New Year Check In!

Melanie, I’ve been wondering the same thing, so I’m glad you started this post!

We’ve definitely had our ups and downs this year.  After moving in with my parents, we were able to find a great house nearby.  Financially, we are doing well, and my parents have been a great support for us.  I should be able to stay home with the kids for some time to come.  We found a homeschool co-op and a church, so hopefully the kids and I will make some friends here.

School-wise, we’ve made some changes.  I had many plans for the year, but have greatly scaled back on them.  We are pretty much following the “Keep it Simple” plans (without all the actual plans): Early Modern guide, Outdoor Secrets & living books for science (Apologia for the 14yo), individual studies (math, copywork, Spelling Wisdom, Latin), and literature/enrichment.  The kids are really enjoying The Hobbit and memorizing The Dwarves’ Song for poetry.  For handicrafts, we are going through the SCM crochet DVD, and two of my DDs have finished the dishclothes and scarves!  Everyday my oldest four pull out their crochet during the read alouds…it’s a great sight to see!  Earlier this year we used a book called Watercolor for the Artistically Undiscovered and everyone had fun with it as well.  I picked up sets of Snap Circuits and Magformers at Christmas, and those have been big hits with the kids…they are both constantly in use!

For new things, I recently purchased IEW’s writing materials.  It was a big investment, but my oldest has really struggled with writing and I think this will be a huge help with that!  It looks really great and I love that we can use our own materials for the lessons.  I’m hoping to start on it this week.

For my own enjoyment, I’ve been reading Sarah MacKenzie’s Teaching From Rest.  It’s filled with great encouragement and advice.  I’m also reading through the Early Modern history readings for grades 10-12.  It’s much more inspiring reading than I usually choose, and my readings often line up with my 14yo’s, so we have some great discussions over the readings.

I hope the rest of you all are having a good year!

I love when we can all check in and chat! So glad to read the updates so far. Our school year has been going well. We are into decent routines and are about where I hoped to be in most materials. I’ll give an update by child as that is probably easiest, then a few general updates.

Makayla, 10th grade – She’s been pretty independent this year except in math. That is Math U See Geometry and we’re working on it together. It’s definitely better than Algebra 1. She’s doing the Power in Your Hands for nonfiction writing this year and it’s a solid program that is teaching her all those academic writing forms like various types of essays. She took a break in November to do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and has a couple novels in progress that she works on outside of school. Science has been reptiles (raising a ball python this year in addition to her two bearded dragons of last year), finishing up Apologia Biology, and doing a Veterinary Medicine course too. (She’s planning on being a vet…). History has been Beautiful Feet Medieval Senior High and she’s enjoyed most of the books so far. She does are on her own mostly, she’s entered a few pieces in the local teen art show the last several years. She wants to learn to use watercolors so she is currently reading books about that.

Joseph, 6th grade – He’s my ‘plow through school so I can get back to my own interests’ child. He’s really enjoyed some of the books he’s read for literature. History went well, BF Medieval Intermediate, done with all the younger siblings during 1st semester. He’s loving science this semester, we’re doing Apologia’s Exploring Chemistry and Physics as a group with 6th grade and under kids. Writing has never been a favorite subject but he’s improving. Math is MUS Zeta (Decimals and Percents) and it is going pretty well. We’re doing a mix of writing projects and notebooking with written narrations. Art is done every other week with another family, I teach a class for all the kids. He’s also enjoying Boy Scouts and has started piano lessons.

Emma, 5th grade – Emma has always just done school with Joseph. They are only 13 months apart and they are in the same math level. She’s a very opinionated reader. She would be happy to stick with one main genre all the time. I’ve nudged her into other books part of the time this year and part of the time let her run with her own picks. She loves to read. She didn’t mind history and is really enjoying all the experiments in science this semester. Art is one of her favorite things, she’s always doodling, drawing, coloring, and creating. So she does more art than just our every other week class. She has also enjoyed the notebooking portion of our writing plan this year a lot. She’s not a big fan of writing topics I want her to write about (ahem) but she does enjoy writing some of her own projects. She has started piano lessons as well and is thrilled, she’s wanted lessons for a while now.

Daniel, 3rd grade – This year has been a struggle for Daniel, not academically, but emotionally. He would just rather not do some of our formal school work. He’s right in between the older kids and little kids who don’t have to do ‘school’. He does well in his school work once we get past the complaints. He loves science and reading literature. He would rather skip all writing, narrating, and math. He’s good at them, just doesn’t like doing them. He does the art class and enjoys some projects and not others. This year he’s in MUS Delta, which is division. He’s done a few writing projects and does notebooking pages as well. We partner on the writing part, some he writes and some he narrates and I scribe. He is also doing piano lessons now and seems to like it.

Oliver, 2nd grade – Oliver has been enthusiastic for learning this year. He’s worked diligently in Math U See Beta (larger addition and subtraction problems). He’s been working hard on learning to read and is making great progress toward independence. He is using All About Reading level 2 and is reading aloud to me daily. He liked listening to our history stories but loves science more. He narrates his writing projects to me. For notebooking pages he narrates to me and I write his words on the board, which he then copies down onto his notebooking page. He likes art class.

Caleb, Kindergarten – I’m pretty low-key in Kindergarten. Caleb has done math (MUS Alpha) and worked with letters consistently all year. He’s shown me in the last few weeks that he can blend and read CVC words so he just started All About Reading level 1. I love this because it has so many games to make the reading hands on. He’s listened to the history reading and really likes science this semester. He does notebooking pages by drawing a picture like the other kids and then he chooses a word or couple of words to label his picture as his copywork. In writing if he wants to participate he narrates to me and I write down his words. Some days he still just plays the day away and I’m just fine with that!

Mason, Preschool – I’m even more low-key for preschool than for Kindergarten. Mason was 4 years old until this month. There are no formal lessons. We read books, play with puzzles and playdough, use magnifying glasses and make messes. He’s started to do math out loud so I think he’s ready for some hands on math games soon. He is starting to recognize letters and will sometimes ask what a letter says. He’s also starting to write letters here and there for fun on his papers when he’s coloring or drawing. With Mason’s medical needs he also has physical therapy, lots of appointments, and a few learning needs are on our radar for the future. About 75% of kids with Spina Bifida and Chiari II Brain Malformation have specific learning issues in math, memory, and executive function areas. So I’m learning about what to watch, how to help, and just keeping an eye on things as we go.

Samuel, Preschool – Again, super low-key. He is only 3. He likes when I read books to him, he loves playing and is a pretty self-contained boy who is just as happy playing on his own as with his siblings. He recognizes all letters and their sounds. He’s also got a speech delay and we did speech therapy for a while but it didn’t help really (the therapist was asking me for ideas as she didn’t know what else to try) and after tolerating it for a while he has totally refused to participate now for weeks. We’re taking an extended break and I’m still doing what I’ve done since birth – reading to and with him a lot, talking with him, encouraging him to use his words, try new sounds, repeat after me, sing, and play. We’re seeing some progress.

Tobias, toddler – This little man turned 1 in November and he’s pretty much a climbing, into everything, happy little boy. He’s right in the middle of the action all the time. He loves books and has a couple favorites he brings to you to read over and over.

Phew! I may copy this and share it on my blog sometime too, it was a lot of work to type that out. Now for a few general updates.

1. We are getting ready to begin a grammar curriculum for a few of the older kids, and middle kids may tag along. I chose Fix-It Grammar because it will do double duty. The premise is that they correct one piece (sentence in the early levels) from a story each day (with the first of every 5 lessons being done as a group with the teacher instructing). Then they copywork this one thing into a notebook correctly. There is a vocab word you can define each day in the sentence too. By the end of the level the child has read, corrected, and written in their best handwriting an entire story they can read and enjoy.

2. I’m deep in college exploration and planning the last two years of high school with Makayla. We’re trying to be sure she has the courses they expect for incoming freshmen to be competitive at the colleges she is interested in. It is interesting to be at this point. She’ll be taking the ACT this spring for the first time (end of her 10th grade year). We decided to do it cold, meaning no real preparation, just to see where she falls in each section. Then we’ll be able to use those scores and her experience with the test to know what areas she needs to study and prepare in to improve her scores and she’ll take the test again twice in 11th and possible in 12th if she still wants to improve her score. (We do know the scores her colleges of choice like to see for incoming freshmen, so she has a goal to aim at.)

3. I am working on planning next year’s curriculum! It will be an interesting year because I may divide the kids up into 3 groups (Makayla is one, Joseph and Emma will be 7th/6th and group two, and then the rest of the younger boys will be 4th and under and group three). We will still have the same history time period and some books will cross over ages, but they’ll also have individual books. Science is where we will possibly split up more than we have before. We’ll see. Also, for next year I am planning our own history books instead of just using one curriculum guide. I’m working on those book lists right now too.

We are sort of down in the dumps today with dreary weather and lots of rain instead of snow this year in WI. We haven’t seen the sun or stars much which makes doing our Experience Astronomy class difficult to get done. I’ve just been using an online planetarium site so we don’t get to far behind.  Math is going well, I have two doing TT and two doing CLE. History has been pared down to just reading the read alouds; currently that is the Childrens Homer and Galileo.   Besides the Astronomy class once a week we are doing a Living Science Curriculum and Nature study- a calender of firsts, on Fridays. Language Arts is going well and our German is hit or miss; mostly miss.  I tried a new thing for morning time bible readings which was to pass the bible around and have each child take turns reading, they really enjoyed it so we will definitely continue with that.

Well, I guess it takes caring for an infant (#5) to make me realize I needed to take some action steps towards getting some things done rather than saying “I can’t do that right now!”  So, keeping flexibility and simplicity in mind, I’m being intentional with planning our weekly schedule and getting to subjects we skipped: nature walk and journaling and art/crafts.

I wanted to start some sort of nature club so we have 3 families meeting twice a month to follow along with Outdoor Nature Challenge.

I’m starting a blog to journal our family memories too.  Major learning curve with this one.

We have a really good flow to our days so far.  It amazes me how much work it is to herd 5 children from task to task.  I’m really trying to get them to move to some independent work.

My ds9 finally admitted out-loud that he can read!!!  He’s certainly more of a history, science, work-with-your-hands kid…beautiful cursive too.  Math…well, it’s math to him.

My dd10 (special needs) is making progress with reading.  We love ABeCeDarian.  She’s slowly getting math…some days better than others.

I’m starting my dd6 into the mix.  She’s eager and pretty quick to catch on.  I secretly hope she’s an early reader.

They narrate pretty well and they all love poetry which is nice.

I really hope to capture their young lives on the blog so they can re-live the memories we’re making.

@nerakr, Which book are you using for Agriscience?  DD16 wants to attend The Ohio State University to study agriculture, so last year we took a break from Apologia to go through an agriscience course we put together.  We used Agriscience: Fundamentals and Applications by L. Devere Burton, mostly because it was the only one we could find through interlibrary loan, and then we were able to purchase a used copy and the test answer key at a reasonable price.

We are now looking for more practical applications of her agriscience studies.  She is in 4-H, raises chickens, has done a self-determined 4-H project on GMO’s, and she basically wants to farm….eventually….when she (or we) can afford to move out of the city.  When I say “she raises chickens,” I mean we have six laying hens in a Little Tykes renovated coop with a 70 square foot run area.  Definitely urban farming.

Since my oldest graduated last year and DS17 is in a special ed program at a local high school, DD16 is my last homeschool student, in 10th grade.  She has been good at math, but Algebra I is a little tough.  We are also about 1/3 of the way through it at this point.  Science (Biology) is a little more than halfway, and her lab class through our co-op is about to begin dissection.  She loves the lab.

History?  It’s hard to say where we are with that because Early Modern Times (especially American history) is mom’s favorite, so we will probably just keep adding on books until we hit June.  (Tee-hee, too bad DD doesn’t want to be a history major!)

DD is plugging through Easy Grammar Plus, and it’s going fairly well.  She is mildly dyslexic, so language arts isn’t all that easy for her.  We alternate audiobooks with print volumes for literature.  Earlier this year, she read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, and A Christmas Carol.  She is currently reading a variety of short stories (Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, et. al.) and will also read The Scarlet Letter.  We’ll see what else she has time for.

Speaking of dyslexia, I am hoping to purchase a program by Jan Bedell of Little Giant Steps that targets brain training and should help with the dyslexia.  It’s a big investment, though, so I’m thinking of holding a fundraiser of sorts to raise the money needed for it.  A homeschooling friend of mine mentioned that her family has sold candy bars from a local sweet shop through their fundraising program.  They called it “The (Family Name) Homeschool Fundraiser,” and they used the money to pay for things like music, dance, and art classes.  Why not?

It has been a different sort of school year.  Even though I’m only homeschooling one (and she’s mostly independent….though mom won’t let her do history except as a family read-aloud…..tee-hee), things have been very busy. For her part, she is a 4-H officer, county fair poultry ambassador, a member of the county’s Junior Leaders Council (an extension of our fair and 4-H), a member of our county’s Junior Fair Board, enrolled in orchestra and ballroom dance at a homeschool fine arts school, and she is taking lifeguard training.

On my side of things, our church was mandated by our denomination offices to split the accounting duties for our daycare and church, so I have lost about 2/3 of my part-time income.  And, my dad’s Alzheimers is progressing, so he needs to stop driving asap, and he needs more supervision. This has been a lot more work than I anticipated, but I am hanging on because I think he will still live better at home than in assisted living at this point, plus if he moves there, we lose our home, and I have to consider how to work more and still manage to homeschool my daughter.  I would like to see her finish high school at home if at all possible.

So, that’s where we are at in 2017, and things are moving right along.  Maybe a little too fast sometimes….oh, no!  I sound like my mother!  😀