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Ok, so it's new to us! And I am blessed WAY beyond words by it!!! A month or so ago I began a search for something different because my kids were all bored to tears with what we had been doing. Knight #2 especially balked at doing it every time. When I was able to get him to sit and do it, he would sigh and say, "This is soooo boring!", the whole time.

I was thinking that I wanted to try an online program called Time4Learning that sounded really great and has gotten really great reviews from other homeschool moms and kids alike. The problem was, when I brought that proposal to my DH, he said there was no way we could afford to pay the monthly fees to do that. So I thought I was back to square one.

Then my dear friend Mrs. Bee mentioned to me that her church's library has had Switched On Schoolhouse sitting in a closet gathering dust for the past 4 years! She could check it out for me and I could try it for free!! This is a curriculum put out by Alpha Omega Publications, for those of you who do not know. They are a premium homeschool publisher and have been for years.

This particular curriculum is all on the computer and has different grade levels from 3rd - 12th. They cover the five core subjects of Bible, Math, History/Geography, Science and Language Arts, plus electives to choose from. The software includes a lesson planner which can be printed out to serve as our record of what we've done for the year. What we are using is from 2002, but still very little has become outdated.

So we were able to start this new curriculum on Monday. It is taking some time for all of us to adjust, but I think once we all get used to it, this is going to be awesome!!! I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders!

In case you are wondering about the timing of starting a new curriculum...I mean why not wait till the new school year starts? I just feel that we have missed out on so much schooling this past year that we need to work thru the summer in order to catch up. We will take off for VBS and I am seriously considering only having a 4 day school week. That would leave a day open for field trips, play dates, etc.

Oh! One of the things I like best about this new curriculum is that I no longer have to have all three kids together to teach them. See I have one who gets up extra early and one who likes to sleep as late as he can. Maiden is somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. Knight #1 can get his school work done and move on to what he wants to do often before the other two are even up!

The draw back is that I've been having to sit right with the two younger kids while they do school. Since the software is only on one computer so far, this takes up a huge chunk of my day. I am hoping that DH will be able to figure out how to get the file sharing set up for at least one more computer so that they can work simultaneously. They will probably still need my help but at least it will not take up so much of my day.

The other advantage is when for some reason, like my frequent migraines, I am not able to do school with the kids, daddy or practically anyone else could step in and help them with no trouble at all. No more missed days of school just because mommy is sick!