In Which I Have a Revelation

You know, there are 8 years between Little Bit and Baby Bee. And I knew from the get-go that I would NOT be saving hand-me-downs for Bee from Little Bit's closet. Please! Eight years is too long. Too much to store. It would be too out of style or old or with dry rotted elastic or whatever by the time Bee got to fitting it.

(There is one exception and that's clothes that my mom sewed. We keep those.)

But this morning I realized that I have kept nearly every single homeschool item we have ever owned. Why? Things I used with Sweetheart that I am not using with Little Bit--and who knows if I will use them with Bee--but I am keeping them because....because....why? I MIGHT want to use them? They MIGHT be a good fit for Bee when she gets into 6th grade? Do you know how far away that is?

The girls dressed up for Go Western day at co-op recently.

Just as I don't have the space to store 8 years of clothes, I certainly do not need to be keeping 8+ years of homeschool curriculum!

• But you will just have to re-buy it. What a waste of money!
• But you will regret it one day!
• What if it goes out of print and you can't find a copy anymore?
• Books don't take up THAT much room.

The thing is, S and I were reliving our first year of marriage last night with the girls at supper. We lived in a tiny one bedroom apartment. S said, "I would give anything to go back to that kind of simplicity!" Now I know he didn't mean get rid of the children. :) I remember when we moved in before the wedding. S moved everything he owned from his bedroom at home and started staying at the apartment. I was living at Mom and Dad's house but moved all my worldly possessions over one afternoon. 

It in no way filled up that apartment. Even when we added the wedding gifts! 

Bee was the only girl at library story time a while back. She doesn't mind. She plays great with boys!

I remember getting up on Saturday morning and cleaning--I mean really scrubbing--every inch of that apartment. It took less than an hour. 

Maybe we are just being nostalgic. But then I see pictures of this certain house online. I was going to post a link and in searching I happened upon a whole website devoted to complaining about this family. So....maybe there are some issues involved there and that's why their house looks so perfect. 

OK I love my family. Not trying to be some other family. But goodness. I had a friend recently put her house on the market and it sold. All this happened within about a month. From her first talking about doing it to selling it. We might could do that within six months IF we suspended all schooling and life for those 6 months. 

We aren't exactly in prime shape around here. And I have excuses reasons! 

1. We had a baby. We still haven't recovered.
2. We started going somewhere on spring break every year where I used to stay home and clean closets and paint, etc.
3. My dad was in the hospital all summer so NOTHING happened at our house. Which means it's been well over a year since I did any really good cleaning out around here. 

But I think it's OK to start cleaning off those homeschool shelves. We don't have a homeschool room anymore anyway. We just store things on those shelves. Why am I storing so many things we won't need for 8+ more years?

When Mama says, "No, you cannot have that today, but let me take a picture of it in case I decide to get it another day." And you are not happy with her response.

Tell me it's OK to get rid of homeschool stuff. Someone? Anyone? 

And if anyone gets high off of decluttering, you're invited over, OK?

In Which We Have a Forced Time Off

Honestly, if it were up to me, we would  have started school already. Or at least we would be starting this coming Monday like everyone else around here. But perhaps the Lord knew we needed some time off because we simply can't start right now.

Normally we have laid aside some money for school expenses by now. I've always been able to order what I need by this point in the year. Perhaps because Dad was in the hospital the majority of the summer, perhaps because we've had some unexpected expenses (had to buy a new car), perhaps because our electric bill has been ridiculous.....but for whatever reason we can't order everything right now. Oh, and high school curriculum is expensive!

I did sell some old curriculum on eBay. It hadn't sold on any of the homeschool sites or groups I'm a part of so I was really glad it sold. However, after eBay and Paypal take their bite out--it won't be nearly as much as I could have earned selling straight to another homeschool mom! Oh well. I'm thankful for that money, which I should be getting soon. That will enable us to get started with some subjects.

Our fine arts co-op starts back in a week. Little Bit can't wait to get back to art class!

I'm stressed about it and not really all at the same time. I would like to have everything all ready to go and not stagger the subjects in one at a time throughout the fall, but at the same time I know we just can only handle so much.

Bee has been so sad about Grandpa. Little Bit has been too. But Little Bit is also getting bored now and asking what she can do. The cousins can't come anymore because my sister is back at work. (She's a teacher). So we just wander around here cleaning, organizing, rearranging, and taking it a little bit easy.

I admit I have laid in bed and thought about all the things that need to be bought: clothes for the girls, curriculum, a new lunch cooler, a backpack for Little Bit, new beds for Little Bit and Bee, some stuff for Sweetheart's room, etc. But I am also so thankful that we have paid our bills, had groceries, and are all here together. Sure, it would be really fun to just hop in the car and go get whatever we need without giving it a second thought, but relying on the Lord is a good place to be also. We need Him. We cannot do it all ourselves.

It forces you to think about what's important. And one thing that has been bouncing around in my head is how to make our school focus different. These are not new thoughts, but refined ones? Yes. I was really struggling to find a science curriculum for Sweetheart. Also geography. When it all came together I chose a Christian based biology curriculum and a geography curriculum that focuses on the geography in the Bible. Is there something more important I could focus on? No. I'm still dwelling on how we can study more Bible and worry less about "academics". Not that academics aren't important....it's just that I don't want grades and transcripts and credits to be all that we focus on. We only have 3 years of high school left with Sweetheart--and there is so much I want her to know about God's Word.

Book club starts next week too. Here is Little Bit last spring trying turkish delight at our Narnia book club meeting.
(She didn't care for it!)

So perhaps this forced time off is a good thing. It's giving us time to heal, de-stress from the summer, mull around important thoughts about how our homeschool year is going to look, and yes, get organized. Which is what I'm off to do now. We've rearranged our homeschool so many times that our "stuff" is everywhere. Time to get all the math stuff in one place, all the history stuff, etc.

Because all too soon, life is going to get really busy again.

My Big Summer Idea

So I think we've been doing pretty well in school this year considering our added distraction blessing this year.

We started out the school year with a 3 month old laying on the couch beside me or nursing all the way through school and now we've graduated to a card table set up in the middle of the living room every morning. She's crawling, she's pulling up, she's cruising, she's grabbing, and she's not conducive to peaceful learning.

But oh my word we love her.

Anyway, I think we've been getting a lot done in spite of it all. However, there are several subjects that have been neglected. All I can think to do is hit them in the summer, because our days are maxed out.

One of those subjects is language arts. Now that's a pretty big term. That can include handwriting, reading, spelling, grammar, English, literature, writing, etc. Of course we are hitting some of that each day, but not all.

So I'm thinking of having a little "Language Arts Boot Camp" this summer. What that would look like is 30-45 minutes a day (four days a week) of instruction (each girl on her level) with a little practice thrown in in several ways.

I'm still thinking through it all.

But I think that a small amount each day of focused instruction, rather than squeezed in hurried bits and pieces each week, may be more effective.

Now to just think of fun ways to do it all. And what curriculum I may want to use. And what my goals are.

Hmm.

Good thing I love planning!

Our Curriculum Choices 2012-2013

This week is Curriculum Week! The whole Not Back to School Bloghop is a blast and satisfies my inner nosiness curiosity and allows me to poke around in other people's homeschools! Pure bliss, I tell you.



I'm kind of sad everything is decided! I LOVE researching curriculum and planning, etc. Totally one of my favorite times of the year....the school supplies, fresh notebooks, a new start...I just love it!

And I am excited about this new school year. I snoozed through a lot of last year with my pregnancy and we certainly didn't get as much done as I had planned. I know this year will be very different with a baby, but I am excited anyway!

Our girls are 12 (entering 7th grade) and 8 (entering 3rd grade). Here are our choices for the year:

Science

This will be our last year to do science together. We will be using this

I will not be using the notebooking journals this year. They stress me out and make me feel like we have to fill in every blank. We will be doing science with a friend from our old church who will be experiencing her first year of homeschooling her daughter, niece, and nephew. We have been blessed to do science with a different family every year. It's always nice to do the fun stuff with some friends!

Spelling

No changes here. I am a firm, 100% sold believer in All About Spelling. I'm an affiliate too, so if you need to order, please click here!) We will just pick up where we left off last year and then move on to the next level.

Handwriting

Well, Sweetheart has completed all the Handwriting Without Tears books, so its time to move on. I am going to expect all written work to be done in cursive this year. That should give her enough practice. So instead, she will spend her time with Ms. Mavis.

She's very excited!

Little Bit is not ready for cursive, so I'm going to use our Handwriting Without Tears paper for copywork. She will need to practice every day, but it won't be much.

Math

Sweetheart will be continuing with Teaching Textbooks. We stepped all the way back to 5th grade level to pick up the lessons on fractions and decimals since she had never done those topics. (We bought the 5th grade stuff used) Well, it turned out the entire 5th grade package was a GREAT review for her and her math skills have really increased since she's been going through it. So I plan to have her finish that (she's been working on it this summer) and then start the 6th grade level. I know that still puts her behind, but I think we can get caught up by next school year. We should need to purchase the 6th grade stuff in October.

This summer, Little Bit and I began using Horizons Math and we LOVE it. It is such a good fit for her. She is also off level (and Horizons is about a grade level above anyway), but learning is more important than the number on the book, right? I am excited that we are finally making progress and moving forward! And so far I REALLY like the lesson in the teacher's book for Horizons. So glad I bought the teacher's books! (used) A lot of reviewers I read said they didn't feel they needed the teacher's books for such a low level but Little Bit is REALLY responding to all the hands-on acitities and repetition. It is just working! Hoping we fly through these books and move on to the next level this school year as well.

The theme of this year, in case you hadn't noticed, is "catching up!" That pregnancy really threw my plans for a loop!

But just look at the sweet result:

So we have to work harder this year to get caught up? It was worth it. :)

Everything Else
Bible, Reading, History, Geography, Language Arts....

...will all be covered with Sonlight. This year Sweetheart will be doing Core F, which focuses on the Eastern Hemisphere.

And Little Bit will be doing Core B, which covers World History from Creation to the fall of the Roman Empire.

This is the first year Sonlight's cores have included Bible and Language Arts and I am interested to try them both and see how I like them.

So that's our choices for the school year. Now I just have to get everything organized and planned. Hmm. I'm finding that hard with a 2 month old. It'll get done--just in tiny, tiny chunks of time.

Now hop on over and check out other folks' choices. You really can learn so much!

A Break From All the Seeing of the Math

Um. Wow. Last week was a big ol' blog fail! Really? Only 2 posts all week? Sigh. Third trimester. (That excuse has 3 months of staying power. Get used to it!)

Today I'd like to share our switcherooskies in the math department of late. First, some history:

1. The year we started homeschooling, Sweetheart was in 2nd grade and just home from private school. We stuck with what we knew from private school: A Beka curriculum. It worked fine that year.

2. In 3rd grade we changed a lot of things, but stuck with A Beka Arithmetic. Then, half-way through the year, it all fell apart. The book was going 100 mph and we were still back at the traffic light. Seriously. It really had less to do with A Beka being a "bad" curriculum, and more to do with Sweetheart's shaky math foundation. But whatever. I told her to throw her book away one day.

3.  I researched and purchased Math U See. I started her way back on Alpha to catch up on all that foundation that was shaking. We flew through that book happily in about 2 or 3 months and started Beta. Flew through that one too. Math U See was awesome and it was working. I was happy. Her foundation was firming up.

4. We continued Math U See all the way through last year, where we found ourselves on Delta. We needed to finish a bit of Delta at the beginning of this school year and then I planned to go on to Epsilon. But...

...something wasn't working anymore. Sweetheart was confused and frustrated and we weren't getting anywhere. Hmm.

Now. I think Math U See is wonderful. I agree with the way the program is laid out. Mr. Demme rocks. I really like the whole thing. But WHAT ON EARTH SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME could be so hard about long division? I mean, I know it isn't EASY, but sheesh! So I ran across this little tutorial online one day and had Sweetheart watch it. And POOF just like that a light bulb went off over her head and she got it. I blogged about it here (with a link to the tutorial.)

So that really got me thinking about Teaching Textbooks. I had looked at this curriculum before but dismissed it because of the price tag. Then I saw a post on the Used Curriculum Group on The Homeschool Lounge. Someone was selling TT Grade 5 for a reasonable price. I snatched it up. I've had Sweetheart working on that for the last few weeks. She's on Lesson 16 and doing GREAT. Since it is a grade level "behind" her, she should be doing great. But actually, it has been a bit of a challenge. Did she know and understand place value from Math U See? Yes. But TT presents it SO differently she really had to think and work on it. They review a lot, which I like. And I'm not teaching her, which I like too. We both needed a little break from us+math.

I have not given up on Math U See. I still like it and we might pick it back up one day. But my plan for now is for her to finish TT Grade 5 (working on it over the summer too) and then make a decision. Basically, I'm procrastinating but my child is still learning math in the meantime. WIN!

As for Little Bit...well. Math U See wasn't working for her either. Mr. Demme is big about NOT moving on until they have mastered something and we were part-way through learning the addition facts and stuck from moving on because they were NOT being committed to her memory. Where is that place you can unscrew the top of their head and just pour the knowledge in? Cause I really needed to find it. She's such a smart girl and we were stuck on stupid addition facts!!

So, last month I decided there were lots of other things she COULD be learning until we reach that magical moment when she just gets it. Because that's how she works. Just up and learned to ride without training wheels a few weeks ago. Just. Like. That. Until then, we are learning money, and place value, and time and all kinds of things. And enjoying it, by the way.

So, now that you know we were stuck on addition, you've probably surmised that we never made it to subtraction. No stress there. I KNOW how far behind we are! So this week she and I were working on the white board writing and reading bigger numbers and she started making up "word problems" for me with illustrations. We took turns doing that. You know, Alex had 4 apples and he ate 2. How many does he have now? That kind of thing.

And then Little Bit says, "OK-I have one for you Mom. (she draws this out on the board) Mike had 8 toy cars. He lost 2 of them, but then bought 3 more. How many does he have now?"

Um. Did you just make a multi-step subtraction problem? Why yes, she did. AND she totally understood how to do them as well! I shake my head at that girl. I never know what to expect.

I plan on finishing this school year Math U See Free. We shall see what next year holds. It's a good curriculum, but sometimes other things work better.

The best laid plans...

How Sonlight Works

I'm sorry for those of you who could care less about Sonlight curriculum. It's just that  friend asked me about Sonlight this weekend and I realized when I was first looking at it, I needed a lot of guidance. So, I thought a post was in order. Hope it helps someone!


I don't know why Sonlight is so confusing when you first look at it, but it is. I had Erin to guide me via e-mail and also learned a lot from googling various blog posts. I'm going to try to really easily and in plain ol' English, tell you how it works.

So Sonlight started out offering complete packages for a grade. One of the founders had lived in North Africa and knew how difficult it was to get homeschool materials. You can read the brief history here.

As time went on, as I understand it, more and more people were using Sonlight's materials, but wanted more choice. For example, maybe they really liked everything else, but wanted to use a different math curriculum. So, math was offered separately. Or, perhaps they liked everything but the Language Arts curriculum. So, LA was offered separately. Sonlight kept splitting things up (you could still get it all in a package deal if you wanted) until they got down to BIBLE, HISTORY, and READING. These three, they decided, were not workable if spit up. These three things then, make a "core."

You can still get a package deal from Sonlight with absolutely everything you need for a grade. These are the "multi-subject packages." Want simple? Just order the "Third grade package" for your 3rd grader. Simple. Easy.

But, if you like to pick and choose, you can also order things by subject. Sonlight has a LOT of choices from various homeschool companies including Teaching Textbooks, Saxon, Singapore, Horizons, Mathtacular....that's just MATH! So you can order what you want to use for math, for spelling, for science, for handwriting, etc. I ordered a lot of things we needed from Sonlight instead of directly from the various companies and many times there is a discount offered when you order through Sonlight!

But when it comes down to History and Reading....well those come together. And there is a good reason. Almost all of Sonlight's cores are based on a History theme. For example, this year Sweetheart is studying American History (Core D+E). So all these books I showed you the other day?

Those are her history books and her reading books all together. There is not a huge dividing line between history and reading in these upper cores. You read about history. You don't study history and then some other reading books that have nothing to do with the price of eggs. Your reading and your history are all based on the subject you are studying that year. In our case, American History. Even the read-alouds that I read to her are about American History. And they are SUCH GOOD BOOKS!!!

So here is how we use Sonlight. We ordered a "CORE PACKAGE." They are lettered because they don't have to pertain to any certain grade level. They give some guidelines such as Core D+E is recommended for ages 9-12 or grades 4-7. They say they often run a bit on the harder side, so I chose this core as Sweetheart is 12 and in 6th grade. She's at the upper end of the recommended ages/grades and that is making it just right to easy for her this year. If you have a very advanced 9 year old/4th grader, they might find this core just right.   It's up to the parent.

Then, we did the "pick and choose" method for the other subjects. Math? We did not order from Sonlight. Science? We did not order from Sonlight. Handwriting? Sonlight offered what we already used and at a discount, so we ordered it. Language Arts? We did not order from Sonlight. Spelling? Sonlight offered what we already used, so we ordered it. See? You can customize your order for you.

Whatever you choose to buy from Sonlight--whether a complete package, or just a core, or just individual subjects--comes to you in a box all together and ready to go.

I didn't tell you about Bible. Since many non-religious homeschoolers also wanted to use Sonlight, the Bible curriculum is not automatically included in your core. But it is automatically included in your Instructor's Guide. And one of the books for our core goes along with the History and Reading. It is called The American Indian Prayer Guide.  But I chose not to purchase the other things for Bible. We just use the prayer guide, and a Bible. The assigned readings for both of these are included in the Instructor's Guide.

Speaking of the Instructor's Guides....wow! They rock. No need for me to try to explain these any better than Heather at OMSH did already. Here is her post (and this just about sold me on Sonlight!)

You get a LOT for your money. A lot of materials. A lot of pre-thought out organization. A lot of now-I-don't-have-to-do-everything. I try to read ahead of Sweetheart, but if I don't, there are questions and answers for me in the Instructor's Guide so we can still have an intelligent conversation about what she has read. I can literally wake up on Monday morning, give each child their new assignment sheet, and get to work. And I've already told you about the independence it is fostering in my daughter.



By the way, Sonlight is still available for overseas families AND they offer discounts for missionary families. I like that.

Sonlight--How's That Working For You? (Part 3)

The Tweaks

I'm sure somewhere there is a homeschool family who uses their curriculum exactly as prescribed. But i haven't personally met them. We all take the good and the great (and a lot of times, the free and the borrowed!) and then use it in a way that best suits our family. And you usually can't tell how you will change something until you've used it for awhile.

Well, there isn't much to change with Sonlight for me. But there are a few things.

Bible

First of all, there was Bible. For 2 years now, we had been using this:

But with the daunting newness of our big new curriculum coming, and considering that Bible was already written in to this curriculum, I decided not to order our next book from Bible Study Guides. I didn't want to make our day any longer or overwhelm anyone. Myself included.

So we spent the first 16 weeks of the year using only the Bible assignments from Sonlight. BUT...let me say...I didn't order all the components of their Bible program so that is probably part of the reason why our Bible time just didn't seem like enough to me. Maybe if we had used their full program, it would have.

Whatever the reason, I felt something was missing. I realized that Bible is more important than anything else we do during our day and its worth the time to do it well. (I already knew that!) So when we started back this week, we also started back with our old Bible curriculum. We've missed it. The girls love it. AND...it's something we can all do together. A great way to start the day.

We are still doing the Bible reading from each girls' Sonlight program as well.

The Days

The only other thing I'm going to tweak, and this will have to wait until next year, is I'm going to go with the 4-day a week option next year. With Sonlight, you can purchase a 5-day curriculum or a 4-day one. We didn't have a choice this year as the condensed American History core already crams 2 years into 1 and that is why the 4-day is not an option with this core. But next year, both girls will be working on a 4-day core. That will free up our Fridays (or Mondays) to work on science, relax, get caught up, do projects, etc. I think it will give  us the breather we need.

That's it! Other than that, I am really pleased with our curriculum.

Math Change Coming!


Now, (this has nothing to do with Sonlight) but I found a Teaching Textbooks used on The Homeschool Lounge the other day and snapped it up. You know I have been thinking about switching to TT for Sweetheart ever since this day  back in November.  I LOVE Math U See and believe in it. I think their way of doing things works! I also feel loyal to Mr. Demme because he has brought us SO far! But when something stops working well for your child, (sigh), it's time to try something else. We will still be using MUS for Little Bit. And this TT is just a trial run. I bought the 5th grade level and I'm going to let her spend this spring and probably the summer too working through it. That should let me know if it's good fit and if I should order it for next year. I decided on the 5th grade because 1. it was for sale :) and 2. she hasn't covered fractions or decimals with MUS yet so I wanted to step back to a level that covered those for her. I'll let you know how it goes!

Anyone else make some changes mid-year? Man, I love homeschooling. When something isn't working for your child in public or even private school you just have to suck it up and make it through and hope for a better year next year. Not so with us!

Sonlight--How's That Working For You? (Part 2)

In Part 1, I shared that even though I was still loving homeschooling, we had run across two problems.

1. My 12 year old wasn't independent with her day, and it wasn't her fault!
2. I needed to be able to spend more time with my (then) 7 year old.

So, has Sonlight helped us meet those goals?

YES!

Sweetheart with her shipment of books for the year. 

Here is how Sonlight has helped us, as opposed to the other curriculum we were using before.

First of all, Sweetheart (12) starts her day here:

Play-Doh optional.

In her room, at her desk, she is able to accomplish a lot right away without my help. Here she does handwriting, Bible reading, reading, a math practice sheet, a history lesson, and sometimes part of her writing assignment. ALL in the first hour or so of school and ALL independently. Now, at the beginning of the year there was a lot of coming to ask me questions, which I had prepared myself for. That has gone away. Also, in the beginning she would beg to come sit at the table with Little Bit and me but I only allowed it a few times. We all worked better separated for the first hour. She adjusted quickly and this part of the day flows now. It's nice to get so much done so soon.

So while Sweetheart is in her room working, Little Bit and I use our time to work on her reading lessons. I am pleased to say she is now a real-live, full-fledged reader. That was one reason I protected our first hour of  school (i.e. kicked Sweetheart out of the room). Little Bit needed to be able to work with me on this. We still spend that first hour reading, but now....she reads to me!

Little Bit and I also do Bible, read-aloud, and history during this time. Then she gets a play break while Sweetheart comes to me for narration on everything she has read that morning.

So right there, in our first hour of school, BOTH of my homeschooling problems have been solved!

There is another thing Sonlight has accomplished which I would not have classified as a problem actually. I never had a real plan for Sweetheart in reading. She reads so much we have to practically slap the book out of her hand to get her attention. We joke about who would be responsible for going to get her should the house catch on fire because she's sure to not notice.

So I have never worried much about "assigning" books to her to read. But since Sonlight comes with nice little ready-made, well-thought-out assignment sheets, she has been reading some GREAT books! This comes at a super time in her life. The better a reader your child becomes and the more they out-grow the "younger kid books", the more problems you run into! The content of many books in the juvenile section of the library is questionable. I can't tell you how many books I've picked up that deal with messy divorces, or eating disorders, or other things that my daughter doesn't deal with or need to worry about. Let's not even get into the dating, boys, or the really sick vampire love genre, OK?

Sonlight offers us good literature that teaches history at the same time. Does that mean there is nothing controversial? Of course not, but honestly we haven't come across anything that shocked me or that we couldn't discuss together. We have loved the read-alouds so much that we often can be found reading ahead just because we can't stand to wait! (And she has caught me reading ahead too!) And that sitting on the couch together and reading thing is WAY better than sitting at the table all the time. Which is why I'm glad we got rid of the homeschool room. My pregnant body agrees the couch is better too. :)

Little Bit has a few things she does on her own each day. 

Now, I only ordered the "core" from Sonlight. Our writing, math, handwriting, spelling and science are not "Sonlight" curriculum. (Although they do sell some of what we are using and I ordered some of it from them.) So we still have that part of our day that we do pretty much like we always have. But that's OK because our morning starts off with those first steps of independence I was looking for. I know as we progress through the junior high and high school grades, she will become more and more independent. And honestly I'm not looking to ever be done teaching her until she graduates. I know that seems to be some homeschool parents' goal, but it isn't mine.

So yes, it's working for us very nicely!

Next time: The Tweaks (there are always tweaks)

Sonlight--How's That Working For You? (Part 1)

This is our first year using Sonlight as our "main" curriculum. I pored over the catalog for several years, but always set it aside with a "yeah, right....like THAT'S going to happen" sigh and went on about my business. It just seemed so neat and easy. It seemed like using it would give us a level of safety--at least I would KNOW certain things were being covered. Other people have thought it out before me. I don't have to come up with everything...

What happened to get us finally trying Sonlight was we got ahead of our history curriculum. I had been using The Mystery of History (very happily!) and finished level 3 last year.

Making Viking ships for Mystery of History...lots of fun stuff !

Only....level 4 wasn't finished being written yet. Written. Or edited. Or published. Which means it ain't gonna be ready any time soon. So, what to do? Well, the author suggested taking a year to study American history, which isn't covered in her world history curriculum. So that sounded like a good idea. And I knew Sonlight had an American History year (or 2) in their mix. So I really started looking at it. Could I piece it together? Could I use their booklist? Could I make my own like Carrie? Or steal all her ideas?

There was also another issue--Sweetheart was going to be starting 6th grade. I had realized a problem with our homeschool over the last year. The problem was in my curriculum choices: the sun rose and set with ME. Bible? Required me to read to them while they worked in their booklets. History? Required me to read aloud to them and they would made the timeline figure to go with the lesson. Science? Required me to read aloud to them and then direct the proper activity and journal page. Spelling? Required my teaching--on 2 different levels. Math? Required me to watch the DVD (on 2 different levels) with them and make sure they understood the lesson and sit with them while they worked through the problems.

But handwriting they could do on their own, so there was always that.

I enjoyed all these curriculum choices AND I really did enjoy all the time gathered around the table with my girls. I have great memories of those days. But there were problems after a while.

Working at the table together--many years ago!

1. Sweetheart was going to be turning 12, and starting middle school, and she did nothing independently during her day. When do I start handing the reins over? And how can I with these curriculum choices?

2. Little Bit needed more of my teaching and attention. She was still learning to read and was getting "behind" on things. Sweetheart had most of my attention in her 2nd grade year. How was Little Bit going to have my attention for what she needed when I was so......needed all the time? By everyone.

I finally talked with S about it and he listened to all my myriad of reasons and then said, "How much?" I gulped and told him. Without hesitation he said, "Get it."

WHAT? Just like that. He said it sounded good and was not too much money to spend on our daughter's education. I agree, by the way. And we would certainly be paying far more for private school. But...but..but...I'm just so frugal. I can't help it. It pains me to buy any curriculum brand new. Homeschooling can truly be done on a shoestring budget and I was one of those who liked to do that. I was PROUD of that, even. Just how much can I save? It was like a challenge and a hunt every year.

So I bit the bullet and bought Sweetheart the 2-years-condensed-into-one American History core from Sonlight. Just to try, mind you. And then we could go back to what we had been doing if Level 4 of MOH was ready by then, right? It was just to fill in the gap for this year. And OK if we liked it, I was totally going to stay with it. 

Little Bit also got Core A from Sonlight just so she would have something planned and with some type of theme instead of completely random like Sweetheart's 2nd grade year. (Our first year homeschooling)  Ha! But as you can see, she only got a few sad little boxes from Amazon to open because I totally borrowed, begged, and gathered her core. I mean, no one is going to use it after her so....well, that was before I was pregnant, OK?

Next time....how it's working for us so far!

The First Week

...has gone pretty good! It hasn't taken all that long because we are only reviewing in spelling and math. So, it has been somewhat easy on us this first week back. I am in love with our curriculum choices still, and can't wait to get everything ready for next week.

And in other news:

• I'm trying to decide about some piano lessons that are sort of far away, but affordable. The teacher is a mom from our homeschool room, but not exactly someone I know. So...I would need to wait there at her house during the lessons. Need to go meet this mom and make a decision about that soon. I really want Sweetheart to continue piano. 
• Little Bit is loving Sonlight. I chose an easy core for her as we mostly just need to focus on reading and math this year. So, her Sonlight doesn't take up too much time. But The Boxcar Children? She is LOVING. (Turns out she doesn't remember it from a few years ago when we read it.) We are making a diorama to go along with the story and her imagination is absolutely on fire about this project. We started painting some peg people for the characters today:

Henry, Jessie, Violet, & Benny

And here is the boxcar we covered:

And our attempt at making "pine needle beds" that will not be so messy. We'll see if our idea works. 

Big blobs of glue on wax paper...hoping they will peel off when dry.

• Sweetheart is enjoying her independence in school. I was hoping she would. Math discouraged both of us today but we shall plod on. Maybe her summer brain hasn't completely woken up? In everything else, she is rockin' it. 

Working under her loft...

• Scripture memorizing is harder than I thought! Scripture memory is built into their curriculum so I finally....finally implemented the system I have been planning to implement for 2 years. Well, Little Bit got her verse down in 2 days but Sweetheart is having a harder time. Perhaps this is related to how long it took her to memorize math facts? Hmm...But again, we will not give up!

This girl LOVES writing time!

• I'm excited about sharing some school stuff with friends this year. Carrie and I will be meeting every other week to do Physics together and I'm hoping to share some Zoology field trips with some other friends. Yes, we are doing 2 sciences this year---call me crazy!
• Been keeping up with the house OK-not great, but OK. I'm glad to be back on school schedule again. And starting earlier makes the day so much longer and I feel like I do have time to do other things besides school. 
• I love Pinterest. I think I have only begun to scratch the surface of it's usefulness!

How has your week been?

Everything New is New Again

So this is our first year with a new curriculum.  ANY new curriculum offers a bit of hesitation on our parts as Mom/Teacher, right? For the most part, I am completely excited about using Sonlight this year, but I do have some concerns.

Actually, they aren't even all about the curriculum but just the year in general. When you teach public school, the only thing that really changes each year is the class. Will I get a good class or a class from...? It goes in cycles and you KNOW when you are due one of THOSE classes. But your room, the curriculum, the furniture, how you set up your calendar, your lesson plans, your routines, they don't change a whole lot from year to year. If you stick with one grade long enough, you can get your room set up in no time. It's just a new group of kiddos coming through your already established classroom.

Sweetheart ready for 1st grade at our church's school. 

But with homeschooling? Practically everything changes! My students are the same this year (some of you may be adding new little ones to the mix), but they are one year older. They are in new grades. And even though we are now at a repeating stage--Little Bit is in 2nd grade which is where I started homeschooling Sweetheart--I'm not doing anything the same way so it's like a completely different grade anyway. This year the only thing staying the same is our classroom. (Rearranged, of course!)


The last few years we stuck with the same curriculum for the most part so we had settled into a comfortable routine of how to do things. Leave it to me to mess that all up!

The incoming 6th grader--5 years later!

Sweetheart will be in 6th grade and will soon turn 12 years old. I need her to be more independent as this really needs to be The Year Little Bit Gets Caught Up On Some Things. I need to focus a lot on Little Bit's reading and math and for that to occur, Sweetheart needs to be way more independent. She isn't one of those naturally independent kiddos.

For example, when she was 3 and I was pregnant with Little Bit, Sweetheart would need to go potty or wash her hands or something, but couldn't reach the light. She would call for help and I would have to scramble my big self up from the couch to get the light on for her in time. I had to actually teach her how to get the stool and reach the light herself. But Little Bit? Girlfriend was hauling that stool around the house as soon as she could walk getting into everything. I remember telling Sweetheart she was old enough to get dressed by herself. Little Bit took over that job right quick as soon as she was able. Sweetheart has always just needed a little more prodding. This year is no different.

Little Bit---otherwise known as Trouble!

And the schedule? Yikes. How to find time to work with each girl, fit in all the subjects, and navigate around curriculum choices that DO involve me? Well, here's is what I like to call Attempt #1.

2nd grade on the left, 6th grade on the right

 I just stuck them on with sticky tac so they are totally movable. I love that. Now I can rearrange at will and they line up horizontally. What I mean is, I can see what one girl is doing while the other one is doing math or whatever. That way I can make sure not to schedule myself to be in 2 places at once.

A most helpful tip for any new homeschoolers! (And I have a break too, it just isn't reflected on their schedule cards.)

The little pictures indicate "work with mom" or "independent work." 

We are just going to stick with review work for Math and Spelling the first week. That won't take so long and  will just help us get used to the order of things before we start new lessons in everything.

So...it's a new year. With a new schedule. New curriculum. New grade levels. New expectations.

But the same reasons that homeschooling and figuring all this out each year is important.

Reason #1:

and Reason #2:

It Begins! (Our First Box Day)

Saturday at exactly noon (while I was on the phone to a company trying to get a refund), the doorbell rang.

It was our Sonlight order! (I was so bummed I was on the phone when it came!)

Now this order was mostly Sweetheart's stuff. She's studying core D+E this year (American History). Little Bit knew she had a handwriting book in the big box, but I also saved one of her Amazon orders for her to open. Looks kind of pitiful in the pictures but she was happy.

They both helped unpack it all. I couldn't believe how many things came out of that box. It was like a clown car.

Sweetheart was excited, but also a bit like, "wow." It is a LOT of books!

So then we got Little Bit's books off the shelf (She's doing core A this year and we've been collecting them used and borrowed for several weeks) and she wanted me to read over the packing slip for HER stuff too. Just like I had done for Sissy's. Except...there actually isn't a packing slip for all this. But I did have the two Amazon packing slips with about 7 books listed on them so I read those off and then continued to hold the packing slips very importantly while peeking at the pile to call off titles for her to find. She was happy.

But, this was funny...

We have rabbits you know. Well, one rabbit now that Snuggles died. Rabbits are a bit like cats in that they will actually use a litter box. Our outdoor rabbits have always lived in a little rabbit house outside and they just naturally picked a corner of the house for their, um, litter box. We have always called it "poo corner." As in, "Be careful, don't step in poo corner!" or "Just sweep all that extra hay into poo corner."

So now that you know that, you will understand why Little Bit yelled "EWWW!" when I read off the title of one of her books:

Ha! I cracked up! She was relieved to know it was just Winnie the Pooh and not the other kind.

I was very excited and I've already arranged my binder and read the first 2 of Sweetheart's books. But I do have some concerns. I'll share more about those tomorrow. Overall, we are very excited about the new school year (which starts in 2 weeks! ACK!)

Now I'm going to sit back and wait for Luke's comment. He magically finds all Box Day posts! :)

On the Lookout for Planning Posts!

Oh I just love reading everyone's curriculum choice posts! It is fun to me to see what everyone else chooses for their children. I know there are several link ups for these posts around the web. If you know of one.....tell me about it in the comments, would 'ya? I'd like to visit and join a few.

I just wanted to let you know, dearest readers, that I edited my curriculum choice post. I have changed my mind about a few things and wanted to let you know. Before I link up with any lists, I'll probably just delete those things I am not going to be using. For now, I just crossed them off.

Changing our mind is part of the fun, right? Oh we are so blessed with all the choices we have! And the freedom! I cannot forget that other parents in other countries are facing large fines and even worse if they choose to homeschool their children. Let's be diligent and plan carefully for this blessing we have.

Oh I love planning too. I love to see how others plan and organize their stuff. If you've seen any great posts about this lately...shout those out too!

Homeschool Nerd Planners Moms Unite!

Affording Your Curriculum Choices

The eternal question. First of all, let me state for the record that I firmly believe you can homeschool your children with nothing but a Bible, pencil, paper, a library card, the internet, and a printer.Or some combination of those. And do a good job of it! But thankfully, we can afford to buy some curriculum.

But I can't afford to buy everything I want. Everyone's situation is different and guess what else? Every YEAR is different! But I thought I'd share how one family, who doesn't make a ton of money (and what homeschooling family does?) but can afford to buy some stuff this year....is going to do it.

Think of it as a behind the scenes tour to that last post!

The first year we homeschooled, I still worked part-time when we ordered our curriculum. I stuck with ABeka, as Sweetheart had been using that in private school. I knew exactly 0 homeschoolers.  I drove to a local hotel where they had the curriculum set up, picked out my wares, and wrote a check for $210.00.

It has never been that simple since!

For next year, here is what we are doing:

1. Borrowing
Once you get some contacts, like a homeschool group or co-op or some friends....this one is an awesome deal! I loan, and I borrow. Homeschoolers are good like that. Here is what I'm borrowing next year:

from our old church

from a friend

from a lady in our homeschool group who has used her copy to teach 8 children to read. i feel honored to be using it.

from a friend in Georgia--the DVD and teacher book.

Plus, the Instructor's Guide for Core A of Sonlight. A friend is giving that to me. It's an old one.

2. Buying Used
Oh my word there are so many different places to do this! From local stores, to online, to curriculum sales. Ask folks in your area. There are TONS of places to find used homeschool curriculum. Even friends. The best thing I did this year was mention curriculum on Facebook! Within hours I had leads on several things I needed. I also put a request on our homeschool group's website and got some offers like that. And if a homeschooler or teacher has a garage sale---GO! Here is what I'm buying used for next year:

Actually, I already bought this, but I bought it used.

I'll look for this one used too. 

• Plus a LOT of the books from Core A for Sonlight. 

3. Make Your Own
I think this is a frugal thing, but sometimes I just cannot fork over money for something I KNOW I could do cheaper myself! Now granted, sometimes it's better to just fork over the money if your life situation means you will not have time to make the items. Here is what I'm making for next year:

We've made our own timelines for 3 years so I'm not going to purchase one from Sonlight for next year. The girls love making their own pieces so we're going to stick with that. It's the cost of a sketch book from Hobby Lobby and some die cut people.

4. Use the Library
We'd all love to own every book. It would make life so wonderful. But let's face it, it's cheaper to go to the library. Notice I did not say free. The library is never free for me. Did I tell you about the time 3 year old Little Bit set up to play "library" with me? She had books, a card, and her cash register. Hmm. Anyway, here are some things I'm planning to use the library for next year:

• A lot of the books for Sonlight Core A. 
• Supplemental books and movies to go with whatever we're studying. 

5. Get it Free
www.paperbackswap.com is a great way to get free books. Many e-books are free and the Kindle app is free. Currclick has free downloads each week. Also visit www.homeschoolfreebie.com Any others I missed?

6. Re-Use
Who doesn't love non-consumable materials? Here are some things I used with Sweetheart that I will now be using with Little Bit next year:

7. Buy New--however reluctantly
Look for sales, look for "free shipping days", look around....there are usually multiple places that sell curriculum. If you have to buy new, find the cheapest place. Consider shipping costs too. I have an awesome app on my phone where you scan a barcode and it shows you all the places you can buy an item online and compares the prices. Sometimes you want to buy new. Especially if it will be used with multiple children. Here are some things I am buying new for next year:

These are less than $6 a piece + shipping. Consumable, but very affordable. 

Consumable--and affordable. Less than $8.00

The Junior version of this will be out in July. Yay!  Consumable and not  cheap, but worth it. I'm going to compare prices a lot of places. 

Again...offered many places. I'll have to shop around. IF I can't find it used!

These are less than $3.00 each. 

Ug. Bite the bullet. It will be used again by Little Bit. 

Already got this on sale + free shipping. Great deal!

Will be used again for Little Bit. 

It's work, I'm telling you. Lots of time spent on the computer and hoofing it around to different sales and stores. But it's worth it. Any other ways to get your homeschool curriculum? I mean...legally?