Primary Level (age 7-11, Key Stage 2)
From about the age of seven onwards, teaching becomes a bit more formal, though there's still plenty of room to follow interests and allow for creativity and imagination. If you've focussed on the 3 R's, now's the time to expand the repertoire a little and give your child a chance to practice and develop his skills of reading, writing and reasoning.
At seven, you can introduce a simple programme for history, geography and science, either studying these once each per week, perhaps in the afternoon, or even dedicating one whole week per term to each if you don't want to commit to daily or weekly lessons. For example, you could have a history week in which you all study the same period at the various levels of your children, perhaps ending with a visit to a relevant site of historical interest or a museum; a geography week might consist of some basic map reading skills and then a field trip to map out a part of the local area; likewise, in one week you could cover a considerable portion of the whole science curriculum for, say, materials (in autumn term), forces (in winter/spring) and life processes (in the summer term when everyone wants to be outside). With this approach, you might devote three or four weeks out of a 12 week term to these subjects, giving everyone a break from the daily grind of grammar, maths and catechism. At this age you can be extremely flexible and work all these subjects around your family's needs.
Many parents, on finding out what the National Curriculum consists of, will be pleasantly surprised as to how much of the Key Stage 1 material they have already covered by the time their child is seven, without their even having been aware of it. Even throughout Key Stage 2, up to 11, much of what is taught is common knowledge and can be gleaned from any decent age-appropriate book on the given subject.
From about the age of seven onwards, teaching becomes a bit more formal, though there's still plenty of room to follow interests and allow for creativity and imagination. If you've focussed on the 3 R's, now's the time to expand the repertoire a little and give your child a chance to practice and develop his skills of reading, writing and reasoning.
At seven, you can introduce a simple programme for history, geography and science, either studying these once each per week, perhaps in the afternoon, or even dedicating one whole week per term to each if you don't want to commit to daily or weekly lessons. For example, you could have a history week in which you all study the same period at the various levels of your children, perhaps ending with a visit to a relevant site of historical interest or a museum; a geography week might consist of some basic map reading skills and then a field trip to map out a part of the local area; likewise, in one week you could cover a considerable portion of the whole science curriculum for, say, materials (in autumn term), forces (in winter/spring) and life processes (in the summer term when everyone wants to be outside). With this approach, you might devote three or four weeks out of a 12 week term to these subjects, giving everyone a break from the daily grind of grammar, maths and catechism. At this age you can be extremely flexible and work all these subjects around your family's needs.
Many parents, on finding out what the National Curriculum consists of, will be pleasantly surprised as to how much of the Key Stage 1 material they have already covered by the time their child is seven, without their even having been aware of it. Even throughout Key Stage 2, up to 11, much of what is taught is common knowledge and can be gleaned from any decent age-appropriate book on the given subject.