So, we started last week!  Yep, my LAST little one started Kindergarten and everyone else got crack-a-lackin' too!  What fun!

Our new house (the one we moved into last September) has a room that we have designated "the school room" so everyone has a place where their school belongings belong and where I can call them to meet me when lessons need to be doled out or everyone needs to hear something school-related.  Of course, quite a bit of that happens in the living room too, but that's another story!  ;)

My biggest thing this week is that baby of mine.  He's no baby, of course, but he's still MY baby!  I've been kind of carrying on for close to a year about how smart he is - things he does that nobody expects to come out of a little guy's mouth.  For example, last March at the National HomeSchool Basketball tournament in Springfield MO, we sat through a LOT of basketball games together every day.  This kid, aged 4 then, could rattle off the scores of the two teams - no big deal, right - knowing two-digit numbers isn't that crazy for a 4 year old.  But then to our surprise, he would tell us not only which team was winning but what the difference between their scores was.  And kept a running tally for us of the difference in their scores and what it would take for one team to catch up to the other - types of shots, etc. - i.e., they need a three-pointer to catch up or they need 10 free throws or 15 2-point shots.  Hilarious, I tell you.  Different friends that would join us at games later in the week would just sit there dumbfounded at the spectacle of it all - quite literally distracting fans from watching the game even.

After that week, my dear hubby started extolling the virtues of formalizing that child's education.  I thought about it for a split second, then came back with a twinkle in my eye at him - - - but you know, Honey, look how far he's come without me interfering!  LOL  He had to admit that was quite true, so he let us carry on through the rest of that school year without force-feeding education to him.  I was surely thankful for that because I had my hands full with the other three, thank-you-very-much, and hadn't even begun to explore the world of planning studious things for that boy to do.

So, the summer approached and I began to mull over different ideas for him this school year.  Would I go back to using "100 Easy Lessons" to teach him to read or try something new (like that fancy "Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading" that I had bought a couple of years ago to use with a struggling reader)?  Would we jump right into Math-U-See's primer or start on Alpha, or Beta, or maybe just skip to Pre-Algebra and he could sit with his sister?  (I'm joking, but these thoughts did fleet through my brain a time or two...)

In August, I went to what I consider to be the worst bookfair that I have ever attended (yep, in all my years of thinking about home-schooling and actually doing it once the kids were old enough - it was that stinky).  I was quite satisfied with my decision to buy absolutely nothing, when I passed one of my favorite booths - My Father's World.  Even though genius-boy was probably beyond Kindergarten level, I decided to buy him his very own, never-before-used-by-another-sibling curriculum and see where it led us.

So, week one came - last Monday - and I broke out the box.  We excitedly got busy with talking about Creation and starting to make the 7 days pictures.  I cracked open the pack of ABC flashcards.  He knew all those letters.  So instead of introducing 2 or 3 per day for 10 days, he ran through the set on day 1.  Hmmmm, I thought.  So, I let him do that every day last week.  We plowed through most of the first 10 day lesson in the first 5.  Still a bit unsure of where this road was leading, I marked down this week's lesson plan to finish out the 10 days of lessons (covering the 7 days of creation and then shoring up those topics...) and add in some reading (from a friend's Dick and Jane reader that was reprinted recently) and let his sisters write some "tougher" math problems for him - adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers, which I already knew he could do...just as a safety net and something to keep him busy.

As life would have it, this Monday, I woke up on day 2 of a nasty stomach flu.  Some people were educated that day, but not that fella, at least not by me.  When Tuesday dawned, I felt slightly more human, so we snuggled up on the couch to begin the Dick and Jane reader.  He didn't really want to try but I insisted that he just give it a whirl and see how it went. I would show him each "new" word and then each time he encountered it he would read it confidently.  A couple of stumbles with words that started the same, like Jane and jump, but mostly a pretty nice little reading lesson . . . . . that he didn't want to end.  So, the kid read FORTY pages!  Seriously - I'm not exaggerating in the least.  When Steve got home that night, we told him about our reading lesson and went into the bedroom for him to give a private reading while the other kids played noisily in the living room.  He wasn't satisfied re-reading the pages we had already seen that morning.  Dude went on to read through to page 72!

At this point, I was cracking up!  Little sight reader!!!  This morning, I decided to crack out 100 Easy Lessons just to see if he could do the sounding it out thing.  We did 5 lessons before he even complained that he wanted to read more about Dick and Jane and Baby Sally.  (His favorite part of that book so far is that the teddy bear's name is Tim just like his brother!)  So, today he read to page 87. 

Honestly, this little dude is a lot like I was.  So, I'm not falling out of my chair shocked about the turn of events.  But I am a little besmirched that I made education so difficult with the other 3 - good Lord - if I had only known to "pretend" like I wasn't teaching them anything at all and to make them beg ME to let them read - - - imagine what we could have accomplished!  Hahahaha!

I guess you can tell that we are having an excellent start to this school year.  The other kids are engaged in their main studies.  I still have a couple of subjects to introduce to them, plus their co-op classes with our group at church that start in a couple of weeks, but I'm learning that the longer I've been around this racetrack the more I have realized that the view is the same, but I am enjoying it a lot more!!!!  So, we're off to the races!!!!  Come along for the ride!!!!  You'll be glad you did.  :)