Less Than Four Weeks From Now...

...our 2010-11 school year will be off to a great start. I am so excited about this year. It just keeps getting better and better. The past two years have been full of learning, from books and from life experiences. Many of those lessons have been good ones, fun ones. Others have been downright heart wrenching. How precious it is to be able to walk hand in hand with my sons through the ups and downs of life. I know I am blessed and I do not take this for granted. My prayer is that any family who desires to home school will be able to. It is an adventure that I am thrilled to be on!

July has been FULL! After a wonderful vacation, and some not so wonderful life bumps, I pulled myself together and ordered all of our curriculum for this year. I had already researched and planned, but I waited until now to order. Most of the materials have been delivered and I am organizing and planning! Our biggest change this year is adding Creative Kids Co-Op to our routine. We chose not to get involved in co-op the past two years, as we wanted to reclaim our family and simplify our lives. Saying "no" to many "good" things, while saying "yes" to the best...being together, learning together, iron sharpening iron without the added distractions and confusion of an overly busy schedule. Now that we've settled into that routine, I feel at peace about adding co-op...but, as we all know, to add something in, something else must be subtracted. Thus, the boys will complete their 4 H projects (and mommy will scramble to create a simple scrapbook of the 2009-10 4 H experience) and our final meeting will be in September. 4 H has had some benefits, but for now, we feel that it's not doing a lot for our boys. The next few weeks we will work on projects (Brandt will polish his hedgehog report, Carson will work on his photography report and Jordan will use some great resources we just found for his Lego report). Also, to get ahead of the game, the boys will begin their Math lessons this week. Co-op is held on Fridays each week, so we need to double up on Math and Language lessons and not fall behind.

We spent about $800 this year for our materials and the fees for co-op. I feel very good about that amount, especially since I was able to sell off inventory from my home business to pay for it in full!

We will continue to use "My Father's World" for the boys' history, geography, science, Bible and reading unit studies. This year our focus is "Creation to the Greeks." I have been gathering all kinds of amazing resources (dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs) and I feel like a little girl at Christmas! Check out the link below for more info!

http://www.mfwbooks.com/ctg.htm

Math will be with Teaching Textbooks again. We love this program, the boys usually consider it FUN! B will be in the seventh grade level, the twins are doing the fifth grade (a year ahead, they LOVE that!). The Lord provided the fifth grade DVD's for us to use for FREE this year, a dear lady in Florida (whom I've only met on Facebook) offered them, saving us $100+. Thank you, Lord! Check it out at link below. (Tip, if you order from TT, the workbooks are not necessary in the younger units! Once the boys start doing algebra, geometry, etc, the workbooks might be more useful!)

http://www.teachingtextbooks.com/

Spelling is with "Spelling Power," a single book that carries children from grade school to college! We love this system and only spend about 15-20 minutes per child/day on this subject. Link below.

http://www.castlemoyle.com/shopping/spelling/spellingpower.htm

Language will continue to be with A Beka. I know there are plenty of great resources out there and that A Beka is pretty intense, but all three of my sons are excellent writers and I want to encourage them in this area. There are often groans when they are asked to write a longer piece, but then there are huge grins as they read their work to me. It's an area of discipline and I feel we must push through! Link below.

https://www.abeka.com/ABekaOnline/CatalogSearch.aspx

We are adding in Apologia General Science for our rising seventh grader. Did I say seventh grader? Oh, yes! I did. All the more reason to be glad I am home schooling. My child is becoming a MAN and I want to spend every moment that I can with him. The best part is that Apologia is a paid course with the co-op we are joining, so B will get weekly instruction from someone who knows this subject (not me, this is my weakest area by far!) and will come home with four assignments to complete throughout the week. This is such an answer to prayer. I want to learn with him, but I feel that he has already surpassed me in this area. It will be fun to watch him bloom under the teaching of another. Link below.

http://www.mfwbooks.com/apologia_science.htm

Finally, something that THRILLS MY HEART to no end...We talked about putting the boys in little league next spring. The more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea. I have heard stories from folks about irate coaches, slanted umps, dugout nonsense, etc. and my heart was not at peace with the idea of turning my kids loose to that scenario. In the early summer, I took the boys to a local park and they ended up playing a pick up game with other children there. It was an amazing thing to watch and the kids played so well together. I asked D to consider putting one night/week aside (probably Tuesdays) to take the boys to that park and supervise a pick up game. That way, we still get to "ref" the activity and our boys will be able to make new friends. We hope it will be a good mixture of kids from all walks of life. We believe in exposing our boys to "the real world" while being present to work with them through the snags. I am so excited about where this can go. Being in our community, building relationships with others, being salt and light...while our boys get much needed exercise! It's a plan, we'll see where it leads!

Whew, that was a long post! So many new and exciting adventures await. Lord willing, this is our outline, our game plan. We are open to be shifted and redirected, as He sees fit!