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!! 

The Big Picture

As I type this I am halfway through the fourth day of my third year of homeschooling.  Do I sometimes question if I'm doing the right thing?  Yes!  Do I sometimes wish I were back in the workforce? Yes!  Do I sometimes miss interacting with other adults on a daily basis in a work setting?  Yes!  Do I plan to continue homeschooling anyway?  Yes!

When I talk about our decision to homeschool with others, I find myself often saying that it's not easy.  I don't say this to be negative about the experience.  I say it because when people find out I homeschool, they often say things like, "Oh, I could never do that" or "You have a teaching degree so I'm sure it's easy for you, but I wouldn't have a clue what to do" or similar expressions of amazement and awe.  Being a pretty humble person (I hope!), I tend to try to deflect comments towards myself that are complimentary.  I feel compelled to make sure that people know that homeschooling isn't easy, even for someone with a teaching degree and 20 years of "professional" teaching experience.  It isn't easy when your children balk at doing their work, distract each other, speak disrespectfully to you, or fight during their school day. And one or all of these things happens around here pretty much on a daily basis.  No, it certainly isn't easy.  Yet I will persist in doing it because when I stop to take a breath, even on the hardest days, I am reminded of the big picture.

The big picture could very well be different for each family.  For our family, the big picture is that we want to raise our sons to be kind, caring and compassionate adults.  We want them to have the self-confidence to stand behind their morals and beliefs in the face of challenge and adversity.  We want to nurture and develop their individual talents and interests, giving them lots of time to spend doing activities that they love.  Notice that I'm not mentioning having a certain GPA or getting into a certain college.  We definitely also want academic excellence for our sons, and we very much want them to attend college or other post-secondary education.  However,  what is most important to me as a mom is that my boys learn to care about the world and its people and that they have the desire to do good as adults.  I believe that I can best empower them by having them home during this season of life where we can talk freely about God (even questioning our beliefs and being okay with that), where they can develop a strong sense of self without worrying about what's "cool" or what others will think, and where we can focus on matters of the heart in a relaxed and loving setting. 

A while back, we started a new practice of beginning each school day with "sticks."  We have a can of colored craft sticks on which we have written the names of  people and issues to pray about.  Of course our sticks have the names of our family members, friends who may be struggling, our Compassion-sponsored children, etc.  We also make sticks for people who need prayers for healing or grief.  We have a "Boston" stick and a "Connecticut" stick to remember those communities and the tragedies they have recently experienced.  We have a stick for "military" and one for "government".  Each morning we begin by picking a stick and praying out loud for the person or entity represented.  When my children were both attending school outside our home, we would not have had time to do this in the morning rush.  I'm so thankful that we can do this simple thing together every school day.

Today, my oldest son and I had a good, but difficult conversation about what is currently happening in Syria and our country's possible involvement in the conflict.  Surprisingly, I found myself tearing up as we talked.  It was suddenly so hard for me to have to reveal to him the face of evil in the world.  For so many years of their young lives, we shelter our children from things that can be upsetting or frightening, like the fact that humans can do such evil to one another.  Now that my son is almost twelve, it is time for him to begin to have a more global perspective, even the bad stuff.  He's now studying World War I and will be studying World War II shortly.  I'm so thankful that I have him home for these subjects so we can talk about the role that our Christian and moral values have when reflecting upon past and current atrocities.

I don't think homeschooling is for everyone.  I believe people when they say, "I could never do that".  I believe them because I know that what they are really saying is "I would never WANT to do that."  And that's okay.  For now, homeschooling is just right for us as we keep in mind the big picture.

I'd love to have comments on this post.  What are your thoughts about homeschooling and the big picture?

2013-2014 Homeschool Curriculum

Drumroll.........I know everyone loves a good curriculum post.  I actually don't know how many people are reading this blog here in its infancy, but I know that if it does pick up readership, especially amongst the homeschool crowd, that the masses will find their way to this post.  Here is what we are doing this school year.

6th Grade
In February or March of 2013, we started using Moving Beyond the Page.  I have loved this curriculum for both of my sons.  This year, my oldest, who is in 6th grade, is starting the year with Concept 2: Unit 3 from the 10-12 age curriculum.  Last semester he completed Concept 2 Units 1 & 2.  Below is an overview of the topics for Concept 2, taken directly from the website.  When we started Unit 1 last spring, we had just hit the Civil War era in the materials we were using so the timing was perfect.  We then rolled right into Unit 2.  He was very excited to dig into Unit 3 starting this year.  An important sidenote is that my oldest son is attending public school for 2 periods each day: band (he will learn trumpet) and an elective rotation period (Chorus 2 days, Art 2 days, Skills/Health 2 days, repeat).  We have talked about gradually transitioning back to school so that he will be full-time public school in high school.  He recently told me that he wants to finish the rest of Moving Beyond the Page (as far as it goes) before he goes back to school full time.

Concept 2: Force and Power
Unit 1: Slavery and the Civil War Unit 2: Force and Motion Unit 3: The World Wars	Unit 1: Bull Run Unit 2: Albert Einstein Unit 3: Number the Stars

I will try to briefly (can't promise brevity, sorry) tell you what I really like about this curriculum.  First, it is set up just how I would put together a curriculum if I wrote one from scratch.  Each unit has either a Social Studies or Science focus, so you aren't doing both subject areas simultaneously.  Rather, you dig deeply into one or the other over the course of the unit.  Each unit has a literature component that corresponds to the social studies or science focus for that unit.  For example, when we studied "Slavery and the Civil War" in social studies (history), the corresponding text was Bull Run, a fictional story set in the Civil War era.  I find that the assignments/activity pages are very rigorous in terms of the critical thinking required.  They go WELL beyond simply reading a passage and answering questions.  There are tons of application activities that really force kids to think outside the box.  I love this!!

Secondly, I love that this is an open and go curriculum.  I am willing, for sure, to put time and effort into the materials that I use to teach my children at home.  However, I am certainly not one to reinvent the wheel.  If someone else has put together something that is just what I want, I will jump on it like flies to honey.  Luckily for me, MBTP is just that.

It is a pricey curriculum, but I feel it's well worth the investment.  One thing we are doing a bit differently with it this year that will somewhat reduce our cost is to spread the units out over a longer period of time.  As written, each unit takes about 3 weeks if you school every day.  By doing the Reading/Language Arts lessons two days a week and the social studies/science lessons two days a week, with Friday as a catch-up day, we will stretch our units out over 6-7 weeks.  Last year when we tried to fit all the suggested activities for both R/LA and SS/Sci into each day, my oldest son got a bit bogged down.  I also felt that we didn't get as much out of it when I tried to plow through it that quickly.  I think we'll both appreciate the slower pace this year.

OOPS........I knew that wouldn't be brief.

OK......for Math we are using Math-U-See Pre-Algebra.  This is our first year with Math-U-See.  I used Right Start the first year and Teaching Textbooks last year.  I don't actually recommend jumping around that much, but I found Right Start to jump around too much with their topics.  I liked the hands-on, but did not feel it provided the continuity that it could have.  I also liked many things about TT, but felt that the hands-on aspect was missing.  I'm hoping Math-U-See will be a perfect blend of what I'm looking for in a math curriculum.

That's pretty much it for my oldest.  To practice cursive, he is writing in a Handwriting Without Tears journal twice a week.  He gets to choose a poem, quote or scripture to write in cursive just to keep in shape with it.  I think it's sad that many public schools are not teaching cursive anymore.  On the days he doesn't do his cursive journal, he will do Typing Instructor to practice keyboarding.

Extra-curricular activities for my oldest include piano lessons, band, and 4-H

3rd Grade

My third grader will be using Moving Beyond the Page Concept 2: Unit 2 for Reading/Language Arts, Social Studies and Science for ages 8-10.  He completed all of Concept 1 last year as well as Concept 2: Unit 1.  Below is an overview of this concept taken directly from the website.

Concept 2: Change
Unit 1: Environments Change	Morning Girl Experience life through the eyes of a brother and sister in the pre-Columbian Caribbean. Life on their island is dramatically changed when a hurricane blows through, but the biggest change is yet to come. . .
Unit 2: Communities Change Over Time	Communities and Cultures Follow the adventures of the Blinkerton kids as they travel back in time and learn what life was really like in Ancient Egypt and the Middle Ages.
Unit 3: People Change the World	American Heroes Read biographical sketches about the amazing people who have shaped our nation. Be inspired to make the world a better place.

I'll just add here that I have loved all the literature and non-fiction book selections for the MBTP units.  We have read books that we wouldn't have read otherwise and have added some amazing titles to our home library.  Fabulous stuff!!!

For math, we are using Math-U-See Beta & Gamma Levels.  Beta will be a bit of a review of multi-digit addition and subtraction and place value, but since we are starting with a whole new math series, I felt the review would be good.  We are planning to move through this level pretty quickly.  Then we'll move into the Gamma level, which is multiplication.

We are trying something new for spelling this year, SpellWell B.  I hope we like it.  I may also add in lessons from All About Spelling which we have used off and on during first and second grade.  I like how AAS teaches lots of spelling rules, but I like that SpellWell has assigned lists and spelling activities for each day of the week.  So it will probably be a combination.

And, I'll be teaching the third grader cursive using Handwriting Without Tears Cursive Handwriting twice a week and keyboarding skills with Typing Instructor twice a week.

Gearing up for a new school year

Tomorrow we will start our third year of homeschooling.  I'm planning to put up a post or a page on here soon about our curriculum choices for this year.  I know how much homeschooling moms love to check out a curriculum post!!  For now, I'm going to share my system of organization which has evolved over time into what works for us now.

Right now I have the first 6 or so weeks of our school year planned out.  I am lucky that our main curriculum is a unit study approach and lays out what we do for reading, language, social studies and science.  This makes my life SO much easier.  (I know you are now dying to hear what we are using!)  I'm using the file box shown below to hold the papers and worksheets that we need for the weeks I've planned out so far.  Each of my sons has a hanging file folder inside.  In that folder are stacks of papers for each week, clipped together and divided by week.

Here are the two folders inside the box that hold their papers.

This next photo shows the stacks of papers paper-clipped together by week.

For a few years now, I've typed up work plans for each of the boys so they can easily see what work they need to complete each day as well as for the whole week.  They keep these workplans on clipboards as shown below.  This year I've changed the way I format the workplans a bit, and I think we'll really like looking at our week this way.  Now they can more easily see what they have to complete for each subject by looking down the vertical column.  They can also easily see what needs to be done in a given day by looking across a row.   Last year I just used the day of the week as a heading and then listed out what needed to be done that day underneath.

Clipboards and all books/manuals/workbooks needed for completing assignments are kept in a basket.  Each of the boys has their own basket.  The basket also has a small pencil case that holds pencils, erasers, scissors and a glue stick.  These photos also show boxes of markers which are new for the school year.  We will either keep these in plastic boxes or in our supply drawers.  They won't stay in the boxes for long.

The baskets sit on a little dresser thing that we have right by our dining room table.  Like many newbie homeschoolers, the first year of homeschooling I set up a special "room" in our home to do our homeschool work.  Like most homeschoolers who've been at this a while, I have now learned that we like to do our work on the couch in the living room, at the dining room table, or other places in the house.  We don't like to be sitting at desks in the "homeschool" room all day.  So.....it works great for us to have our materials easily accessible within the space where we will do most of our work.  I like that the baskets can contain the clutter and hold everything we need at our fingertips.  The little drawers in the photo hold markers, crayons and colored pencils (that drawer is missing.........it's in my oldest son's bedroom, I'm pretty sure.)  When we need to use any of those supplies, we just pull out the drawer and move it where we need it, then return it to its place when we're done.  Easy peasy!  This system has worked great for us.  I'd love to hear how you get organized, so feel free to add your own two cents in the comments!!