Half Way

Since we're about halfway through our school year I thought I'd do a quick recap of what we're using, what's working, that kind of thing. You may or may not recall my first day of the school year post and all the books we had chosen this summer. We are more or less still using the same things. However, Latin and the Child's Geography have taken a back burner and we scrapped the art program altogether since the kids are taking art lessons elsewhere. It's been a transition for all of us schooling two kids for the first time while also managing an increasingly mobile baby who enjoys boycotting her morning nap several times a week.

Some days go SO well. The kids do their math and penmanship work while I tidy the kitchen, sweep floors, make bread, etc and the baby plays happily in her highchair. By the time I am done with my chores, the baby is headed down for a nap so I can work one on one with Audrey and Ian can do his free reading. When that's done Audrey can play or color by herself and I work one on one with Ian on his language and spelling. Then, the three of us come back together for history and science. We are all done just in time for the baby to wake up and me to prepare lunch. After noon, we snuggle up on the couch and read. Then, the baby naps, the big kids go outside, and I lay on the couch sipping tea while I catch up on my reading.

{snort} That's how it is in my dreams.

In reality, there is bickering about who stole who's pencil, intermingled with the baby pulling every single book off the shelves, more bickering because she colored on my math paper, complaints of I don't wanna read today, he's thinking too loud, and requests for snacks 17 minutes after finishing breakfast. All in all, we love it. Even on the days when we don't and the principal must be called in from the barn for a visit, none of us would change our decision to home educate for anything in the world.

In terms of our curriculum choices, I'm overall quite pleased. My days and weeks of research seem to have paid off. I am really liking all of our Peace Hill Press materials. Audrey is doing amazingly well learning to read with the help of The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. Teaching a child to read was my biggest home schooling fear and we conquered it in just a couple months! I also LOVE the spelling program that Ian is using! I have learned so much from All About Spelling. It's refreshing to know why things are spelled the way they are! Being a natural speller myself this is exactly what I needed to help my not natural speller become proficient. The one thing that we don't like a single bit is the Apologia Elementary Science. It might have been fine for just Ian, but it is a stinking ton of reading and Audrey's eyes glaze over(as do mine). So, we are in the process of switching to Elemental Science.

How is your school year going?