Weekly Wrap Up--Week 17

It's FRIDAY!!!

I am very excited because this afternoon I am going to surprise the girls with a trip to the movies. We almost NEVER go to the movies so it is a big deal for them. It seriously has probably been 2 years since we've been--can't remember exactly. We're going to go see just about the only children's movie showing at our local theater today and that is Beauty and the Beast 3-D. It was 30 degrees outside when I woke up this morning so the movies sound like a good thing to do for fun, huh?

We've had a good week, overall. I still struggle with having the energy to cook in the evenings so we have eaten out more than I would have liked this week but I DID manage to cook 5 or 6 meals at home since last Friday. It isn't just the energy because if it was you could tell me to use my crock pot. No, it's that what I set out to make earlier in the day gags me by 5:00. That's the other problem. Somehow restaurant food never gags me. Hmm.

We started the week out with a flood. It was a nice day to stay home but the rain was a distraction on the school work. But a nice one.

Our street. That's our Christmas tree awaiting heavy trash day. Somehow it didn't float away.

Our backyard was pretty full too. 

On the school front, this week Little Bit and I have been reading Dr. Doolittle. I had never read this book. She's enjoying it and really enjoys getting all the animals out every day to act out the story while I read.

Polynesia, Gub-Gub, Chee-Chee, Jip, Dab-Dab, and Too-Too. 

I've been working and thinking hard about her math and how to get her going on it. This week we played "Your Pile, My Pile" a lot with flash cards. That's a game where you flash the card at her and if she gets it right, she gets to hold it and if she gets it wrong, I get to hold it. Then whoever has the most cards at the end, wins. Of course she won every time because she was not about to let me win. It worked. She finally started getting fast on these easy facts. I thought the day would never come.

But after 2 days of that she was over it. Sigh. I'm still trying to figure this girl out and what works for her. So next I printed off several things for her to do on different math topics so she isn't doing the same thing any day. Variety is the spice of her life when it comes to math, I guess.

I continue to struggle with not getting every subject done every day. I'm just going to have to muddle through the rest of this year and hope that 4-day-a-week curriculum choice helps us out next year on this matter. I don't really mind that we don't do every thing every day....just that we seem to go several days without hitting a subject. That's not good. Maybe I'll spend some time this weekend working on that. It's bothering me.

Well, we've got lots to do before enjoying our movie day. Holding "a fun day" over their head is good for a lot of housecleaning mileage and schoolwork you know!

One last thing:

22 weeks. Please enjoy my towel. And yes, Kathy---the ironing board was up!

Have a great weekend everyone!!

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!

The Pregnant Brain and Some Other Things

#1
So....I've lived here my whole life. I mean, technically we lived in another city for 7 years but that city is only 15 minutes away so...it's not like I really moved far.  I currently live on the same block I grew up on. I attended the same church for nearly 40 years of my life. That's the church where we are having my parent's 50th anniversary celebration.

And yet, inexplicably, I managed to put the wrong zip code on the invitations.

And then last night we had breakfast for supper. I put the ricotta cheese on the table instead of margarine.

Help me. Can I really chalk all this up to pregnancy brain? Please???

We went to the beach Sunday after church...

#2
Our church is reading through the Bible this year. They have provided each of us with a chronological Bible. Very handy and already dated for you. On Wednesday evenings, our study will revolve around what we have read that week so there is extra motivation for keeping up. Last year I made it through April before I fell off the wagon. This year Sweetheart is also doing the reading. She's doing great right now but I dread when we get to say...Leviticus. We may have to do the reading together at some point. Genesis is all enjoyable right now. Our extra incentive is at the end of every month, if we are on target, we will all go out for frozen yogurt. Little Bit will be involved also but I am using the Egermeier's Bible Story book* for her. It's what she already uses for Bible in school. I told her if she listened to her story every day, she could have frozen yogurt at the end of the month. The point is to get us reading every day. I think I need to make a sticker chart for her. And maybe one for me too!

*I'll have more to say about this book in tomorrow's post!

 I'm thinking the water was kind of cold! 

#3
Getting every subject done in school is very hard. I just read a friend's blog where she listed as one of her goals for the year was to only have school 3 hours a day. Her old pattern is to try to hit everything, have school last 6 hours or more, then burn out and take several weeks off. I quite agree that smaller doses, but regular doses, is healthier. I expected school to start taking longer the older Sweetheart got. I knew the glorious days of 1 elementary-aged student and 1 pre-schooler would not last forever. You know, where we were done by lunch no matter what? I just find it hard to get back at it after lunch. By then, we've been sitting and doing for quite a while and we all want a break. The dishes and laundry are calling to me. The backyard is calling to the girls. Then I find it hard to call us back to order. I guess I'm admitting a personal weakness. I know, wah wah, right? Public school kids go to school for 8 hours. It's just hard and next year I will be making some changes to help fix this issue.

Which was really funny!

#4
Tomorrow I will be 5 months pregnant and will have exactly 4 months until my due date. FOUR MONTHS!!! Do you realize what all has to happen in those 4 months? (breathe in. breath out) OK. A lot, is the correct answer.

• finish the school year
• paint our bedroom
• purchase some baby things
• plan and have my parent's anniversary party
• organize several areas of the house
• hopefully go on some type of little vacation
• get some meals in the freezer
• make some menu plans that the girls' can make or help make the first few weeks
• clean the carpet
• finish the girls' quilts (my sewing machine is in the shop for a week right now!)
• get the girls' pictures made

I'm sure the list will get more ludicrous and detailed and crazy (see point #1) in the next few weeks. I think I need to start a new spiral notebook so I can cross things off and keep track of all my crazy. 

That's all that's going on in my brain today. How about you? And do you have any freezer meal ideas for me? That don't involve death-inducing pasta for my diabetic husband? (I really miss pasta.)

Party Time

My parents will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary next month. I am very pleased to be planning a reception for them. What a wonderful thing to have your parents make it to this milestone!

We aren't very fancy people, however. As my sisters and I were shopping around last weekend for things, we found there was a fine line to walk in balancing our casual nature with the need for a fancier occasion. Gold Solo cups are not really the look we're going for, you know? Even if everyone in our family would be just dandy with those!

The gold theme can be taken overboard!! Image from my Pinterest board. 

We've run into problems with the color gold. It turns out that gold doesn't translate well to paper goods. Some of the napkins and cups and plates we've found have a color on them which can only be described as "poo." Seriously. It's like mustard mixed with brown. It's very odd.

Or, you can really get fancy and go metallic with your gold. I think the cake pictured above is a good example of why you don't really want to do that.

And I kept joking about those honeycomb wedding bells. Turns out they really do still sell them. But, we shall refrain. In fact, there was a whole section of 50th anniversary decorations which looked to be better suited for use at a party in Granny's dining room than a reception at the church building. Oh it's hard trying to be dignified!!

The main source of stress this week was the invitations and guest list. Of course, I needed my parents' input for the guest list. And my mom's address book. I think they have figured out who all they would like to invite. I told them they have until Thursday to add/delete names from the list. They've done very well considering I only told them about the reception on Saturday!

Next up is the gift. I've just been stealing all my ideas from friends who have already planned 50th anniversary celebrations for their parents. (Yes, I think this DOES mean we are getting old, but not very many of them planned their parents' 50th while pregnant! Not sure what that says about me.) So one friend bought a beautiful wooden box with a picture inset in the top and an engraved plaque on it. It was lovely. Inside went all the cards people sent. But, we haven't been able to find such a box!

The other idea (from another friend) was rocking chairs. They were really cute sitting there at the reception for the honored couple to sit in and later to use on their porch. Then I looked at the prices. Hmm. We'll see about that one. Any ideas?

Here is my parents' wedding photo that we used on the invitations. Don't you just love it, even if you don't know them? You might can tell their wedding was not the fanciest in history. Which is good news for us if we decide to go with those gold Solo cups at their anniversary.

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)