Beginning our Sonlight Journey

On Monday of this week, I started using Sonlight Core B + C and Grade 3 Readers with Language Arts with my third grade son.  I made the switch over to Sonlight from Moving Beyond the Page because I realized that what I most enjoy and appreciate about homeschooling is being able to cozy up on the couch and read great books with my children.  Sonlight's program is designed to allow me to do just that!!  For science with my 3rd grader, I've added A Reason For Science Level C.  It has lots of hands-on experiments and a lab book.  I'm planning to use it in conjunction with other resources that I pull together for each "area" of science.

The first photo shows my son preparing our first experiment from A Reason For Science.  This experiment explores germination.  I've purchased the Usborne Science Encyclopedia to supplement our study of science.  What an amazing resource it is!!

One more change to our curriculum for the year, I've decided to ditch SpellWell ( I did NOT like it and neither did my son).  Instead, we are pulling out All About Spelling Level 2 again.  I don't know why I ever wanted to switch from this wonderful program.  The photo below shows my son writing dictated spelling words on a whiteboard.

With our Sonlight Core B + C World History study, I've decided to have my son do a history notebook page each day to reflect our reading for that day.  Below you can see the page he did for our first day of Sonlight.  I am excited that he will be writing and illustrating his own history book.  It will be a treasured keepsake for the future!!

Sonlight Box Day!!!

Last Friday was the day our big box of Sonlight curriculum arrived.  I was very excited to receive it and wanted to document the opening of the box so I would remember it!  This box contains Sonlight Core B + C:  World History One Year Condensed and Grade 3 readers with Language Arts.  I'll be using this with my third grader.

It's so awesome to have so many amazing books to explore this year!

Homeschool Bliss & News

I do truly intend to blog here on a regular basis.  I just need to get into my groove with it.  I'd so appreciate it if you keep stopping by.

I wanted to record a great moment that just happened in our home.  I went into my bedroom where my oldest son was lying on the quilt in the sunshine doing his daily 30 minutes of independent reading.  The cat was curled up by his side.  I ruffled his hair and said, "Good book, huh?"  He replied, "This book has a very engaging plot which makes you want to keep reading it.  You should read it sometime."  YES!!  This is my kid who is a die-hard non-fiction addict.  I've instituted the daily 30 minutes of independent reading to instill (hopefully) a love of fiction in him.  I'm so excited that he is loving his book, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.  He told me last night that he likes the book so much he sometimes wants to keep reading.  I quickly assured him that reading MORE than 30 minutes is completely acceptable!!

On another note, from my last post,  you may have surmised that I was considering making a curriculum change, at least for my youngest son.  I have ordered Sonlight Core B+C for him with the Grade 3 Readers/Language Arts program as well as A Reason For Science Level C since he'd been begging me to do science experiments.  I am planning to document our experiences with these new materials as soon as they arrive.  I've been stalking my email hoping to see that my Sonlight has shipped.  I think it will be a great fit since my favorite part of each day is that we start out with a read-aloud on the couch.  Now we'll just being doing that a lot more every day.  Can't wait!!  If you use Sonlight I'd love to hear from you.  Oh, and I'd love to hear from you even if you don't!  ha!

Something missing...........

We are into our third week of homeschooling and getting everything on our work plans checked off, but I feel like something is missing.  It's been bugging me a lot lately.  I think I've figured out that it has to do with the fact that we aren't doing as much "together" as last year.  Since I have a 6th grader and a 3rd grader, my two sons obviously have a lot of different needs academically.  They are in different levels of our Moving Beyond the Page curriculum.  Still, I'm thinking if we did more of our content area work "together" I would feel like we were having a richer experience.  Does that make sense?  I would love to hear from any of you about how you address this issue in your homeschool.  PLEASE comment!! 

Here's a little something........

My youngest son is a LEGO fanatic!!  He loves LEGO!!  He has a great space in his room to build with LEGO bricks and spends lots of time there.  Once in a while he takes my camera in there and takes photos of his scenes to make a stop-motion video.  He very much wanted me to share a video he made recently.  I am so proud of him.  He did ALL the photos and building himself.  He took 326 separate photos to make this video.  I only helped with uploading them to the computer and adjusting the timing, adding music, etc.  He did everything else.   He's eight years old.

I have tried multiple times over several days to upload the video here.  I did finally figure out how to upload it to YouTube, however, so if you CLICK HERE you can go to YouTube and watch.  He would LOVE to have feedback, so feel free to comment either on the YouTube page or on this post.

"Old and crappy" or "Old and crabby".........you decide!!

A funny story from today.........while driving my oldest son to middle school for his two classes that he takes there each day (an elective period and band) I was listening to an "oldies" station on the radio and singing along.  Thinking I was talking to him, my oldest son asked me what I had said.  I replied that I was singing along to a song from my youth, pointing out that although I am an "old crabby" mom now, I did at one point in time actually HAVE a youthful period.  ha!  He promptly assured me that I wasn't "crappy".  He said, "You might get old someday, but you'll never be crappy."  I realized at that point that he had misunderstood me the first time and thought I was calling myself "crappy" not "crabby".  What a hoot!!  I told him that I had actually said "crabby" and asked if he thought that moniker fit since he wasn't willing to describe me as "crappy."   Long pause...........crickets...........(he's an honest boy for the most part)..........  Finally, "Well..........um........."  I let him off the hook and told him I know that I can be crabby at times (can't we all?) and it's okay to actually admit it!  Just a funny little story that I wanted to share and remember.