I used to not be huge with poetry, although I do like it. I have found choosing a poem per month to learn as a family during morning basket has been really great!
This has been super helpful! I have been struggling on how and what to do with my 1st grader and how to incorporate and make changes for my 3rd grader for next year. I live in NYS so I have strict requirements and didn't know how to do it and yet keep it simple at young ages. I am also glad to hear your free advice on a struggling writer when it comes to the brain and paper coordination. I just thought my second grader wasn't getting it. He's super smart and can do it but when I apply too much on him, I feel like he's in overload and it gets ugly and he hates writing to begin with (at least for school and still makes letters incorrectly and won't use the line as a guide, uses upper and lower case letters or anything else for that matter). Thank you for pointing all this out because I was just beating myself up when clearly this is or can be normal at this age 🤔.
Thank you so much for taking the time to put this video together. All of the information you offered was so helpful. I also really liked the curriculum suggestions you mentioned and may give them a try this year. The tip about dictation was phenomenal. My kids (4 to 8) love to tell stories all the time but when it comes to writing them down they get lost in the spelling and function that it takes away from the experience. I am going to use the typing suggestion for sure. What we did prior was they would draw a picture in relation to what we read, but again I love the dictation idea. Thank you very much!
This video is SO helpful and exactly what I needed to see. We are heading into a different phase with ELA, as my oldest is now no longer learning to read, but reading to learn. So we are focusing more on composition and spelling and grammar and it all feels new and overwhelming still! But these tips were helpful. Thank you!
I love the idea of taking the long view and not panicking especially when I have all dyslexic kids!!! We do Songwriting!!! We do spelling together one on one!!! We don’t do it daily!!! Idk how long my kids read but I know they go over their time!!! We use our together time and gather round to listen to them read as we do a lesson and we split the reading up!!! Until we adopted we only did phonics weekly or not as often as long as we did it. We do it daily with our 4 year old but sometimes she does it thru a video!!! We don’t do writing daily!!! We do creative writing but no curriculum!!! We writing orally and we write it sometimes!!!
Thanks for this video! There are so many parts to LA and so far I haven't liked the All in one curriculums so this is a very helpful video trying to figure out how to piece stuff together.
The Little House series was our language arts curriculum last year. My kids retained more than any other year. This year we will be using Farmer Boy as our science and history book for the majority of the year along with a small vegitable garden we will be digging, shaping, tilling, fertilizing, planting, and harvesting throughout the year. Homeschool truly is all about growing our kids into good, strong, God fearing people who can go out into the world and care for His children.
I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said. I have an eight year old son who I have not pushed grammar or writing with, and he has just naturally learnt to write. He has written books with cute interesting characters. I have only just started getting him to do some handwriting practice. I love Rod and Staff, I think it doesn't get enough attention or recognition, and everyone talks about the 'new' curriculums, you should do a video on R & S spelling :) I have been considering starting the grade 2 book with my son because I used it for my two older children and already have the teacher books (not that you really need them) but I do like how simple and easy it is. Is there a reason why you don't do their spelling in the younger grades? just curious :) But I am also considering the 'All about reading', he is an avid reader, but I do think he needs some phonics as I was slack and didn't do much of that with him, is 'All about reading' only for children who are learning to read? or do you think it's not too late to do phonics if you feel they need it? I have also contemplated getting the 'Learning Language Arts Through Literature' which is another Charlotte Mason inspired curriculum that teaches all the language arts through literature; but then I think it's going to be too heavy for my son. He reads lots of good quality literature and I am not ready to impose a lot of grammar onto him just yet. I like having different things for the different parts of language arts, and I will often make a lot of stuff up through the literature we are reading, similar to what you are doing. I love your style. Thanks for the video. :)
There is so much for Language Arts 😔 I still get overwhelmed with it all! Try to keep it simple and don't do everything every day! I will share soon how I break it down weekly for all my kiddos. All About Reading should have instructions for how to set up the tiles in the beginning of the Teachers Guide. Hopefully you can find it and figure it out 😊
Thanks so much for all your videos! I am discovering more and more that I am more of a CM teacher than I was when I began homeschooling almost 4 years ago... what do you use for handwriting for your kiddos? My now 1st grader needs lots of practice and my 2nd grader will be learning cursive next year. He has really good manuscript.
I actually want my kids to learn it, so they can read it! Especially if they read cards or letters from older family members or friends who only write in cursive. I think as far as affecting their education as a whole, I think it’s minimal. We live in a culture where it’s the norm to type now, so cursive isn’t as important 💜🌸
@@ashleyruedy8670 I think 3rd grade is a good time to introduce it! Most kids have a good baseline of print/manuscript around then. I know some families start with cursive, actually, but we just do 3rd Grade.
Ok, how do you keep up with all that? 😂 It was wonderful advice and I absolutely love your approach to LA, but is it as parent-led and intense as it sounds? And how do you do record keeping? I’m not great at it, but I’d love to be better. Any tips there?
I am TERRIBLE at record keeping! Thankfully I don't care too much to keep detailed records, plus my state I live in is pretty relaxed at this point for homeschool. It's more parent led at the beginning as I show everyone how to do their lessons, but then as they know how to do their independent work after a week or two, it's a little less hands on for me. My littles (3rd grade and under) are always pretty parent led. I don't prefer my kids to do video instruction until 5th grade or so. Kids in early elementary need more direct instruction, but we do "short lessons," so no more than 10-20 minutes per kid for each part of language arts.
Thank you for breaking this down. I'm trying to start a plan for next year, my 4th grader. How do you combine AAR & TGTB LA? Our focus currently is our reading & spelling daily. MFW LA a couple times a week.
To combine AAR and TGTB I rotate lessons. Like Mon I do TGTB, then Tues I do AAR. SOMETIMES the TGTB lesson is short, so I do both in one day if we have extra time. I also skip some of the lessons if I think he doesn’t need it, so I’m not doing every single lesson in each book.
Did you post a video on brave writer? What you liked and did not? I am considering incorporating this next year and wanted to know how/ why you seem to have stopped using it. Or maybe you have not??
Hey, Erica! I actually never did a video on how I do Bravewriter... I was not very consistent with it. I did REALLY like the principals and I basically just use the principals now within what ever I use. I used Some of the writing projects and literature guides and enjoyed them. :)
My 3rd grader is struggling to remember his lessons so I find myself reteaching things to him.. we spend a lot of time doing this. Please provide some tips on that if you can .
That's a great question... are you teaching him things that he's not ready for maybe? Also this would be a good time to work on his attention skills. There's lots of great ways to do that!
I notice my child needs to work on writing and spelling. Do you think Fix It Grammar and IEW together are enough to help with the spelling? I need minimal things to check off. Those are what I was thinking to try this next year. She'll be in 5th grade.
I know EXACTLY what you mean about needing minimal things to check off. I'm not sure if those would be enough when it comes to spelling. Is there a way to get something for her that she can do independently? I've been using Rod and Staff spelling, and my 5th grader did that independently this year. But you could probably squeeze in spelling practice with IEW writing lessons.... as you edit her papers and find misspelled words, have her practice those and fix them (without spell check ;) )
I am so confused about IEW. Did you do the Structure and Style Course first before the theme based writing units? Their website seems to suggest that is the way it should be done. I am considering for next year for a 3rd and 5th grader. Thanks!
I’m sorry I confused you 😬 I made the choice to not do Structure and Style first since I already had the theme based writing units I got used for a good deal. I was also an English teacher before, so I didn’t feel like I directly needed to do Structure and Style with her first in order to be able to go through the theme based unit with her. (They are very similar!) but if you have never done IEW, I recommend following what they recommend! I will most likely be doing the basic intro to Structure and Style with my up-coming 4th Grader next year 👍🏻
I have been so encouraged and helped by your videos, Ashley! Re: the part when your boys recited what a verb is (with hand motions), did you make that up or do you have a resource for that? Thank you!
Hi, Kara! Sorry for the delayed response. 😬 That verb phrase is from First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind. I loved using it with all three of my kiddos!
I was looking into doing IEW, but it is quite expensive to have to do the teacher training or the online structure and style. Do you have to do the training, or can you just use the books?
Well, if you use the streaming lessons, you don't have to do the teacher training, if you are able to follow the instructions in the teacher's manual for how to grade the papers. Also, if you are already strong in language arts and writing, it's pretty intuitive. But if you struggle yourself with language arts or writing, then I recommend the training. Or if you are teaching it yourself and not using the streaming videos. It took me a while to jump in because of the price, but I am happy I did!
@@JoyfulNoiseLiving you should do a video with your kids doing the actions and saying the poems with the different parts of speech. That would be awesome!
I just don't understand all these homeschooling videos here on RUclips. My husband and I try our best not to complicate things when it comes to homeschool. Most children rather play instead of homeschooling anyway. All these RUclipsrs every year are changing up their children's curriculum saying this didn't work and that didn't work, but when I look up the curriculum they don't use the curriculum to it's full potential. This is messing up their children's education because every curriculum teaches concepts differently in Math and English Language Arts. This creates gaps in children's education. Homeschooling is not for lazy parents taking content out of curriculums. That's probably why it doesn't work. Parents have to be 100% committed or just let the schools do the teaching. This is the reason why some states have high restrictions against parents that choose to homeschool. We don't mind it though. We do educate our children. People stop changing curriculum every year. Geesh... Just my opinion. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I appreciate your thoughts! Thanks for reminding us that we have to be committed. And if you'd watch more of my videos, you'd notice that I have been working on my consistency.☺️ I have definitely switched curriculum in some areas, in others I've found what's work and stuck with it! I disagree that you if you change curricula it will mess up the kids. I do think sometimes there are things that are just not working. But also, there is no perfect curriculum! Thanks for challenging homeschoolers to stick with it! I did make this specific video for people who may have wanted to not use The Good and The Beautiful any more and wanted to move to using other things for ELA.
I don’t use TGTB any more for my kids right now. I decided to not use it, but didn’t make a video about that change yet 😬 This is a video explaining how you fit together Language Arts if you DON’T use an all-in-one curriculum like TGTB. I thought there were some moms who could benefit from this method in case they wanted to move away from TGTB as well 😊 I liked TGTB for Pre-K through 1st, but I don’t prefer it after that.
I want to cry. This has been so extremely helpful!!!
I'm in the same boat! This was SUPER helpful and I too could cry!!
I love how you broke it down by daily and weekly. Having that view really helps when planning.
Thanks! It really helps you if you realize you don’t have to fit everything in EVERY day.
I used to not be huge with poetry, although I do like it. I have found choosing a poem per month to learn as a family during morning basket has been really great!
Could you share which poems your family has used for Poem of the Month?
Love that 💜
This is the first video I see that actually gives good tips on specific subjects that I need. Thank you
Glad it was helpful!
This has been super helpful! I have been struggling on how and what to do with my 1st grader and how to incorporate and make changes for my 3rd grader for next year. I live in NYS so I have strict requirements and didn't know how to do it and yet keep it simple at young ages.
I am also glad to hear your free advice on a struggling writer when it comes to the brain and paper coordination. I just thought my second grader wasn't getting it. He's super smart and can do it but when I apply too much on him, I feel like he's in overload and it gets ugly and he hates writing to begin with (at least for school and still makes letters incorrectly and won't use the line as a guide, uses upper and lower case letters or anything else for that matter). Thank you for pointing all this out because I was just beating myself up when clearly this is or can be normal at this age 🤔.
Loved hearing about how you cover Language Arts in your family! And yes, reading aloud to the parent is so important in those early reading years.
Love how you broke things down! I love your narration journals!
Thank you so much for taking the time to put this video together. All of the information you offered was so helpful. I also really liked the curriculum suggestions you mentioned and may give them a try this year. The tip about dictation was phenomenal. My kids (4 to 8) love to tell stories all the time but when it comes to writing them down they get lost in the spelling and function that it takes away from the experience. I am going to use the typing suggestion for sure. What we did prior was they would draw a picture in relation to what we read, but again I love the dictation idea. Thank you very much!
You are very welcome, and thank you for your kind words! I really hope this helps your kiddos :) Thanks for sharing!
Aww I love that Spiderman was able to attend class that day😂❤
😆
This video is SO helpful and exactly what I needed to see. We are heading into a different phase with ELA, as my oldest is now no longer learning to read, but reading to learn. So we are focusing more on composition and spelling and grammar and it all feels new and overwhelming still! But these tips were helpful. Thank you!
This is great and going to be so helpful for those planning their Language Arts.
Thanks, Ashlea! 🥰
Thank you for your video. I have many ideas to try with my 2nd/3rd grader. Happy homeschooling ❤❤
You are so welcome! Happy Homeschooling to you!
I love the idea of taking the long view and not panicking especially when I have all dyslexic kids!!! We do Songwriting!!! We do spelling together one on one!!! We don’t do it daily!!! Idk how long my kids read but I know they go over their time!!! We use our together time and gather round to listen to them read as we do a lesson and we split the reading up!!! Until we adopted we only did phonics weekly or not as often as long as we did it. We do it daily with our 4 year old but sometimes she does it thru a video!!! We don’t do writing daily!!! We do creative writing but no curriculum!!! We writing orally and we write it sometimes!!!
Awesome!! It sounds like we have a lot in common 😃😃😃😍
I’d love to see a video like this on math also
Oh, I wish I could help with that, but math is not my wheelhouse 😬 There is a good video by Summer Meyers that is similar to this! Let me find it!
Here! Watch this video: ruclips.net/video/ch0TgNLIPYM/видео.html
@@JoyfulNoiseLiving thank you i watched it !
Thanks for this video! There are so many parts to LA and so far I haven't liked the All in one curriculums so this is a very helpful video trying to figure out how to piece stuff together.
So glad I could be of help! 🌸🌸🌸
The Little House series was our language arts curriculum last year. My kids retained more than any other year. This year we will be using Farmer Boy as our science and history book for the majority of the year along with a small vegitable garden we will be digging, shaping, tilling, fertilizing, planting, and harvesting throughout the year. Homeschool truly is all about growing our kids into good, strong, God fearing people who can go out into the world and care for His children.
YES! Love this! We did that with the Peaceful Press' "Playful Pioneers" when my kids were little.
So many great tips Ashley! Love hearing how you guys do Language Arts in your home.
Thanks again for sharing with me, Megan! 💖
Awesome video! I’d love a list of these time blocks ,if you ever get time -this is a great framework. Just a reminder for me cause I’ll forget lol.
Lol! Okay, I’ll try to make a visual example of this!
@@JoyfulNoiseLiving I watched again and took notes this time. I like the idea of 45 min for this 20 min for this etc. very helpful
This video is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.
You are SO welcome! I made it just for you!! 😄
so informative! I do narration with my 3rd grader too. He tells me, I write it down, and he is trying to type it.. work in process.
Yes, definitely a work in progress. 👏🏻👏🏻
This was such a great video! Love your videos! Thank you!
Great tip regarding the dictation... I might do that!
This is great. I'd like a list of the resources you mentioned
This was such a helpful video! Thank you so much for taking the time to break everything down so nicely. :)
So glad I could be of help 😃😃
This video was so very helpful! Thank you!
No problem! Glad I could be of service 😃
Where do I find those cute little grammar jingles? I love that!
I got them from First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind!
amzn.to/4ahHRG1
I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said. I have an eight year old son who I have not pushed grammar or writing with, and he has just naturally learnt to write. He has written books with cute interesting characters. I have only just started getting him to do some handwriting practice. I love Rod and Staff, I think it doesn't get enough attention or recognition, and everyone talks about the 'new' curriculums, you should do a video on R & S spelling :) I have been considering starting the grade 2 book with my son because I used it for my two older children and already have the teacher books (not that you really need them) but I do like how simple and easy it is. Is there a reason why you don't do their spelling in the younger grades? just curious :) But I am also considering the 'All about reading', he is an avid reader, but I do think he needs some phonics as I was slack and didn't do much of that with him, is 'All about reading' only for children who are learning to read? or do you think it's not too late to do phonics if you feel they need it? I have also contemplated getting the 'Learning Language Arts Through Literature' which is another Charlotte Mason inspired curriculum that teaches all the language arts through literature; but then I think it's going to be too heavy for my son. He reads lots of good quality literature and I am not ready to impose a lot of grammar onto him just yet. I like having different things for the different parts of language arts, and I will often make a lot of stuff up through the literature we are reading, similar to what you are doing. I love your style. Thanks for the video. :)
Wow! I have 4 kids and I am SO overwhelmed by language arts because there is so much. All about reading I don't know how to set up the letters.
There is so much for Language Arts 😔 I still get overwhelmed with it all! Try to keep it simple and don't do everything every day! I will share soon how I break it down weekly for all my kiddos. All About Reading should have instructions for how to set up the tiles in the beginning of the Teachers Guide. Hopefully you can find it and figure it out 😊
Thanks so much for all your videos! I am discovering more and more that I am more of a CM teacher than I was when I began homeschooling almost 4 years ago... what do you use for handwriting for your kiddos? My now 1st grader needs lots of practice and my 2nd grader will be learning cursive next year. He has really good manuscript.
My youngest is on Grade 1 Zaner Bloser, and my middle son is doing A Reason for Handwriting for cursive. My oldest just does copy work :)
This was super helpful and encouraging!
Glad I could be of help! 🌸
Great video! What are your thoughts on cursive writing?? Do you feel like it makes a difference in either grow in their education?
I actually want my kids to learn it, so they can read it! Especially if they read cards or letters from older family members or friends who only write in cursive. I think as far as affecting their education as a whole, I think it’s minimal. We live in a culture where it’s the norm to type now, so cursive isn’t as important 💜🌸
At what age do you think is good to introduce cursive?
@@ashleyruedy8670 I think 3rd grade is a good time to introduce it! Most kids have a good baseline of print/manuscript around then. I know some families start with cursive, actually, but we just do 3rd Grade.
Cursive is still very much alive and kicking. Look around at logos and home decor for easy examples.
Hello Ashley, do you do any type of literature analysis? Teaching genre, plot, etc. Trying to figure out 3rd grade language arts for next year.
Ok, how do you keep up with all that? 😂 It was wonderful advice and I absolutely love your approach to LA, but is it as parent-led and intense as it sounds? And how do you do record keeping? I’m not great at it, but I’d love to be better. Any tips there?
I am TERRIBLE at record keeping! Thankfully I don't care too much to keep detailed records, plus my state I live in is pretty relaxed at this point for homeschool. It's more parent led at the beginning as I show everyone how to do their lessons, but then as they know how to do their independent work after a week or two, it's a little less hands on for me. My littles (3rd grade and under) are always pretty parent led. I don't prefer my kids to do video instruction until 5th grade or so. Kids in early elementary need more direct instruction, but we do "short lessons," so no more than 10-20 minutes per kid for each part of language arts.
Thank you for breaking this down. I'm trying to start a plan for next year, my 4th grader. How do you combine AAR & TGTB LA?
Our focus currently is our reading & spelling daily. MFW LA a couple times a week.
To combine AAR and TGTB I rotate lessons. Like Mon I do TGTB, then Tues I do AAR. SOMETIMES the TGTB lesson is short, so I do both in one day if we have extra time. I also skip some of the lessons if I think he doesn’t need it, so I’m not doing every single lesson in each book.
What language arts curriculum/workbooks do you use for your third grader? Thank you.
i love seeing your 6 year old in the spiderman costume.... this would by my two boys 8 and 6 daily lol
😆🤣 that was them daily right after Christmas ☺️
Did you post a video on brave writer? What you liked and did not? I am considering incorporating this next year and wanted to know how/ why you seem to have stopped using it. Or maybe you have not??
Hey, Erica! I actually never did a video on how I do Bravewriter... I was not very consistent with it. I did REALLY like the principals and I basically just use the principals now within what ever I use. I used Some of the writing projects and literature guides and enjoyed them. :)
My 3rd grader is struggling to remember his lessons so I find myself reteaching things to him.. we spend a lot of time doing this. Please provide some tips on that if you can .
That's a great question... are you teaching him things that he's not ready for maybe? Also this would be a good time to work on his attention skills. There's lots of great ways to do that!
I notice my child needs to work on writing and spelling. Do you think Fix It Grammar and IEW together are enough to help with the spelling? I need minimal things to check off. Those are what I was thinking to try this next year. She'll be in 5th grade.
I know EXACTLY what you mean about needing minimal things to check off. I'm not sure if those would be enough when it comes to spelling. Is there a way to get something for her that she can do independently? I've been using Rod and Staff spelling, and my 5th grader did that independently this year. But you could probably squeeze in spelling practice with IEW writing lessons.... as you edit her papers and find misspelled words, have her practice those and fix them (without spell check ;) )
I am so confused about IEW. Did you do the Structure and Style Course first before the theme based writing units? Their website seems to suggest that is the way it should be done. I am considering for next year for a 3rd and 5th grader. Thanks!
I’m sorry I confused you 😬 I made the choice to not do Structure and Style first since I already had the theme based writing units I got used for a good deal. I was also an English teacher before, so I didn’t feel like I directly needed to do Structure and Style with her first in order to be able to go through the theme based unit with her. (They are very similar!) but if you have never done IEW, I recommend following what they recommend! I will most likely be doing the basic intro to Structure and Style with my up-coming 4th Grader next year 👍🏻
I have been so encouraged and helped by your videos, Ashley! Re: the part when your boys recited what a verb is (with hand motions), did you make that up or do you have a resource for that? Thank you!
Hi, Kara! Sorry for the delayed response. 😬 That verb phrase is from First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind. I loved using it with all three of my kiddos!
@@JoyfulNoiseLiving Wonderful, thank you so much!
I was looking into doing IEW, but it is quite expensive to have to do the teacher training or the online structure and style. Do you have to do the training, or can you just use the books?
Well, if you use the streaming lessons, you don't have to do the teacher training, if you are able to follow the instructions in the teacher's manual for how to grade the papers. Also, if you are already strong in language arts and writing, it's pretty intuitive. But if you struggle yourself with language arts or writing, then I recommend the training. Or if you are teaching it yourself and not using the streaming videos. It took me a while to jump in because of the price, but I am happy I did!
What is the sight word book your 6 year old uses? You mentioned it around the 5 min mark
It’s Channie’s sight word book!
amzn.to/3qKjmfA
Where did you get the verb rhyme with actions? Is there one for each of the eight parts of speech?
It was in First Language Lessons! We made up the actions ourselves ☺️ You are welcome to borrow them!
@@JoyfulNoiseLiving you should do a video with your kids doing the actions and saying the poems with the different parts of speech. That would be awesome!
I love poetry but we don't do it. We just don't have enough time.😃
I just don't understand all these homeschooling videos here on RUclips. My husband and I try our best not to complicate things when it comes to homeschool. Most children rather play instead of homeschooling anyway. All these RUclipsrs every year are changing up their children's curriculum saying this didn't work and that didn't work, but when I look up the curriculum they don't use the curriculum to it's full potential. This is messing up their children's education because every curriculum teaches concepts differently in Math and English Language Arts. This creates gaps in children's education. Homeschooling is not for lazy parents taking content out of curriculums. That's probably why it doesn't work. Parents have to be 100% committed or just let the schools do the teaching. This is the reason why some states have high restrictions against parents that choose to homeschool. We don't mind it though. We do educate our children. People stop changing curriculum every year. Geesh... Just my opinion.
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I appreciate your thoughts! Thanks for reminding us that we have to be committed. And if you'd watch more of my videos, you'd notice that I have been working on my consistency.☺️ I have definitely switched curriculum in some areas, in others I've found what's work and stuck with it! I disagree that you if you change curricula it will mess up the kids. I do think sometimes there are things that are just not working. But also, there is no perfect curriculum! Thanks for challenging homeschoolers to stick with it! I did make this specific video for people who may have wanted to not use The Good and The Beautiful any more and wanted to move to using other things for ELA.
Why do you do two la curriculums with your six year old ?? Do you not think tgtb is enough??
I don’t use TGTB any more for my kids right now. I decided to not use it, but didn’t make a video about that change yet 😬 This is a video explaining
how you fit together Language Arts if you DON’T use an all-in-one curriculum like TGTB. I thought there were some moms who could benefit from this method in case they wanted to move away from TGTB as well 😊 I liked TGTB for Pre-K through 1st, but I don’t prefer it after that.
@@JoyfulNoiseLiving ok :) thank you for responding:)