We are in Week 16 of CTC, and it could not be going better! In short, we love it. My ds loves his newfound independence, and I love the things we do together. I feel they are the things I should be doing with him at this point. The discussions we have are meaningful ones that we should be having. The lessons I am responsible for teaching are the things that I think I truly need to teach for his age. While I enjoy reading aloud, that is one thing I am glad I am NOT doing for many subject areas. While that's a comfortable place for me to hang out as a teacher, I don't feel it's the best use of my time now that my ds can finally truly read extremely well on his own. I enjoy the balance and look forward to reading aloud for Storytime each day, and the follow up activities are short but oh so good at teaching narration skills (and we LOVE the Proverbs one). I also like reading together Geography of the Holy Lands and Genesis Finding Our Roots on a rotating basis. These are definitely higher level books that require discussion afterwards and just beg to be read aloud and shared between parent and child. However, the reason I enjoy reading these selections so much is because I am NOT reading everything else. My ds thoroughly enjoys reading his other books on his own, and then showing me what he learned through narrations, notebooking, activities, projects, etc. He is growing up before my very eyes!
This leads me to another part of CTC I love seeing my ds do - and that is his Bible Quiet Time. There is just something that tugs at a mom's heart when she hears her son singing Bible verses heartily (albeit a tad off key).
His heart is in it. He is memorizing all of Phil. 2, and doing it easily! This from my ds who began his life with several years of speech therapy. We are reading Matthew at night together as a family, a chapter at a time, and I cannot tell you how much my ds knows when we discuss it. He just throws out these amazing tie-ins that leave my dh looking at him in amazement. They are all just things he's learned in HOD, and I realize that he does not battle separating Biblical history from World history in his mind, as I do having learned them totally separately when I grew up. What a blessing.
The hands-on portions of CTC are a life saver for me. I would not get this done if it was not planned in such a smooth way in the guide. Wyatt's experiments and history projects are the high-light of his day. Just today he begged me to have the feast for his history project a day early, and wanted to "just please do the whole box that's planned tomorrow today, Mom". I had to say no as I had an afternoon full of other things to be done today, but boy that did my heart good to hear.
And that student notebook - well, it's just beautiful! I mean BEAUTIFUL! My ds who does not have an inclination for artistic pursuits is quite bent on making that student notebook beautiful each day, and it looks great. This from a child who used to scribble black over everything and call it coloring. That brings me to his writing. It is blossoming with Write with the Best. I love to write creatively and have gotten to really value his ideas when I am stumped. He just has a love for poetry and writing that I didn't have till I was so much older (like in my 30's
). I think reading so many wonderful living books over the years with HOD has made him just able to somehow absorb so many things I used to have to try to teach in ps. He just "sounds like" those authors. It's amazing to hear, and nothing I could have taught in a formal writing lesson. He uses words like "extraordinary", "musket", "calvary", "decisively" "shorn", "ebony" - I can't think of enough good examples here - but you get the idea.
It's just a part of how he writes. He also gets the humor and wit of classically sounding authors. He has learned the art of recognizing a truly good living book.
As far as other Basics skills - narrating, grammar, math, notebooking, etc. - he is strong in them. And they don't take us forever to do. He scores well on them on tests, and he likes them overall. He also rarely spells things incorrectly now. Again, a struggle earlier with his speech troubles. He just can see if it looks right now almost all of the time. I attribute it to the excellent methods of CM and the manner in which HOD plans them. Copywork, dictation, written narrations - all things I was skeptical about coming from a ps background and having gotten a masters where I'd never heard of them.
They work. Period. They need time to grow though. Years to see the fruit of the labor, but then, oh my, look out. You'll see fruit tenfold. My ds is amazing to me, and our relationship is strong. I thank God for HOD every day because it keeps me accountable, it keeps us interacting, it keeps me sharing my faith, and it keeps us together. I don't know how I'd relate to my dc without it. Maybe this is a special concern for me because I am a woman that has 3 sons. My dh just clicks with them on everything, but it's more work for me. HOD eases that work and makes it a joy that I can feel good about each day.
Yes, we are having a great year with CTC. We like our life. We love our days together. Not that everything goes perfectly - no, we too have sickness, difficult health concerns, LOUD toddler, traveling husband, financial concerns, attitude concerns, etc. - but CTC? That is just right. Wouldn't change a thing. Glad you asked!
In Christ,
Julie
