This year we are using Sonlight Core 1 for DS8 and DD6.  We are really enjoying the Sonlight curric.  It is really nice not to have to fight so much to get some work done.  My DD6 even will jump for joy when its her one on one time for LA and Math (of course her big brother often does not, but at least he is not hating it!)  I'm personally excited to get finished with week 7 so we can move on to some real beef of history instead of just the generic way people live sections.  Its good for them to understand that there are many different cultures around and all, but I personally can't wait to move on.  I'm sure they will enjoy the meatier side of Sonlight once we move on too.

DD6 is very proud of herself to becoming a reader.  She is doing very well.  I constantly am thinking of the things she would be working on in PS.  They would be working mostly on letter sounds and just starting to try to read.  She is so quick at it, she would be one of the top readers in the class.  I sometimes feel bad that I'm not sending her to PS.  She would enjoy the class setting.  She loves everyone and just wants to please.  I know she would be successful in PS.  But I also know that she will be more successful HS'ing.  She is just as smart as her older brother, especially smart in LA, and is picking things up super quick.  Its so nice to know we can go her pace and focus where she needs a little more time (which hasn't happened yet!).

My baby DS3 will be 4 in Jan.  He has been acting out lately.  He has been having horrible temper tantrums and has gotten into talking back too.  He is hitting, kicking, and spitting - mostly as a game, but also when he's upset and/or mad.  I think a large part of it is my fault for not making personal time with him.  So I am trying to do that.  I also am thinking he will benifit from some school as well.  He is already showing readiness signs.  He'll ask me about letters and what they say.  He's trying to decipher the difference between a written number and a letter.  He can count nearly to 20 without any help (there is 1 or 2 numbers he'll skip, but that's not bad).  If he is taking his time and not goofing, he can count 10 objects (I haven't tried more objects to count yet, so  I don't know if he can go higher).  DH and I have decided to pick up curric for him as soon as we can afford to get it.  Sonlight came out with Core A very recently.  It looks like it will be fun for him.  I'm still having some trouble deciding either A or B, but I think I'll go with A and when we get done with it, we'll move on to B.  I've heard some of the books in B are a bit longer with less pictures and it may not hold his attention.  I've joined the SLPreschool yahoo group and have been looking at the 2 alternate schedules for Core B.  One just feels to Kindergarten to me.  It may be great for him next year.  The other one has more of a PreK feel to me.  I've been asking around all the forums for advise on what to do with him.  Most say to go with A.  He loves me to read to him, just like the other kids.  I don't think A will be a bad investment .  Its just a little earlier than I had planned on getting and starting something with him.  Oh well, I suppose its because I'm working with the other kids and its things over his head. I do hope that this will tame the beast lol.

Seasons are a changing.

Spring.. Man I love Spring.

I feel like its been a rough start in homeschooling.  I guess I'm a little jealous of those that can get a curric and it works.  Not only has none of the books I've gotten worked, but failed terribly. LOL  Anytime I would try to get DS to "sit for a bit to work", as soon as I turned my back he would disappear.  If I was able to watch him the whole time so he couldn't "escape", we could sit for hours not getting a thing done.  This is definately a pattern I want to avoid.  So, its been back to the drawing board.

I guess, since I was a PS kid, learning to me looks like workbooks and textbooks and such.  That's just how it looks.  So, I've been allowing myself to deschool as well.  Its pretty funny, but the one style of homeschooling I never expected to do in a million years, is the way we seem to be heading (sort of).  We are heading in nearly an unschooling style.  I'm not completely comfortable with that, so I guess we are leaning to eclectic at the moment. 

I've been doing a unit study approach.  I find that I realy like Valerie Bendt's style of unit studies.  All 3 of the kids love me reading to them, so her literature base unit studies are fantastic for me.  Currently we are studying plants/gardens.  We have planted each our own garden and a family vegi garden.  Soon we will also mix in some butterflys since the season is right around the corner for it and I am also making a buterfly garden for myself.  I have allowed math to take a backseat for a while, but I hope to get him back interested in it.  Math seems to come easy for him.  I tried to get him to do a little today, but he wouldn't.  I also haven't started in with any writting yet.

I am begining to wonder if I can pull together and stick to some sort of daily schedule.  I've never liked such a structured day.  It always made me feel guilty if I strayed from it.  But I do wonder if it would help with the learning parts of our day.

I think one of the reason I dont feel comfortable letting completely go of the learning, is that I feel like I have been doing that for months (not making DS do anything and waiting for him to want to start doing something, anything.).  I don't see any sign of him wanting to.  I don't expect him to want textbook learning, but any interest would be cool to me.  I'd love for him to want to dive into a subject deep and learn learn learn about it.

I have noticed with all the book I've been reading lately, that if I read a book to the younger 2 say for bedtime or something, he will usually come join us.  If he happened to miss the begining, he will read what he missed to himself.  This is (to me) a big step in him reading.

I really want to find that one ignition switch that would just turn the fire for learning on LOL. 

At least, I can say for myself.  I have been learning.  I have borrowed from the library or bought many books lately on unschooling style and unit studies and gifted kids.  I am teaching myself.  I am seeing that unschooling is a fairly good option for us.  It's not going to happen overnight, but I think we may end up getting there.  But Shhhh don't tell My mom. LOL  I'm sure she wouldn't agree with the approach.

As a New Year's Resolution, I said I could no longer babysit my neice.  So, on New Year's Eve, I told my brother they would need to find someone else.  It took them 3 weeks, but they decided to let my ex-sister-in-law babysit her.  Ok, to me its wierd to have your ex-wife babysit your fiance's baby.  But hey, whatever works for them.

It has made a BIG difference in my attitude.  I am feeling better and the kids can't back me down as well.  Plus, now when they need me, I'm there.  No more telling them they have to wait because I'm taking care of the baby.

On the Homeschool homefront, it is finally going better.  I'm not sure if we are doing "enough" but I guess everyone thinks that in the begining.  We only have sit--down work for about 1 hour a day.  I pretty much feel like we are just now getting started.  I am still trying to find out what my DS knows, what he doesn't, and how to approach him with it.  Is 6 months of de-schooling too much?  I'll say this, I'm not getting a fight anymore, and we I feel like we only really got started last week.  So, that's a good thing right?

I think I'm approaching Homeschooling in a very eclectic way.  It depends on my mood, prep time, and kids attitude that day.  I've never been one that was good for schedules.  So, I have lots of different kinds of materials so I can grab what I feel like having them do.  Sometimes we will do Unit study (with Math and Language Arts added if needed).  Other times I'll pull things from the web (like Homeschoollearning.com or ABCteach.com etc).  Then, if I don't have any planning time I'll grab one of the workbooks and we'll do a few pages.  It seems like we are doing review right now.  I guess that's one reason we get done so fast.  I just dont know where he is at yet.

My DD on the other hand, I know exactly what she knows since she hasn't been in school yet.  Most of the Kindergarten things she already knows.  We are working on letter sounds and begining reading, as well as handwritting, math, science, and whatever floats our boat.  She loves "learning time" and often (nearly daily) asks me if we can "do our learning".  I hope some day that DS will look forward to it like that.

As for my youngest kid, he hangs out.  He's only 3, so I'm pretty comfortable with his lead on learning.  I am letting him join in with the other kids when he wants and often have books or printed sheets for him to use.

So, here's to more good days.

Taking care of my 6 month old niece is one of my biggest obstacles.  So, one of the things we try to do is HS after she leaves at night.  The only problem with that, I still have to do dinner.  By the time we're done with dinner, the kids are sometimes too tired to work, and some nights I just dont want too because I'm tired (or very stressed because she can be a very demanding baby).

I do love her, and I know in my heart she is best off here with me.  For one thing, my brother and his GF couldn't afford daycare (and they are not great around here anyway).  And if they found a sitter priced like me, how would we know baby is happy and thriving?

She wants to be held a lot, and has a fit when you are not right next to her.  Mostly I don't mind, but I feel like she takes the time I could and should be giving to my own kids.  So, I strap her on and do what I can.  She is a heavy big baby, and I'm small.  So when holding her a lot, I end up just doing a lot of sitting (or my back will hurt for days).  I primaraly raised my kids with Attachment Parrenting, and do use some of it with her.  But, since her parents don't AP, when she gets a little upset, she goes straight to screaming bloody murder.  No little wimper... straight to piercing scream.  After all, that's what she has to do to get picked up at home.  I know the seperation anxiety should ease up in a few months.  She should also be able to play better by herself (or with my younger DS) soon.  Hopefully when she starts to crawl.  So far, she doesn't seem close to crawling.  I'm thinking maybe another 2 months.  I may be wrong.  I hope I am.  I hope she will be crawling soon.  Maybe then, I can babyproof our area, and she can play around us while we work on some school.  Heck, I'd like to be able to go potty again without her crying LOL.

I need to find some other solutions.  So far, our best solution is doing HS at night and some on weekends if we need, is mostly working.

On another note, we are doing some reading this week on Thanksgiving.  I will probably start our unit study (thanks Amanda Bennett!) on Monday after Thanksgiving.  I wanted to give us extra time to work on it since there will be days that we don't get as much (if any) done.  *blush* I spent way too much money buying supplies for them to make some real nice notebooks while we learn.

-Shannan

This is our first year homeschooling.  Sometimes I feel very overwhellmed.  Other times, I just feel fine going with the flow.  Our hardest obstical seems to be me getting off my butt and making them do some work.  I think it wouldn't be as hard if I wasn't babysitting my 6 month old neice.  She doesn't sleep on a consistant schedule and I never know how long she will stay down.  I may be kidding myself, but I can't help but think I could get more accomplished, not just on the homeschool level, is she wasn't a full time involvement.

I have 3 wonderful children.  Dillon, 7, is a high needs, sensitive child.  He is also the first one to stir up trouble by teasing and picking fights with his sibblings.  He is also the reason I decided to heck with public school, lets give hs a try.  PS was no good to him.  I do know that we are spending a lot of our time de-schooling as well.  He absolutley hated PS.  He never wants to go back, and I see no reason to send him back.  In some ways he is a big hs challenge, in others he is the easiest.  1) he is gifted.  He picks up things very quick 2) he hates to write, I've found ways around it and it works for us. 3) he can read, so I can have him do some things on his own.  4) he doesn't seem to want to "do" much of anything.  All in all, we have our up days and our down days (and weeks LOL).

Emily (just turned 5) wouldn't be able to go to ps this year.  Our local ps age cutoff for kindergarten is 6 days before her birthday.  However, I see signs of her being just as gifted as her brother and is picking things up super fast.  I have been working on Letter of the Week program with her and math.

James, 2, hangs around for the ride.  He already knows many shapes, most colors, and is learning to count.  He loves mommy time.  The few times I've sat down with him on some little toddler workbooks I have, he isn't really ready for it.  He likes to be a part of our Units, so I usually give him some printouts and he often hangs out with us when I do things.

Then, my 6 month neice, Serenity.  She is very much a hold me baby still.  She isn't crawling yet, and will only sit for a few minutes to play on her own, even if I am right there with her.  I keep praying, and keep hearing, wait.  I hope that once she is able to crawl that I may be able to get schoolwork in progress when she is awake.

I am doing a make it yourself curriculum.  We don't have a set schedule.  I had tried to plan it all out, but was not able to stick to it.  I've never been good with stiff schedules.  We have a few workbooks, some outline type books, and math.  We had started with Math U See, but it didn't work for Dillon.  It was also a little advanced for Emily.  So we are now trying Singapore.  Both kids love it.  When given a choice of subjects, they both want to do math now.  Much nicer then the groan LOL.  I want to do more Unit studies.  I have attempted some, but they were more built for classroom, so I did have to modify them.  I have tried to make my own, but didn't feel like they covered much.  They were fun, and the kids loved it, I just needed it better planned.  I'm going to try a pre-made Christmas one after Thanksgiving.  I hope it will go well.  Maybe after doing a few pre-made ones I will have a better idea of how to make them myself.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Shannan