The last day of summer break for the kids

Was spent with them playing and mom finishing up the planning. Looking for healthy waffle recipes that don’t use whole wheat since we are allergic to it. I put up a clock in the dining room/school room. Bought the boys an alarm clock for their room so I don’t have to be responsible for waking them up anymore….at least M-Th, Fridays I don’t have class so we can all sleep in a bit. My homeschooling binder is up and running as is the binder I need for my college classes.

We are having banana waffles for breakfast, grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch, with cut up cantaloupe, and who knows what is for dinner. I also bought them fruit snacks for a treat and roasted sunflower seeds if anyone needs a protein snack.

They will have to be in bed much earlier than they have been all summer and that is going to be stressful for me. I have a bit of cleaning to do before I go to bed tonight. I love having a cleaned off dining room table and kitchen during school days. It makes life so much easier. I think I might sleep well tonight, knowing that we are as ready as possible for a new year.

I will take pictures for you to see as well as a schedule of our day sometime tomorrow.

I will leave you with my Thankful Sunday list:

• My husband, he works so hard for us.
• My life~ I’m pretty happy with what I’m doing and where I am in it.
• My room air conditioners~ it has been very hot here
• The energy to get everything done.
• My health~
  
• The Lord for his saving grace, I would be nothing and nowhere without it.

Homeschool Evaluations are Done…..

The kids did well, The Artist did lots of talking as did the Peanut who wasn’t being evaluated. The teacher is great, we have seen the same one every year since The Ark was 6, he is now 12. She made some really great suggestions that we will incorporate:

• Challenge The Ark, he is a bit lazy and will do only what he has to.
• Stop pointing out that Ace is behind in math, it is not positive and probably stresses him out.
• Keep reading to all of the kids, as they will really benefit from it.
• Just keep working at it, homeschooling is difficult, and a process.
• Encourage the Artist to read to herself  daily
• Have the boys read for at least 20-30 minutes daily…..now to find a way to enforce that better.
• Have them write out goals for both long and short term, as they achieve one, cross it off and add a new one. We will start with 25 this fall, to be added to, working our way to 100.
  
• Stop worrying about where we are in the scheme of things and just work…..

A couple of things I mentioned was that I had a light bulb moment when I realized that my sons couldn’t write good paragraphs because they didn’t know how to write good sentences. So we will work on writing good sentences this fall and then good paragraphs next spring.

I have also come to realize that year round school is very difficult for us during the 6-7 weeks the boys are one swim team and in swim lessons. We get home after 11, hungry and tired, then their friends want to play and so do my sons. So our new schedule will be to go with short breaks until Swim Team starts , take off that time and then start back earlier than mid august, Swim Team is officially over Aug. 09 but we are still needing a break so, our new school year will begin on August 16. Giving the kids a break of 19 days to get themselves together for another school year.

As I type this the Artists is trying to read Harold and the Purple Crayon. There is nothing better than seeing the teacher and listening to her suggestions to motivate my kids. So for the next few days I will be cleaning, organizing and tweaking our homeschool schedule as well as tweaking our planning.

Planning Stages

Well yesterday I printed out tons of stuff, course of study pages for 3 kids for every subject, calendars for july and august, history pages, science pages for the Ark. I also planned out how often we will do each subject and for how long, ie: 1 or two semesters. I also figured out what I still needed to an extent and have started a running list. While I will print out the 3 younger ones planner, I’m leaning towards buying the Ark’s. I want him to be a bit more responsible for his education since he is going into 7th grade. I might plan out his work on my pages but have him right in the stuff that he needs to finish, as I have a very tight schedule for actual teaching time and he will have to learn how to finish work on his own. I am hoping that we have a great year but with so many time restrictions, I’m worried but the Lord has laid it on my heart to continue homeschooling while I’m in college, so I’m praying that if I plan well, and follow our schedule it will help us stay on track.

Homeschool Goals for 2010

I need accountability so here are my goals for our homeschooling.

1. Get Motivated!!!! The most important thing for me right now. ( I’m getting there still not quite as motivated as I would like yet though.)
   
2. Revise our homeschool schedule ( This is working much better as well. The boys know what they have to do and can do some of it on their own now.)
   
3. Stick to our new schedule
4. Get the boys to do more journaling ( I picked up composition notebooks for $1.00 a piece to do that. 3 for each boy~ lang. art, math and science will each have their own books now. They already have a history binder since that is a hefty subject for us.)
5. Check on art lessons for the Princess (ok, I emailed the teacher, so we will see what happens there) (Heard back from the teacher and the Princess starts her new lessons Jan. 26 for 6 weeks. I’m so excited for her.)
   
6. I want to buy a membership to either the science center or the Western Reserve Historical Society. we will see.
   
7. Think about soccer for the kids and put aside money for swim lessons, swim team and pool pass.
8. We really need to add in more music and art but where?

Ok, that is enough goals here for the moment, now to work on the other goals for my life. Oh yes, I forgot I need to make out weekly plans so that I have a guideline to follow, I think that without it in writing we struggle more with getting things done. (I have been able to do this and it is making a huge difference in our lives)

Two weeks until school starts.

We will be starting our new school year on August 17th. I’m going ot be spending the next two weeks planning and scheduling. I have The Ark’s reference book done but need to do the others, yet. Still trying to decide if I will make their student planners or if I will just go the easy route and buy them. Will be back with the finalized plans in a few days.

Planning

In spite of the fact that I’m supposed to be taking time off form doing schoolwork with the kids, I’ve been working bit by bit on planning for next year. My head keeps hearing ” fail to plan, plan to fail”. I truly want this year to be a wonderful year for us, even with all the chaos that is our lives right now.

So I’ve started gathering my forms for planning our year. my favorite resource is of course,  Donna Young . From her cd and at times website, I’ve printed off a school calendar, attendance forms, a course of study, a quarter planner and subject pages. Oh yes, I forgot, I printed off monthly calenders for the kids, we write short notes on them for an idea of what we did daily.

I also started printing off things for their history course, I did decide to only do half of MOH this year, thereby easing my workload, guilt and letting us really delve into the ancients. There is so much fun stuff to learn for that time period.

So once I get this moving I will post some photos of it for you to see.

The boys meeting with the Teacher.

So today we met with our favorite teacher to go over our school year with the boys. We have always used her and love her so much, she can’t quit until my kids are grown!!!! I’m not sure I’ve told her that yet though

As always she was impressed with how much we did this year. In spite of all the personal chaos going on in our lives for the last 10 months. My personal opinion of our year is both positive and negative. We truly did do a great deal of work, the boys were exposed to a great deal and a few things did stay with them. On the negative side of things, we were very stressed out, didn’t really enjoy our days, forgot much of what we covered and we didn’t have as much to show for everything we did do. After awhile the boys didn’t want to write or color or document anything of what we read for school. We took field trips but didn’t document them at all.

The teacher~ Diane, suggested we go back to writing one or two words on our daily calendar, we talked about how I’m concerned about the boys decoding abilities and she suggested using sequential spelling so we will be switching to this and see if that helps us. A plus is that both boys can do it at the same time. Another suggestion she had was only focusing on a few things this year until we get to some sort of mastery. Giving us a much needed reprieve from trying to do it all and then suffering from major guilt because we didn’t get it all accomplished. So I have some major thinking to do. We are taking off for the month of July to regroup. I’m hoping to take a trip to visit friends in Va and NC in early Aug. providing we have the funds, giving us a much needed break from the stress here. She also suggested covering something only once a month! I’m thinking that poetry might be that once a month thing.  We are supposed to go back to the Ancients in history using MOH this fall but I’m seriously thinking of covering it over a two year period and really taking the time to delve deeper into it. Plus we have so many great fiction books that go with this time period that it would be a shame not to be able to read them.

She told me in front of the boys that the only thing she really requires on a daily basis is reading!!! Yea!!! Diane!!! So with that in mind, the boys won’t be allowed to not read daily and I can use her as my reason. I know evil mom, but we do what we must. Another suggestion was to go back to requiring the boys to write a bit more. She wants the Ark to write at least 1 paragraph with a topic sentence 3 supporting sentences and a closing sentence. At whatever frequency I decide, while Ace is to start learning that process this upcoming year.

So, my tentative plan is focusing on reading, writing, spelling, math on a daily basis, with a much reduced history and science. One thing I’m not sure I’m ready to let go is the boys Latin studies, I really want them to learn it, so that might be on our daily list. Another item I want is daily drawing, I think the boys like to draw and I want to encourage them in it. My only problem is that they don’t want to have any instruction, just draw. I would like to see their drawing improve.ONe thing I did this year was i had a self evaluation and had the boys look at it, the Ark filled his out and it was interesting to see what he felt he did. I think we will do one at the end of each semester to help evaluate us and hopefully keep us on track. Another thing Diane suggested was to make sure I write down our goals so I don’t forget them and freak out mid year. Which I definitely plan to do.

She loved our lapbooks but suggested that we only do a few minibooks and that the boys be able to pick out the minibooks that they want to do, so that they each are invested in what they are learning and giving them each a different look to their work but still learning about the same subject.

So that is the end of the year evaluation. We have some educational videos that we borrowed, I want the boys to watch and then notebook what they feel is important. So in August when we start again I will have a 6th grader, 3rd grader, 1st. grader and a preschooler.  I need to make up certificates for them.

Check back for the schedule….

Oh my goodness

We are part way through our school year and working steadily if a bit behind still. This week we spent time working on the Louisiana Purchase, Harriet Tubman, French Revolution as well as Simon Bolivar and the revolution of South America. I think before we move on we will do a few projects on the above subjects. Probably coloring pages, lapbooking, some mapwork etc. I did get movies from the library on many of the subjects even a cartoon of Harriet Tubman.
The boys watched the inauguration, even though I dislike Obama, I’m glad that we have finally elected a black president. Although I’m not naive enough to believe that racism is dead in our society. They will do some lapbooking on that as well. Noah even wrote a paragraph for me of things he saw on tv.

Since tax time is close, I need to research our curriculum for next year. I feel like Ace and the Princess need more hands on with their math, so we will be switching to MUS until they are older. The Ark will also be taking a year off from Saxon to do MUS until he really understands the concepts of fractions. We are only going to be using the readers and the read alouds from Sonlight next year. For science we will study Zoology 1. History is going to be a bit rough, as The Ark has already done SOW 1 and we are back to ancient history. So he will be using Mystery of History and the others will be using SOW1. We have lots of great books to supplement, so that will be fun. We love our history. Ace will be staying on with First Lang. Lessons, but for 3rd grade and the Princess will be starting with FLL gr. 1. The Ark is probably going to be using Shurley Grammar but I’m not sure what grade as of yet, it only goes to 7th grade and he is weak there so I might use 5th grade next year to give him an extra year with it. We will still be using Artistic Pursuits for art as well as adding in Harmony Fine Arts. I’m looking into Bagpipe lessons for the Ark. hmmm gotta find those numbers again. if we can afford them he will take them, he really wants to learn how to play. I’m kind of looking forward to a bit of a change with our schooling, it has been a bit dry lately. I think we need a few more projects or hands on thing to liven us up.

Ace received his bible today, in our lutheran church when the children hit 2nd grade they receive a bible in front of the congregation. Yesterday he went to a brief fun day and learned more about the bible he would be getting and spent time with the other 2nd graders. The Ark has played 4 basketball games and his team has won 3 lost 1. So we are quite proud of all of them and the coach for all their hardwork.

Well that is all for now. I will keep you posted on any events.

Homeschool Memoirs #3~ Routines

It has taken me many years to realize that we had to have a routine in order to accomplish what I want out of homeschooling my children. Our routine is not set in stone obviously and changes as needed but we still have one. It looks like this currently.

• Get up at 6:45am
• do strength training exercises
• wake up boys
• get them something to eat, ie cereal, waffles, etc.
• read bible chapter to them while they eat. We are currently reading John.
• Then it is off to handwriting, spelling, writing strands, or phonics.
  
• Math is up next.
  
• They get a break while I’m at college to play, do chores, check out the garden, do yardwork.
• When I get home I check to see what needs to be done still and we usually need to do science and history. In some ways I’m longing for winter as we really tend to buckle down and so a great deal of work then.
  
• They can then play outside with their friends until about 7:30pm
• I’m trying to get us back to the nighttime reading but so far it is hard to get it together.
  
• The husband leaves for work at 8:30pm so I send the kids off to get ready for bed, I’m working hard to get them into bed by 9pm. I have noticed that their schoolwork suffers if they are tired so I”m trying to  make sure they get 10 hours of sleep a night.

This is very new to us as we have never gone to bed so early or got up so early. But there are only so many hours in a day and we have a lot going on. Next week on weds. nights we have confirmation classes starting back up and that is more work for me. But there is our current routine, it will be interesting to see if we eventually adapt and if  we learn to get everything in every day…..I hope so.

Noah's updated Reference Book.

I updated his schedule for next year and included a book list as well as curriculum outline, that we have to send into the board of ed. We cross off the books as we finish them. I still have to do Adrien’s and Camryn’s maybe I will start on them later tonight.

noah-aka-the-ark