After we returned home from summer vacation in Colonial Williamsburg in 2004, I spent the next several months doing a lot of research into classical education.
In short, classical education focuses more on the basics of the 3Rs with real books, instead of textbooks.
Gathering lots of new tips, I completely changed up our final year of Grammar studies by relying less on textbooks while focusing more on real books.
Real Books for American History
For history the kids read the series about a fictional family through several generations across American history, which I wrote about here. We learned a lot and had tons of fun.
Junior Classics for Literature
For literature my daughter and I worked through unit studies I had created built around junior classics.
Because she continued to struggle with reading comprehension, we read the stories aloud together.
We discussed vocabulary that was new to us. And we did lots of activities related to the book.
The first book we did was Hans Briner and the Silver Skates. Perhaps the most fascinating thing we learned in that book was of the Vox Humana, the organ that sounds like human voices.
Then we read Anne of Green Gables. We learned all about the geography and history of Canada, especially Prince Edward Island.
Christian Biographies
To build on our Bible devotions, I read aloud some books with the kids about heroes in the faith.
Hidden Rainbow by Christmas Carol Kaufman is based on the true story of a young couple from Yugoslavia. Living in a small village full of superstition, they become Christians which caused their neighbors to shun them.
Meanwhile the husband sought work in America to provide for his family back home, surrounded by the danger of WWI.
The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom amazed me as a fifth grader.
My kids’ faith deepened as we read of her faith during WWII, from hiding Jews to capture by the Nazis.
The miracles for her and her prisonmates during horrible circumstances showed us our God is powerful.
God’s Smuggler by Brother Andrew, a book that deeply impacted my faith in high school, brought much discussion into our homeschool about trusting and honoring God, and not taking the Bible for granted.
Math
We definitely stuck to our A Beka math textbooks, which had solid lessons, great reviews, and challenging mental math warm-ups that we’d do each morning.
Extending that concept into the many board games we liked to play, the kids took turns as scorekeeper. Nothing like trying to keep up with adding dominoes while everyone’s chatting and rattling dominoes. Not overwhelmed by the noise, they persevered and amped their mental math ability far beyond what even I had attained.
When we’d be out shopping, they often caught me adding up totals in my head. They beat me every time, and they were right. Interestingly my daughter was correct with mental math on the spur of the moment more often than she was with a math worksheet. We wouldn’t discover until she entered junior college that she had convergence insufficiency, requiring vision therapy.
Science Experiments
New for my son was time to do all the science kits stored up in his bedroom. He had a blast. He thrived in the self-taught environment and gave presentations on each activity.
