Simply Classical Level B

I did of review of Level A last year when working through it with Samuel and we liked it so much we went on to doing Level B this year (also by Memoria Press) while he attends preschool at our Church.  He's love preschool and continues to enjoy our homeschool lessons.  At the end I'll give a brief update on how Ruth is doing with her lessons.

There is a similar flow to Level A, but more to it in Level B.  Level B is laid out to start with a prayer, do the calendar & weather, do recitation, then an alphabet lesson, numbers lesson, literature/language lesson (usually a read aloud book), poetry/music lesson, manners or a game, Bible literacy and then end with a prayer.  So as you can tell from that list, there is a little more to it than there was in Level B.  It all still goes by pretty fast, depending on the focus of your child that day.

The calendar adds on what month and season to what day.  This is also a good time to do calendar recitation (days of the week, months of the year and seasons).  All in all this portion is pretty similar to Level A.

Recitation has some longer recitations than the year before, but nothing too crazy.  I think the Lord's Prayer is the longest recitation, but they hear that a lot if they are in Church regularly and it was also on Level A, so it shouldn't be too challenging for them.  This year Samuel has been a lot more engaged in the recitation last year, which is just proof that his verbal skills have improved.  He still has room for improvement, but its progress.

The alphabet lesson takes you through all the letters of the alphabet in order over the course of the year, with review weeks throughout.  The alphabet lesson includes reading the current letter out of Big Thoughts for Little People, doing some coloring pages or a craft related the the letter and looking at the letter and pictures of things starting with the letter from an alphabet board book.  This lesson usually goes by pretty quickly and, because my son goes to preschool as well, he knows the alphabet fairly well.  So we don't spend too much time here.  If you buy the curriculum bundle it comes with alphabet flashcards, which I laminated, that we used to play games with on review weeks.  Usually that means I lay out some cards (usually either all the letters we have done so far or just a segment of the alphabet) and have him put them in order.  This often involves him pouncing on the letter on the floor and lots of laughs.

The numbers lesson started a little slow with a numbers coloring book.  I say that just because my son hated coloring when we first started.  He would simply trace the letter or number and call it done.  No amount of coaxing from me could get him to do more than just trace it.  As the year has gone on, he has become more interested in actually coloring.  I think that is from doing coloring stuff at preschool.  Now we are in a different book, that is more of a workbook.  In it he practices writing the numbers.  Each number came with a little rhyme we say while tracing the number in the air (for example: one line down and then you're done, that is how to write a one - or something like that, I may have some of the wording off, but that's the gist) and he loves those little rhymes.  When he is thinking about how to write a number he often thinks of it or prompts me to sing it for him.  He especially loves the rhyme for number 7 and he just likes the number 8 too.  I think the 8 is more because it has an s shape in it, like his name.  So lately we have been doing a lot of number writing, but soon we'll be finished with the current workbook and onto the next one.  I don't expect a lot of perfection from him here yet and treat it more as a writing practice.  We just count over and over and over while doing it and he writes numbers.  There are some cutting and pasting activities in there too, which he enjoys (really if there are scissors, he's excited about it).  I think the next workbook also has some cut and paste things and also some more writing practice.

Literature/Language usually involves reading a book, which he is normally pretty pumped about reading a book, so it isn't too hard to get him to sit down for this normally.  If you want to see the collection of books used, follow the links in the first paragraph to Memoria Press, they have a list of the read alouds for all their levels.

Poetry/Music starts based around Robert Louis Stevenson's poems out of A Child's Garden of Verses (and 2 CDs that put Robert Louis Stevenson's poetry to music), but eventually you finish all of the ones in the board book with some of the poems and move onto typical songs you would hear in a preschool or a daycare.  Samuel, however, has really enjoyed the poetry from A Child's Garden of Verses, so I got the complete book of those poems and we going through the rest of the poems from the CDs.  He just really likes them, so ok!  If he wants more poetry, I won't stop him!  We still sing the songs listed in the manual and just do the poetry in addition to what is already listed for the day.

Finally we have Bible literacy.  This is primarily reading a Bible Story out of A Child's Garden of Bible Stories and doing some coloring pages.  We'll soon be done with that book and then there is another short book we'll read and work on memorizing the names of the 4 Gospels.  Later on you can add learning the 23rd Psalm (which is already part of his recitation).

Ruth has been working through Level A and has been enjoying it.  Twice a week we get to do it while Samuel is at preschool, so that helps being able to focus solely on her during it.  She has been much more into the recitation than her brother, but that is no surprise as her verbal skills are better than his were when we started with him.

All in all, I am glad we have been doing these lessons with them.  They have provided some special bonding time between all of us that I appreciate.  Some days the lessons do not go smoothly.  A kid does not want to say the recitation or maybe Samuel does not want to work on the workbook.  I have been working hard at making sure that I give them lots of breaks between things and run around if they are acting up.  Usually a good run around the house for a few minutes helps them refocus onto the task.  If I don't, we both end up frustrated with each other, which is no fun.  So lots of breaks on harder days and taking advantage that it is a 4 day a week curriculum for both of them and taking a day off on days when a day off would be helpful (like sickness, or needing to run a lot of errands out of the house).

I have enjoyed doing all these lessons so much that I just ordered Memoria Press's Junior Kindergarten curriculum for Samuel to use next year.

I will say, I haven't ordered the read aloud sets from Memoria Press, instead I put them on wishlists for the children, borrow from the library and order them off of Thriftbooks.  We may often not get new books, but it has worked well for us (and it helps spread out the new books more throughout the year, bringing more excitement to it, granted I could just store them out of site and pull them out as needed, but hey, you find what works for you!).