I finally got to Staples yesterday and bought the notebooks we decided to make.  Tyler will have a Language Arts notebook, a History notebook and a Science notebook.  He already has a math notebook where he keeps his notes.  He is decorating the covers and seems to like it.  I am hoping this will give him more incentive to take some pride in his work.  If it goes into the notebook to save and show people maybe he will care more about how it looks.  

     His first project to go into his history notebook is a report on Christopher Columbus.  Last year he studied history by reading the textbook, taking notes, answering questions and taking a test.  It was boring.  This year we do use a textbook, but only for a general idea of the event we are learning about.  Then we use what are known as "living books" to do a more in-depth study.  For instance, we read a historical novel called Pedro's Journal that told the story of the Columbus voyage to the Americas through the eyes of a boy on the Santa Maria.  Now Tyler will write a couple of paragraphs summing up the important parts of this, add graphics and pictures to his report, and we will put it in his notebook.  Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do to make him like the writing.  He hates writing.  Hopefully, as he gets better at it he will enjoy it more. 

     Moving and homeschooling at the same time is hard.  That is all I have the energy and time to write. 

I have joined a reading group at http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/ClassicalMamma/Become+a+Reading+Partner/

where we are first reading Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book.  From there, I believe, we will be reading The Well Educated Mind and then going on to books recommended by these authors.   This is something I have wanted to do for a long time and have actually already read much of the second book.  One thing I have already learned from Adler's book is what my problem has always been in trying to read the Bible.  In doing inspectional reading Adler says that "If you insist on understanding everything on every page before you go onto the next, you will not get very far..............You will miss the forest for the trees." 

In stopping everytime I do not understand something to consult dictionaries and commentaries I get tired and discouraged very quickly and end up giving up.  I remember over a year ago I decided to read the Bible straight through with no commentary.  At some point I forgot what I was doing and began consulting commentaries again.  Of course, shortly after that I stopped.  Not that commentaries are not useful, but only after one has an idea of the big picture.  At least that is what Adler says.   And, from my limited experience I would have to agree. 

     Well, you could blow me over with a feather!!  I bought the book that several people recommended called Inkheart for Tyler to read this summer.  He noticed it on the kitchen table and asked what it was.  I told him I got it for him to read for fun.  He read the back of the book and then went and sat down with it.  After about 15 minutes I told him he needed to get his math done.  He did his math and then wanted to take a break.  He said, "Can I play games?  Wait.  Never mind.  I want to read that book."  

     Words cannot express my elation. 

     Last week was a nice break for me.  Tyler had three days of standardized testing through the K12 program and then we took Friday off.  I have very mixed feelings about the standardized tests, but they are a requirement while participating in K12 - which we won't be next year.  (Note:  I have since changed my mind and we will do this again next year now that I have learned to take what I like from this program and modify the rest.)  However, I will still administer the CAT/5 to him at home next year.  The tests help me guage what we need to focus on and sometimes confirm to me that he is having a problem in a certain area that needs attention.  I find them to be a useful tool when used correctly. 

I came across these last night at http://www.teachingtape.com/ and after viewing the demo I decided to purchase a set for Saxon 6/5 which is what Tyler is using.  The demo was for Algebra and when the teacher explained it so simply that I could do the math I was convinced.  I really wish I had found these earlier in the year for my step-son.  He is doing Saxon 8/7 in school and has been struggling terribly.  How great would it have been for him to be able to watch the lesson at home to help him with his homework.  Well, if they use Saxon again for him next year we know where to turn for help.  And, at a fraction of the cost of Sylvan! 

     Well, it's time to decide if we will have some school through the summer.  I have been pondering this and have decided to do a limited amount of work this summer.  I was thinking it would be good to try and do more fun stuff, especially with reading.  My son is not a big reader.  He reads just fine, but it is difficult to get him to willingly sit down and read a book.  Funny thing is that once he gets into a good book he really likes it.  However, that has not been enough to get him to voluntarily pick up another good book to read.   I was going to try and get him to read the Harry Potter books, but now that he has seen the movie I think reading the books would not be as exciting.   I will have to look around for some fun reading for us this summer. 

     We will also have to keep up on his math and writing as these are his trouble areas.  But, I am going to try to keep it light and enjoyable.  We could both use the break. 

     We just got back from the library.  We had to go to pick up some books on soccer for a report Tyler is writing.  We just happened to show up at story time for the 3-5 year olds so we stayed and Helen participated.  She had such a good time and was so cute with the other kids.  Hannah wanted to do it, too, but she is not old enough.  I tried to sit on the outer edge of the circle with her so she could feel a part of it without disrupting the group.  I will have to find out what days they have that and take her back. 

     I decided to enroll Tyler in Sylvan for a month or so to help him with some of his math.  He is having a hard time with any kind of word problems and numeration.  He has not really grasped some of the math concepts especially in the area of understanding place value after the thousands and how to determine in a word problem if he needs to add, subtract, multiply or divide.  So, I took him to Sylvan hoping that they could teach what I could not.  Well, he has only gone three times, but he is already upset by it.  According to him they expect answers too quickly and don't give him enough time to think about the problem.  Tyler does need more time to figure things out which is one of the reasons I brought him home to school in the 4th grade.  You can't force him to move faster because the more pressure he feels the more he shuts down.  I was hoping at Sylvan the teachers would be able to communicate a better way for Tyler to learn these skills, but maybe he just needs more time at home to learn them.  I really am at a loss as to how to help him with the word problems.  I may have to rethink the Sylvan idea.

     Tyler did a great experiment (well, I thought it was great!) a couple of days ago and I have been trying to figure out how to load pictures here so I can show him with his experiment.  But, I am not having much luck yet. 

     Anyway, we are studying oceans and he did an experiment mixing warm salty water with cold salty water.  We put blue food coloring in the cold water so we could see it when we mixed the water.  Well, we added the cold water to the warm water and sure enough the cold water sank to the bottom and caused a little current!  It was so fun to watch.  I was much more excited than Tyler, but when it comes to school work I am always more enthusiastic than Tyler. 

I received so many emails about the problems with Sonlight Language Arts that I have decided to continue to use Easy Grammar along with Learning Language Arts Through Literature (LLATL) and sentence diagramming.  In addition to the emails, the Sonlight required so many novels and LLATL only required 5 novels so it was much cheaper.  Which is, of course, always a plus. 

     After writing about using Easy Grammar this morning I began thinking.  While Easy Grammar is a better fit we are really sick of pages and pages of grammar practice.  And, the more I push Tyler to memorize this stuff the more he hates it.  I think I will lighten up on the formal grammar lessons and implement a more literature based approach to this.  As I already mentioned we really like the Sonlight History, which is literature based.  Perhaps, we should try their Language Arts program and see if that helps. 

     Someone reminded me today of sentence diagramming.  We did this last year and didn't pick it up again this year.  I think the diagramming is a much more interesting way to learn sentence structure as it can be seen a puzzle and we will start that again along with the Sonlight program.

     This is my second year homeschooling and I feel as if I am starting all over again.  For my 4th and 6th grade (back when I used to categorize by grades) boys I began homeschooling using Seton Home Study, a Catholic program.  We are Catholic and, having no experience in homeschooling, I wanted to use a pre-packaged curriculum so that I wouldn't make any mistakes.  Of course, after two years I now think continuing to use a pre-packaged curriculum for our family is a mistake.  It was a good way to get started and I don't regret it.  The boys, after all, did learn and that was the point. 

     When they entered 5th and 7th grade this last fall, however, we began to have problems.  My 7th grader went back to private school and my 5th grader became extremely bored with Seton.  Come to think of  it, so did I.  So, I began to search for another curriculum.  That is when I found K12.  It looked much more exciting than Seton and I knew I could easily continue to teach Catholicism on my own.  So, we switched program mid-year in February.  Switching curriculum mid-year is difficult and I was getting panicky thinking of the time we were losing starting over and trying to figure out a new program.  During the three months that we have used the program I have been exploring other ideas for homeschooling.  I started by looking for another history program because the K12 history relied on the books A History of US by Joy Hakim which were too liberal for us.  I found the Sonlight history of the US (we are doing the two years condensed into one) to be a much better fit for us.  I have always gone back and forth between a Charlotte Mason and a Classical approach.  Then I found that the Easy Grammar books worked much better for us than the K12 and we began using them.  After that I discovered notebooking and added that to our K12 Science.  And on and on it went.  Suddenly I realized that I was creating my own curriculum based completely on Tyler's (that's my 11 year old) abilities and learning style.  We are now enjoying our school days and I feel completely competent to break away from pre-packaged curriculum. 

     In another year I will be starting to school my oldest daughter (4 years in June) and I am so excited.  Now I have about 3 years to figure out how to homeschool high school.