if the Guy Who Knows Everything really wanted me to homeschool, then I didn't need to worry too much that I was going to screw it up. If I screwed it up, He could let me know and I could do something about it at that time. In the meantime, since He wasn't telling me about the One Right Way To Educate Your Kids, I figured it was up to me to experiment.

So I experimented. The first year, I tried a no-curriculum method. It wasn't exactly unschooling (which I hadn't even heard of yet), but more like me just hobbling together a bunch of random ideas. This did not work as well as I was hoping, partly because my ideas often turned out to be way over my kids' heads, without me realizing it. The one really successful part of this year came when, in February, my third child turned 5 and I decided to start her out on phonics right then instead of waiting until the following September when she would otherwise be expected to start Kindergarten. Someone had given us a lovely phonics game that came with progressive decks of cards. I discovered that I had absolutely no patience for the game whatsoever, but I used the decks to practice words with her, like flash cards, and she was reading on her own by the end of the year.

The second year, I decided my experiment might as well be to try workbooks. It sounded a lot easier than taking on the full burden of inventing everything myself. So I said, what the hey, I'm going to order me a set of Seton workbooks. I think of Seton as the "more Catholic than the Pope" form of homeschoolers, but I figured I would put up with that (at least for a year), because they were also about as cheap as workbooks get, and none of the alternatives really struck me as outstandingly better. Turns out, homeschool workbooks tend to be written by (and for) people with an agenda. My inner engineer (the part of me that actually got a Bachelor's of Science in Materials Sci/Eng)... that part of me saw red when I looked at the preview for the 2nd grade Seton science workbook and discovered that it began with a couple-page diatribe against evolution. 2nd Grade, people. 2nd Grade. I reluctantly got it anyway, since the alternative seemed to be no science at all, and the rest of the topics were less controversial.

Then, after I had picked out which workbooks to get, but before I had the money to buy them, I came across www.livingbookscurriculum.com. I immediately started drooling. I didn't know what it was about their attractive book pictures, but I knew I wanted them. It would only have cost us a year's income to purchase the complete set for all three school-age kids. For weeks, I kept going back and looking at those books. I knew I couldn't get them, but I just. couldn't. let. them. go. They were so pretty. (Really, it was more than that. They grabbed me with a longing that I can only describe as spiritual. Looking at them these days no longer produces that sensation, so I figured they served their purpose.) In the meantime, the workbooks came and we started doing those. The English and Math ones turned out to not be so bad, but history and science and other topics were lame at best. I kept going back to look at the LBC books, especially the history and science ones.

Finally it occurred to me that the library might have some of those titles.

I then went through a painstaking process of writing down every title, looking it up in the library catalogue, and if the library didn't have it, looking for an alternative title on the same topic. I started getting some of the books for the kids to read. I discovered that the nice people at LBC had some expectations about what kids could read that were maybe a wee bit high. (The Handbook of Nature Study first shows up in their lists in 1st Grade. Check that book out from the library sometime. I dare you. It's not just the length - they give you 5 years or something to finish it - it's the vocab and subject matter.) Of course, they're also expecting the parent/teacher to read it to the kid, and I wasn't about to do that with three different grades. My voice gets hoarse after 15 minutes of reading aloud. I wanted books my kids could read on their own.

So I started tweaking the lists.

Starting especially with history, and then working on Science, I did library searches, I read reviews on amazon. I found a couple curriculums that seemed to take history seriously as a subject, and found that they all universally used a series of books to cover it. I put all the history books in order, read something about how we need more repetition and less breadth in the schools, saw the brilliance in that, and completely re-organized my history books to accommodate that idea. I started off with the LBC timeline, and then re-adjusted them to fit into the "classical" four-year-cycle timeframe that I liked better. I discovered that the library had art appreciation books and poetry books for kids - another two subjects that I felt were woefully inadequate in most curriculums. I spent the summer of 2012 sitting in front of a computer, building booklists for every subject I could think of. I built all my lists in Evernote. Evernote, I love you. Marry me.

For my third year of homeschooling, I bravely decided that our experiment would be to use only booklists. No workbooks. My kids' daily assignment was to read for an hour, write something, and do a math worksheet. I started off printing the math worksheets, but that was expensive in ink, and just plain obnoxious, so later in the year I ambitiously learned to program and made my Memorize Math app for them to practice on instead. All in all, I was pretty pleased with most of the booklists. English and Math, though, did not go so well as I hoped; they rely on practice doing as well as just knowing. Social Studies/Geography did also not go so well as I hoped, partly because the library didn't have many good books for elementary grades.

So. At the time of this writing, we are starting our fourth year of homeschooling. We have gone back to workbooks for English and Math, and I found a fabulous website for Geography. Duolingo is also better than my attempted Spanish library materials list. But history, science, art appreciation, drawing, poetry, and literature will all be covered by library books. This year I finally got some music appreciation lists up and going (based on youtube rather than the library, since the library has CDs, and our CD-player options are all unattractive).

Finis.