Ambleside Y2 Continued...
Alright, once again it has been awhile since I have posted, but this entire Ambleside program has been rewarding first and foremost, but also it is a lot of work! My daughter has needed to adjust to this more in depth program since it is more time consuming that the coursework we have done for first grade or kindergarten.
How did we achieve the slower pace?? Well I simply found this great resource on the Ambleside Facebook group. It was free to use, but it was for Year 4, and I adjusted the entire file to work for Year 2.
I will link the resource I made, once you make a copy you can rename it and edit it to your liking!
This made program more of an "open and go" style and also made it a visual for my daughter as well. We can look at layout for the week and decided what needs to get done and in what order every single day. I have it set for a four day school week, and this works for my family, but maybe not for yours.
Rework those pages to make it easy for your family, and I promise you will love using AO.
I slowed down the first two weeks and took almost 3 weeks to finish each. Hence, the reason I am just now posting. This is not my ideal situation, but it has worked and we have been enjoying most of the elements of AO. I have decided for my own sanity we were not attempting Shakespeare this term, or our foreign language. I needed to ease into this program because of how different it is from what we did last year.
I will start out with the obvious, it is a lot of reading. You have geography, history, literature, poetry, bible readings, plus all the riches. Copy work and recitation daily as well, plus narrations for each subject. The process seems daunting, BUT I am seeing the fruits. My daughter is making connections to the different subjects, and while the struggle with copy work was tough in the beginning we have adjusted and learned that this is what we have to do.
We are now entering into week 3 and are half way through October, plus we have the stomach bug going through my home at the moment, so will we finish week three this week? I have my doubts, but we will give it out best effort. This is the beauty of homeschool however, we can adjust and make changes to the lessons and schedule that need to be made. I never have to worry about falling behind because my kids are sick. I usually also take a break for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but because we went so slow, I did explain to my daughter that we will have keep a pretty good pace in order to complete term one in a timely manner. She was agreeable and keeps asking for the readings she is enjoying. I take this as a good sign, and continue to read out loud to her. Our current family free read is Mr. Popper's Penguins, I do not require her to narrate because I want her to sit back and relax with me after a long day.
Please keep in mind that I also work a full time job running my homeschool enrichment program. This keeps me and my children busy, and we have lots of play dates with others in the homeschool community that we have met. So, to give my girls a break, we do not narrate the free reads for now.
Well, that is all the news over here at the Meyer hosuehold. We will kick off week three once my kiddos are feeling up to it. We also are hosting a trunk or treat event this week, so I am in prep mode for the decorations on the Willy Wonka trunk we have picked! I am hoping to hop back online next week with another post on how week three goes!
God Bless!
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