Blogging Attempt Take Five-ish

Another school year, another attempt at this blogging thing.

The 2015/2016 school year brings me to a new season of life.

For one, my youngest child, my baby girl, is kindergarten age. No longer a preschooler, no longer one who can fit comfortably on my hip, no longer my last grasp at being able to attend MOPS legitimately, she has joined the ranks of her school aged siblings. I'm half excited that we are well into the season of no naps, no diaper bags, not as much crying tantrums, but I'm also half heart broken that my littles are not so little anymore. I miss holding sleeping children, watching clumsy toddling, having baby toys from my first born being played with still. Thus is life...children grow up, my husband and I grow older. I'm so blessed to have spent as many years, days, hours, being able to be right here with my children, watching them learn, grow, and slowly emerge more into who they are.

 

Another big change is my oldest starting high school. And not at home, but at public school. We had talked about him taking JROTC and playing football at the local school. Then we thought maybe Algebra 2 and Spanish 2. Then he got mad at me one day and said he just wanted to go full time. And that stuck in his head even when he wasn't mad anymore. My husband thought he's old enough to give input into the decision so we discussed it and came to this decision for now. We entered him in a lottery to attend a smaller charter high school in our district and he got in, and that was my deal, so here we are. With the year round schooling here, he's been going to school for three weeks now. It's an adjustment because his days are super long and then he comes home with one to two hours of homework, but he claims that he likes it. He gave up football, which he was looking forward to, but after a week of his crazy schedule, then adding 2 1/2 hour practices in, he decided he couldn't handle it for the next three months of football season. I miss not having him home. No exciting back to school songs and dances being performed here. But I feel at peace with the decision right now.

 

 

My middle ones...these poor kids get the tail end of the updates. These ones are in grades two, four and six. I love teaching these guys (and gal). Even though they don't like to admit it, school is fun and exciting and we learn some pretty cool things. We are starting week four tomorrow. Because of my lack of decision making on some of their curriculum, but still wanting to keep their school year lined up with my public schooled child (who has pretty nice breaks due to year round schooling), I have staggered their start weeks for each subject based on when the UPS man delivered my packages.

Oh yah, mountains. So we moved again. Arizona this time. Beautiful state!

Our curriculum line up...

6th grader:

Bible/History: MFW Creation to the Greeks, AWANA
Science: Science in the Beginning
Math: Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra, Beast Academy 5 (when it's released)
Language Arts: All in One English, Editor in Chief, Progeny Press Guides, Rod & Staff Spelling 6, Writing with Ease 3
Logic: Perplexors
Foreign Language: English from the Roots Up, Getting Started with Latin, Getting Started with Spanish
Music: Vivaldi, Bach & Handel Biography & Music CDs, Piano Lessons
Art: Home Art Studio, God and the Creation of Art, Drawing with Children

4th grader:
Bible/History: MFW Creation to the Greeks, AWANA
Science: Science in the Beginning
Math: Singapore Math 4B/5A, Beast Academy 3
Language Arts: Language Lessons for Today 4, Rod & Staff Spelling 5, Writing with Ease 1 & 2
Logic: Perplexors
Foreign Language: English from the Roots Up, Getting Started with Latin, Getting Started with Spanish
Music: Vivaldi, Bach, Handel CDs, Piano Lessons
Art: Home Art Studio, God and the Creation of Art, Drawing with Children

2nd grader:

Bible/History: MFW Creation to the Greeks, AWANA
Science: Science in the Beginning
Math: Singapore Math 2A/2B, Miquon Math Orange/Red
Language Arts: Language Lessons for Today 2, Rod & Staff Spelling 2, Writing with Ease 1
Foreign Language: English from the Roots Up, Getting Started with Latin, Getting Started with Spanish, Song School Spanish
Music: Vivaldi, Bach, Handel CDs, Piano Lessons
Art: Home Art Studio, God and the Creation of Art, Drawing with Children

 

Kinder Girl:
MFW Kindergarten
Tag-Along whenever she wants

Our schedule looks something like this:

After my personal morning routine (devotion, walk our dog, shower, etc.) we get started...so anywhere between 8:30 and 10:00. My kids get breakfast on their own (bigs help the littles), do chores, and then have free time until we start school. My oldest is on his way out super early and my goal is to wake up right before he leaves to say good-bye and all that.

We don't do each subject everyday, so I just skip whatever we don't have for the day (composer study is only on Tuesdays, art history is only two days a week, etc.)

*Together Time (on the couch):
Prayer, Psalm reading (one per day), Hymn singing (one per week), MFW Bible, poetry read aloud (currently A Child's Garden of Verses), novel read aloud (currently The Tanglewood Secrets), Greek & Latin, art history, composer study, history, science text & experiments (our transition off the couch)

*Table Time (grab a quick snack and then go to the dining table):
Science written work, history written work and activities, art

*Independent Time (kids at counter):
Kids work on math, English, writing, spelling, logic, keyboarding (yet to begin) & Awana study (Awana starts next week) at their work areas, which is a very long bar/counter area with stools that our kitchen has.
I call my kids over to the dining table one at a time to do subjects that need my teaching. Computer learning (Teaching Textbooks) takes place in the living room so as not to disturb anyone.

*Lunch

*Afternoon Time:
Kids finish up anything they didn't finish.
Kindergarten with my youngest daughter.
Song School Spanish with my 2nd grader & Kinder girl (because my 2nd grader pleads for it with all of her heart).

*Free Time & Extra Activities

We have little to no school work on Fridays. We will start our homeschool group PE class in a few weeks and that is on Friday mornings. If we do a fiend trip during the week with our homeschool group (they like to schedule them on Thursdays), then we'll do school on Friday if we can't fit it in that day.  Ideally I would schedule dental cleanings, doctor check-ups, etc. on Fridays. But I don't ever remember to do that. Tomorrow we have dental cleanings in the morning and I have a doctor appointment for a possible broken nose in the afternoon. (Something fell on my nose a week ago and now that the swelling is down, I feel a small lump on it. It's not crooked so I don't think they'll do anything for it, but I thought I'd get it checked out...no biggie.)

I've given up on assigned times to tasks. I just can't follow them. An order to our day seems to work much better.
 Anna plays, watches a movie, does crafts, etc. while the big kids do school. She joins us for the beginning of together time and then again if something looks interesting to her.

So, here we are! Our eighth year homeschooling and blogging. I'm really gonna try to keep up with the blogging part this time.