2017-18 Spring Semester Homeschool Plan

  Yay! We did it! We are half way through the school year!

*Insert shouts of JOY here!*

  We took a longer Winter break than planned, due to sickness.  That was not fun. We had one good week of school, and then more sickness. My hopes and dreams of being out of school 'on time' are quickly slipping from my grasps. *Dramatic crying*

*Then I remember!*

  That's ok. This happens every year, that's why I used my brain powers for good, way back in August, I padded our schedule with time off for the unexpected. Homeschooling comes with many perks, this is one of them. 

*Gives self pat on back, moves forward with life, coffee in hand.☕*

As with every year, we reevaluate at the half way point.

What's working?

What isn't?

What's behind?

What's ahead?

Who's struggling with a certain subject/curriculum?

Who's not happy with their school?

  Yes, I let my children voice their opinion in their education. I always listen, and take action where genuinely warranted.

  This year has been mostly good, the core subjects have been working fairly well. It took a few years to find the ones that work best for us.

  Only one major change needed to take place with the older two, they hated their reading program.   They stuck it out through the first half of the year, upon my request. They really did give it the good homeschooler try. I have spent many years cultivating a love of reading in my children. If they both voice complaints on an ongoing basis, then I listen. I'm not going to push a curriculum on them that might affect their love of learning. (Yes, there are many times they must just do what is difficult. This went beyond something being difficult.) It quickly came to my attention that this reading curriculum was not going to work for us.

A sample of Alex's reading.

   We decided to go back to the guidelines we were following last year. They are working through a comprehension book and reading from various titles pre-approved by me. After each book is finished, they have to give a written book report, make a project to reflect what they have learned or give a narrative to me in great detail. They both love doing reading this way, and I find they retain a lot more of what they are reading. 

  Alex started back to school reading "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia)", Emma is reading Little Women.

  Other than the reading changes, the older two are sticking to what we started with at the beginning of this school year. We are still using Saxon Math, Easy Grammar, Sequential Spelling, and a variety of other curriculums, programs and resources. 

  Alex decided that he wanted to pick up a second science curriculum along with the one he was already using. He is using Abeka science(A half year course) and Apologia Anatomy.

  Emma started her Abeka science and is also studying a second science topic. 

A sample of Emma's reading.

 Addison is doing really well with everything we chose for her this year. She finished her last math curriculum, right before winter break. I know which one I would like to switch to next, but I am waiting until she has done a little more of Life of Fred. We do Life of Fred in spurts at our house. The kids tend to get bored with it after a certain amount of time, then we switch back to a more traditional math curriculum.  I do love how much they grow in their problem solving abilities while using LOF.

She is also having fun playing Prodigy Math.

  Addison also switched away from her reading program, she had a huge jump in her reading abilities and surpassed the level we were using. She is now working her way through the entire Magic Tree House series and reading a large variety of books from our personal library, and the public library. 

She is also doing a daily comprehension book, spelling with site words workbook, science nature study, animal study and a few other items.

(If people are interest in a full comprehensive list of how we structure our school, I would be happy to make another post. :) )

A sample of Addison's work.

  Together, we are doing geography, history, bible, art and a read aloud. Our current read aloud is The Long Winter.

  As I mentioned in another post  I have been known to drop the ball with planning our history curriculum. To save money this school year I decided to put together our own history. It's great when I am on the ball with planning. It's not so great when life happens and I fall behind. (The next time I do this I will plan the entire year, before the year begins. I planned the year almost completely with every other subject. I was leaving some wiggle room with the history, it did not work in my favor.) I am sitting down now to finish planning the rest of the year. No more excuses for this Mama getting behind on that.
Although, even when I am not on the ball the older two kids are always reading at least one nonfiction history book, whether it be a broad overview of time, a biography or a specific subject. (They are really enjoying the Who Was Book Series.)

  I typically use Mystery of History and I might switch back to it next school year. It really is easier for me to be able to fall back on a preset plan. Hence the need for me to plan farther in advance. A friend sent me her study guide for history for her kids. She is one of those rock star moms who has her children's entire education plans written out in great detail. I will probably use that as a loose guideline for us to follow the rest of this school year.

  I am becoming aware of the areas that I am lacking as a educator, and trying to remedy them. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, we just have to learn how to improve upon them, or work around them. Plus I really feel like I need all of my ducks in a row, because high school is coming.

   This strikes great fear in me. Mainly because it is the unknown. Thankfully, I have an amazing group of ladies at co-op who have gone before me. They speak of it like it is no big deal. We will be finding out for ourselves in a couple of years.

 Well, that is where we stand for this half of the year. I'm pleased with our progress in most areas. The kids are happy, yet challenged and life is moving forward.

Spring semester 2018 here we come! 
*Reaches for more coffee, and maybe some chocolate too.* 
**Clearly, homeschooling is not always a good influence on my yearly goals.**

7 Quick Takes! A Recap of Life in the Tiny House This Week! The Secrets Homeschoolers Keep, Mom Fail and Random Thoughts!

 It's Friday! We made it! Thank goodness. Because I spent part of the week asking what day it was. It was one of those weird, confusing catch up weeks. I think, mainly because it was our first official week back to life, post holidays and sickness. I felt like a deer caught in the headlights most of the week. 

1. New Year, New Curriculum.

 I am terrible at sticking to some really boring less exciting curriculums. If we get half way in and realize it isn't working for us, we change it. Thankfully, we have most of our core subjects nailed down. It is just a couple that keep getting shifted around. 

 I tried something new with our reading/comprehension at the beginning of the year. The older two did it, but hated it. I got them to stick to it for the first half of the year. When we were prepping to start back they voiced their dislike of that particular area. I mulled it over for about a week and agreed that they shouldn't have to do it, if they hated it that much. They love to read and they do read a good bit. (A large part of their curriculum is independent reading.) I did not want to start making them hate reading. Especially after all the years of encouraging it. Honestly, I should have just left well enough alone this year and stuck with what worked last year.
  
 I also switched Addison back to Life of Fred for math. She finished the math I had for her before Christmas. I know which one she will be switching to, but I feel like we need to take a side road and do some Fred. Fred is awesome. 

We are still struggling in the History department. Why? Because I dropped the ball. (Real life, moment.)  This happens with History and Science, more often than I would like to admit. I have not found a history program that truly fits for us yet. So, I build our own. When I'm on top of it, it is great. I can build a curriculum. I actually enjoy it.

 Then, life happens, and they run out of what I have planned for them, before I am done planning the next section. My goal for this year is to plan the whole year of history in advance. That is how we do most of our subjects. 

We have continued to shift to a more heavy Charlotte Mason approach to our schooling. Below is a small snippet of what they are currently reading. (This is not their full work load.)

Emma

Alex

 

Addison

2. It's not messy, it's 'school mode'!

I was texting my friend Sveta this week, when I should have been doing school with the little one. Yea, I was playing hooky. You caught me. Any-who, we were discussing what we had planned for the day, and what we had accomplished that day. 
I commented that my house was fairly clean (had laundry going, etc, etc, mom stuff). She commented that her house was not clean. Which made me giggle because her house is never dirty. She sends me a picture of her living room as proof. It looked almost exactly like my house, but with different children in it. 
We both agreed that our houses were not exactly dirty at that moment in time. We were just doing school. Once school is finished all of it gets tucked away for the day. Then normal house reappears. 
 We decided to call it 'School Mode'. 

It is almost impossible to homeschool and avoid the daily clutter explosion that happen while school is in session. I refuse to call it messy anymore. Because it is not an accurate representation of our life.

As proof, I'm showing you our house in 'School mode'. It is what it is for about 4-6 hours, then it gets put away for the day. 

 


The cardboard in the background is a project that was in the works. When you live in a little house, school happens everywhere.


3. Jarred Cactus?

 All of the kids were sick for a little over a week. It happened to fall on the first of the month, (When I typically shop for the month.) and during a snow storm with a cold snap of single digits.. I was more or less house bound. Not necessarily because of the snow. Although, I hate driving in the snow. It was because of the kids. 
 I was wondering how I was going to get to the store and manage to get the month worth of groceries with all these sick people.
 Then it occurred to me that between Amazon, Walmart and Sam's Club, I could order 80% of our pantry, household and grocery items without leaving the house. 

Our prime pantry box

I only had to go out once. Dustin brought home pizza on Friday after work. Emma and I loaded up in the van. We picked up our site-to-store order from Sam's, then popped into Aldi. Because of the storm we ended up having to stop at Kroger also. People in our area still function on 'Panic mentality' any time it snows. They buy all the milk, eggs and bread. 

 We were gone maybe 2.5 hours and it was a lot less stress for me.

 Emma and I like to cut up and have fun. We have this rather dry and almost mean sarcastic humor, that I do not allow her (or myself) to use on others. When we go out alone I turn her loose with it. It is very Lorelai and Rory. We even sometimes pick an accent and use it the entire time. 
 We can't help it, it is in our personality. If I don't let her get it out, she uses it at all the wrong times.    So, we came to an agreement that we can use it on each other at certain appointed times. Then we have to turn it off. Plus it teaches her how to control the sarcastic humor that she was born with. Something that I took a long time to learn. 

Something that caught our eye, While looking for a certain type of beans and attempting to use all of the words from different languages that we knew, in one sentence, while speaking in a British accent (I feel the need to mention that I had not had a lot of sleep.)...we found this. It is jarred, pickled? (I assume) cactus?!

I feel the need to try this in the near future! Maybe while we are studying deserts and cacti. Because who doesn't want to read about something rather different (At least to us. We live very far from a desert region. ;) ) and then you get to eat one?!

 


4. The part they don't tell you about homeschooling.

 I'm sure you have heard the jokes about homeschoolers never getting out of their pajamas. There is also the joke about how socially awkward we can be and the media always likes to toss around the 'socialization' scare tactic. 

 What most people don't realize is, we are typically just as busy as the rest of the world.  Between work, the chiropractor, the orthodontist, hair appointments, the dog, basketball, the library and co-op(That is not everywhere we went.) we left the house and were gone basically every day this week. 

We do a lot of 'car schooling'. This is what it looks like. Mom tip, always bring snacks and water! The toddler will act much less like a feral cat. 





5. Speaking of feral cats...

  I think I mentioned co-op started back up this week. We were all so read to go back. I was prepared and excited. Probably more than the kids. 
We get to co-op, unload the car and Anna decides to turn into a thrashing, screaming, psychopath. It was like giving a feral cat a bath most of the day. I have rarely been so embarrassed by one of my toddlers actions. It was terrible. I wasn't even able to help teach my class. We ended up wandering the halls, eating our lunch early, and I spent the better part of the day apologizing to everyone in our path. 
  After she went to bed last night, I was telling Dustin about our day. He pointed out the fact that she was still on steroids and meds. #facepalm Her crazy behavior makes a bit more sense now. Major mom fail. :( 

She isn't usually like that. It was so bad. So, on a positive note. This is how she normally looks and acts.




6. The mug that matches our house perfectly!

While our friend Laura was visiting recently. She told me about a mug that was in the works at our local pottery place.  She said it matched our house and life perfectly. I had to stop in to pick up a special order item that Laura made, later in the week. I happened to see the mug before it went in for its color dip and glaze. I put a hold on it and asked for it in blue and white. Rachel Shepard (I will be doing a feature on her soon.) made this one. She is one heck of a talented potter!  There are so many talented artists housed in this building. It is non profit and they do loads of ministry and work in our community. If you are interested in learning a new craft, supporting a local business and ministry or just purchasing a one of a kind piece of artwork to sip your morning coffee from...go visit The Potter's House!
The kids are taking classes there this month. I'm excited to watch and maybe get my hands dirty as well.

 

7.  Friday thoughts

 I feel like all of this post was about homeschooling and books. That's probably not what you might have been expecting today. This blog is about our lives and our lives encompass a large variety of topics. As life tends to go though, sometimes our lives get more focused on one topic than others. That is how life works. Part of being a part of our blogging life is coming along for the ride with us. We have been focusing on less media, less tv, less electronics etc. Which means more books and more quiet.
We have been doing lots of reading, writing, reflecting and making the right choices in our lives, business and homeschool. It's January, that's what it's all about. 
Dustin is working a lot. Works is going good. When he isn't working, he is spending time with us and or reading his Bible. 
I have been focusing on reading more, making the habit of exercise stick, spending more time with the kids, and making plans for the future of our lives, this blog and our business. We are starting to move into the next season of life with no babies, no debt and the ability to follow our dreams.

We are making the plans and taking the steps now, to make the next ten+ years pretty awesome.  

 Blessings!
~Lyndsay

I'm kicking around the idea of doing a day in the life vlog once  month. As well as some tutorials. There are also plans for a room by room house tour. It has been so long since I vlogged and or even put my face in front of our youtube channel. It is like starting all over again with the butterflies and everything. 
There you go. That's why I haven't vlogged, I get camera shy. Plus the editing takes a while. I don't always have the time to take from my family.  

Why We Are Using Saxon Math This Year...(Also A Brief CTC Math Review)

 We have tried a few different math curriculums in our homeschool over the years.

 Our children are all very different. They are all over the board with learning types, styles and concepts. It can be a lot to keep up with. I have went back an forth with different curriculums over the years.

 Many factors come into play when picking a curriculum.

- Budget
- Learning styles
- Is it a consumable, do I want a consumable
- Spiral vs Mastery
- Will it fit with our personal schooling style
- How much will everyone hate this. Yes, that is a huge factor. lol

This list goes on and on and is different for each family. We have tried workbooks, online, etc.

Each one has worked and not worked for us for varying reasons.

Our most recent math curriculum was CTC Math and Life of Fred(More on LOF in a later post). It is an online curriculum and fairly cheap if you have more than one child. I actually really like this curriculum. The best part of this course is that it is mostly hands free for the parent. I would step in to assist with learning a difficult concept, but the majority is taught on the site itself. They even send you a weekly progress report! It is pretty darn cool.

 The children's reviews on CTC Math were mixed...

-Alex did ok with it. (He could probably use any curriculum. He hates them all. Math is not his favorite subject. Want to know his favorite subject? Minecraft. Yes, I know that isn't a subject. Hence the reason I do not base all of our Math choices on Alex's opinions.) 

-Emma tried her hardest to like it. She does with everything. However, we have to make a few concessions with Emma's learning style. She struggles with Auditory processing, (something we found out last year.) and the online math..that is visual and described by a man with an Australian accent...was not working for her. 

- Addison prefers workbook page style math..so she barely used CTC. She said it was fun and called it a game when she used it.

So, while CTC is actually a great product...I would be sticking with it if it wasn't causing so much of an issues for Emma...we had to go back to square one for Math this year. 
I asked around. Friends and family have made many suggestions. However, our budget is tighter than normal this year. So I did some praying and decided to go old school with the math. 
Saxon Math has been around a LONG time. I even did it when I homeschooled, many years ago!

 


Reasons why we are using Saxon Math this year include...

-It works. As I said above, Saxon has been around for a long time. It's methodology is sound. I can still remember some of the lessons I learned from my own Saxon Math days.

- It is spiral, but not overly so. It moves forward with each concept, building with each lesson. It has a section for review built into every lesson. While some children may not need the review and repetition...my children actually benefit from it.

-There is lot of memory work built right into the curriculum. The home study packet comes with printable sheets to practice speed drills of addition, subtraction, multiplications and division..

-It is cheap and you can find it EVERYWHERE! Because this curriculum has been around for so long, you can find it all over Ebay, and other resale sites. There is enough of it that the prices are not terribly high. We were even blessed to receive a few pieces for free!

- It is working for the older two.(Addison is using something else this year.) Emma has been slowly working through one of the books this summer(For fun. Yes, I have one of those kids.) and she is really and truly learning! It is so fun to see her curled up with her math and enjoying it. That makes this Mama's heart happy :)


Do I think that Saxon Math is going to solve all of our problems and end with us happily skipping to the table to do math all year long?

Um..no.

I have taught my children long enough to know that every curriculum has it's positives and negatives. It is life. It is education. It is parenting. You do what works, search for something new if it doesn't. Or, take a bit from everything.
Also, there is no perfect math or Perfect *Insert subject here* curriculum for any two people on the planet. It is trial and error. 

Do I hope that Saxon works well enough for everyone, that we will just continue forward with it?

Yes. Math has been the only subject*So far) that I have not quite found what really works for our family. I love our Grammar, Spelling, Reading and most other subjects. They work for the kids' learning styles and with how our homeschool functions. 

However, Since I have been at this for a while, and know better than to not be prepared. I do have a couple other curriculums, that were recommended by friends,..that I have researched...tucked into the back of my mind. (They are also bookmarked in my computer.) 

One last thought...

 I am a person who prays. I do pray over my children and their education. That being said, I was recently speaking to one of my mentors and she gave me a bit of advice..which lit a fire under me with praying for my children and their education. 

 She told me that before she handed them every subject, she prayed over it. Obviously not in some grand way... but that she was continually in prayer their entire school day. That has stuck with me and reminded me. What our children learn and their up bringing and education isn't solely up to me. It is up to God. 

 We as parents just have to do our best, rely on Him to guide us and teach to the best of our ability. 

 But we also need to remember to leave gaps for God to fill in the spaces. 

Why? Because God can do such amazing things with those spaces! 


All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children. 
Isaiah 54:13

What is the best way to know we are doing our best? 

It is to pray over our children, our school, our walk and our words. He will show us the way and He will also fill in those little gaps that we lay awake worrying about. 
 
 Blessings,

~Lyndsay