As we wrap up our school year this month, I am looking back over the year and reflecting on progress made and things I might want to work on changing as I plan ahead for next year. My daughter is about to finish AmblesideOnline’s Year 4, and this is my second time guiding a student through this year in our homeschool. Before beginning to write, I scrolled through some of my old blog posts and realized that the last time I recorded anything about our AO year, it was a 4-part series about Year 4 as I was in the midst of it with my son. It was interesting to read over those old posts and see what I was specifically doing and thinking at the time. Now that I am at the end of another round of Year 4, I wanted to highlight things we did differently because my daughter is her own person…and because we are in a different stage of life now than we were then. (But I will spare you the 4-parter and try to be brief enough for this to be a single post!) 😉
What Stayed The Same?
In terms of what we did the same for Miss A, I used the same old AO Year 4 schedule that I did for my son. I know that for the 2023-24 school year they changed the Bible schedule for all grades, and I didn’t really want to shift our Bible reading at this point when we were already a good way through the old schedule. So I made sure to download copies of all the old schedules for all years before they changed, and we will continue to follow those for Bible going forward. We didn’t change any books I read with her this year, except for adding in Answering the Cry for Freedom by Gretchen Woelfle. It had just been added to the schedule when my son was starting Year 4, and I decided to wait and see if the book would stay on the booklist for years to come.
Miss A is not as confident a reader yet as J was at her age, but I still required her to begin reading a few of her books independently. She was allowed to listen to audio versions for Bible and Storybook of Science while following along with her eyes. She did great with it, especially considering that she read Minn of the Mississippi and The Ocean of Truth entirely on her own (without any audio backing her up.) I also let her do full audio versions for all three literature selections this year, as even my son (now in Year 8) often does those as audio books. They are often lengthier readings, as well as things that we all enjoy listening in on if we need to use car time to finish up something during the week.
Other things we did the same but maybe hit a little differently for a second student would be adding full Shakespeare and Plutarch. As Miss A has always been listening in on those lessons since she was a wee tot, it wasn’t anything new for her, except that now she was required to at least try to follow along and narrate what she could understand. This was probably actually more of a benefit to my son since I often asked him to explain to her what was happening (sneaky narration) when she seemed confused.
I also added in dictation and grammar lessons, still using Winston Grammar (I think it is a really solid grammar program when used consistently.) I did more simple passages for my daughter for dictation because of the difference in her reading and recall level, but it was good practice. Next year I am considering changing up what we do for spelling and dictation because she seemed to do better last year when we were using a more structured system for that part of language arts. Her brain is just wired a bit differently, and she needs a little more practice with phonetic skills.
We also ended the year working on MEP math for the second time around! I still love that curriculum. She did take about a year off from MEP to do another, simpler math program, again to shore up some of those basic math skills. But she was ready this term to dive back into MEP, and she is thriving with it. She even LIKES long division. What sorcery is that, I ask you?
What Has Changed?
One big difference between my son’s Year 4 experience and my daughter’s is that we have been doing Latin as a family. We added it when J was in Year 5, and we have tried a variety of curricula over the last few years. So for Miss A, it was just continuing to listen in to these lessons and participate as much as she has been able to. I am still on the fence about next year’s foreign language studies, but I won’t go into all that in this post as what we have done (however imperfectly) for language study could fill a whole post on its own.
The other big difference is that I actually remembered to start requiring written narrations this year! I remember when my son was in Year 4, we were at least a good halfway or more through the year when I realized that he really was supposed to be writing some narrations and I had totally forgotten! (He also really, really did not like writing of any kind…so that was a struggle for him.) Miss A actually had been asking to start written narration last year, so it was easy to add it to her assignment list this year. I just ask for one or two sentences about one reading per week, but I think next year I will up that to at least 3 sentences on 3 readings a week.
This brings me to another difference in my first and second students, which is giving my daughter her own assignment list each week. I don’t recall doing that with my son at this age. I think I must have had some kind of visual to help him see what we had to do/had done each day, but I don’t think he had his own list of tasks to mark off daily yet. Both kids now have quite a few chores, piano practice, and other independent work that they each keep track of on their own assignment charts (which I also have my own copies of). This helps them be more aware of how they need to spread the work over the course of each day and week, and I don’t have to be constantly reminding them of what they have left to do. (Actually, I am often the one asking them what they have left because I simply can’t keep track of it all!)
What Was the Best Part?
In retrospect, I enjoyed this round of Year 4 a lot more than our first time through. I am sure that part of my memories of last time around are clouded by the fact that moving mid-year set us back and challenged us in other areas of life. But I also think that it has to do with the fact that I actually have read aloud more of the books to my daughter than I did with my son. Last time, by the last term, I had handed off almost all his school books to him for independent reading, so I never finished most of them myself.
Another change is that reading Abigail Adams with a girl is very different from reading it with a boy. She truly loves Abigail and is fully invested in her biography. Another favorite book (and character) is Minn of the Mississippi, and I know she is going to be sad when she finishes it. Perhaps most surprising is that A also listed Kingsley’s Madam How and Lady Why as one of her top three favorite books for the year. Many people (kids and parents both) really struggle with this book, as we did the first time I read it with my oldest, at least until we started using Anne White’s guides. Maybe because we started out right away with the guide, or maybe just because she is a different person, my daughter actually really enjoyed the book and did well with telling back each reading.
Well, that’s a wrap! Hopefully, I will be back later this month with a similar post about our experience with AO’s Year 8 books! Until then, keep on learning together…
Kiel
