Revisiting the LA notebook...

So after reading The Three R's by Ruth Beechick and rereading the grammar stage section of The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer, I'm realizing that some things in the LA notebook are going to have to go. I was a bit ambitious and my desire is not to overload her this year. I'm working hard to find a balance between instructing and pushing.

So I have decided to take out the book review sheets. The main focus of our reading program will be fluency, but we will discuss the books orally so I can guage her comprehension. I will also be removing the vocabulary sheets. We will do vocabulary as it comes up in the read-alouds, but nothing formal. Finally I will not be expecting original works such as journal entries and alike. What remains is spelling, grammar, copywork, narrations and memory work.

I have also recieved a used Sonlight LA for easy readers (Thanks Audrey!). I'm not sure how we are going to incorporate this, but I really like what I see. I wish that Sonlight hadn't changed thier LA, I really like the older version, but I'm guessing that I am in the minority. I think that we will try using Sonlight's LA 4days(activity sheets and writing assignment) and FLL on the fifth day-doing 2-3 days at once. I think that we are just going to have to try it and see how it goes, if this is too much we will drop one of them.

The funny thing is that my handwriting hating princess saw one of the activity sheets from Sonlight's LA and asked me to explain it to her. After I did, she wanted to do it right then. She thought it would be so fun to copy sentences and then box, circle and underline. I guess we will wait and see.