Our Curriculum

It is hard to believe that the school year is quickly approaching...this summer seemed shorter for some reason. I usually start our school year closer to mid-August but this year I just couldn't bear ending our summer vacation any earlier than it needed to be. We were all enjoying the outside activities and freedom of a Wisconsin summer.

We are entering our 3rd year of homeschooling (which is also hard to believe!). This year I'm going to try to document our journey just a little bit...if for no other purpose than for me to remember what we did!

A little bit of history...Our first year we did Heart of Dakota which I loved and found to be the perfect beginning place for our homeschooling adventure. Everything was very much "open and go" and there wasn't much planning involved--perfect for a newbie. But for our second year I wanted Grace to be able to tag along with whatever Hannah was doing, and if I continued to the next guide in HOD Grace would have eventually been left behind. HOD's method is to teach to the youngest child and then "beef it up" for the older children rather than starting harder and "watering it down" for the younger. I actually love this approach.

Last year we chose My Father's World Adventures just as a stand-in year until we could get back to Heart of Dakota. It worked really well as a way to combine the two kids. I had Hannah do the writing assignments and more advanced things and Grace just listened. They each do their own age-appropriate language arts and math, but they share science, history, art, etc.

But this we are back to Heart of Dakota. We chose to start with a guide that, on its own, would be too easy for Hannah. This year we are doing Beyond Little Hearts For His Glory and it is a guide meant for ages 6-8, which our kids current ages but I do think most people use this guide for grades 1st or 2nd, and Hannah will be in 3rd. I was a little nervous about it not being hard enough for Hannah but felt like if we could just make it through this guide going forward would be a lot easier for our family. Following this guide HOD includes built in "extensions" for upper grades. So this year I decided to make my own "extensions" to make the curriculum more appropriate for Hannah while Grace just does it "as written". And now I'm actually more excited about the curriculum because I think Hannah will just love the extra books she gets to read.

    

Beyond covers early American History and focuses a great deal of time on the Pilgrims and colonial period. We'll be reading Stories of the Pilgrims, Boys and Girls of Colonial Days, American Pioneers & Patriots, and IO also added in Life in Colonial America which is essentially a history/coloring book.

  

To be sure that Hannah gets in depth enough with her history we've added a slew of "living books" for her to read. Most of them are from the "My America" series which are the "diaries" of children who lived in that era. She's also going to be doing additional history notebook pages that I found online.

Science was another area I was nervous about. I wanted to make sure that she gets plenty of science. I think that is probably one of the weaker areas of the early HOD guides. The science it a little light. So we decided to add Sassafras Science Adventures to go along with the Liberty Press God's Wonderful Works that is included within Beyond. We'll do that for two days a week. I also added some notebooking pages to accompany the HOD science.

 

Other than those subjects, Beyond will also cover art, poetry, Bible, and geography within their guides. We're adding a Map Skills workbook for Hannah to do in addition to the geography in the guide.

We chose our own phonics, math, and language arts (other than what HOD suggested). Grace will be doing Modern Curriculum Press math for this year. We've found this to be an affordable, fairly basic curriculum that works pretty well for us.

 

We've decided to try something different for Hannah this year, though. She has never been a big fan of MCP and so this year we decided to try Teaching Textbooks which is a computer-based math curriculum. She's very excited to try this and I'm hoping maybe she'll dread math a little less this way!

 Grace is doing a mishmash of language arts. Last year she completed her kindergarten phonics program and still just need a bit more and so we started First Start Reading. We need to complete this program before we can move on to the next. Once she's finished that we will begin Hooked on Phonics for 1st grade accompanied by MCP's Phonics. We'll be reading through some BOB books, too, just so that we can work on fluency.

 

 She also gets to do Handwriting and Thinking Skills this year. We opted to go with Pentime Handwriting and are going to use Rod & Staff's thinking skills books as recommended by HOD. She's very excited to do these books!

Hannah's Language Arts program is a little more complicated. She will be doing Growing With Grammar, Cheerful Cursive, Building Spelling Skills, and also Comprehension Plus. These are all new this year (with the exception of Comprehension Plus) so I'm hopeful that they'll work out well. For reading I will be choose some good literature for her to read and she'll write out a report when she completes them. 

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And finally, this year we decided to add in a Spanish class! As I have zero experience with Spanish this isn't a subject I can teach, but we are going to do La Clase Divertida which is a DVD curriculum that they are very excited to do.

 

That about sums up our curriculum for this year! School starts next Tuesday and though not all of my students are as excited as others, I'm starting to feel like I'm ready for things to get started again!

Camp

Life has made a full circle for me, it would seem. I still remember, so many years ago, my very first week at Lake Lundgren Bible Camp. For me it was actually a mixed experience...while I had tons of fun I was also very homesick and didn't make many friends. My counselor, although not the best that I recall, did do one thing right...she pointed me to the One who would never leave me and I made the step to entrust my life into God's keeping.

That first time didn't keep me from coming back and over the years LLBC has come to mean a great deal to me. It is one of my very favorite places to be. This week we dropped off Hannah for her first week at camp.

It is hard to imagine that I am old enough to have a daughter who can now start having her own camp experiences. I'm so excited for her and I know that the things she'll learn and the friendships she'll make will impact who she becomes as a young woman someday.

This has been so encouraging for me in a different way, as well. Since Hannah had never been to LLBC before and the friend she had hoped to take could no longer make it, we were concerned that she'd show up Day 1 with no friends and no knowledge of camp and have a bad first experience. I made a few connections for her beforehand within our homeschool community, but ultimately we decided to attend Family Camp the weekend before her camp began so that she'd at least be familiar with the facilities.

I've never regretted our decision to homeschool, but watching her this past weekend was an affirmation to me that we made the right decision. When we sent Hannah to kindergarten we watched our social, confident little girl turn into a child who was regularly excluded by her peers and who often wondered why one child was her friend one day and not the next...her "social" experiences were not good and she had a hard time with friendships.

Over the last two years we've worked hard to establish relationships within our homeschool community and so I've seen Hannah (and our other kids, too) build good relationships. But those were kids that I've arranged for her to play with and have time to make friendships with. This past weekend, all on her own, I watched Hannah go and meet kids and make her own friendships. Socialization? Not a problem.

When I left Hannah yesterday she was, by God's grace, in a cabin with three other homeschooled kids she knew (something that I couldn't have controlled but God provided for her), ready to rock her first week at camp. I'm guessing her first experience will not be as lonely as mine. And I can't wait to her all about her own experiences!

Fall Happenings

Time passes too quickly. I knew it had been awhile since I had updated but couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that my last post was when we were heading out of winter...and here we are heading into it!

What a full summer we had. Perhaps the fullest I can remember...and yet we went nowhere. The kids and I enjoyed a couple months off of structured time...I had originally intended to do "light school" throughout the summer but instead chose to toss that idea. This mama needed a break. I do think in future we will try to do a little better about it, but it is so nice to have some days to get some non-school related things done.

Probably the most time-consuming activity was the planting of a new church. Amidst a good deal of turmoil and hardship at our previous church, Eric and I were not sure where to go or what to do. We took our time about making a decision, looked at a few other churches, assessing and reassessing the condition of the church we were attending, and eventually decided that we would try to do what we could to heal that church since there was nowhere else we felt God was leading us to be.

Almost as soon as we made that decision a new opportunity presented itself. It was amazing to both of us how clear the answer was. And so we spent most of our summer immersed in planning sessions, prayer meetings, and preview services. Our new church is now fully launched and life has settled down...but only a little bit. We are still plenty busy with the details a new church entails.

Also over the summer I finally finished my book. It has been in the works for at least two years now. Although truthfully longer than that since it was actually a book I had started in high school...I completely revised it but I did take the original idea. I am now in the editing stage...and finding it quite difficult to focus on since my mind has already skittered on to book number two!!

Eric and I also got to go away for our ten year anniversary. Ten years! I don't feel old enough to have been married that long. We escaped to Mackinac Island. And while it was a much needed get away, we were both happy to get back to the family :-)

 

We are off and running with our school year. We began mid-August and are now in week eight. Hannah is a regular bookworm and I can barely pry her head out of her books to get her schoolwork done most days! She is doing very well in all her subjects, though, and our curriculum this year is very hands-on project-orientated so she is in her element. She really enjoys reading to her sisters (and Sean) and is a really good helper. She loves to teach Grace all the things she's learned. She's taking an art and gymnastics class this semester and so far she says that gymnastics is her favorite.

Grace is doing very well in her kindergarten year. She started out behind where I'd like her to be and that's my own fault. Grace was pretty resistant to bookwork previously and since I was learning how to do this homeschool thing and fairly overwhelmed, I let her do her own thing. She's catching up quickly, though. She's a very sensitive soul and doesn't like to make mistakes. It has been wonderful to see her gaining in both confidence and ability. She reaffirms why I love homeschooling. When we started her first week I wanted to bang my head against the dining table!! But now she's filled with excitement and pride in her accomplishments.

 Elaina tags along with most of our activities. As she's only three I'm not doing anything formal with her, but I may start soon. She seems very interested in working on her alphabet and counting skills. In the meantime she enjoys doing "stickers" while her sisters work on math and reading. She happily participates in the projects and sits and listens well to the history and read alouds. Learning is a family activity :-)

Sean is beginning to walk. He's nearly 18 months old so it is about time! He still isn't doing it full-time but he will walk across the room to get to something he wants. He's gaining confidence and balance, and so we'll just wait and let him get there at his speed. Sean has always done everything very much at his own pace. He often needs a nudge to get him going anywhere developmentally!!

And that about brings us up to date...what are the chances I will keep up with it this time?

End of Winter Update

It is a sad state of affairs when I realize I haven't updated since September...I've certainly had plenty of things going on to share about! Our family has changed a bit since September.


I have found that many areas of my life have fallen to neglect. Homeschooling is a full-time job and when I'm not completely absorbed in that, being a mommy and housekeeper fills in the rest of the hours! I rarely have time for all the things that I want to do!

Sean is growing and developing (at his own pace). We've had some concern with him as he seemed to lack strength in his torso. We had him evaluated and he was a bit behind the curve, however I was able to work with him and he figured sitting up out. I suspect he's still a little behind, though, as he's really not that interested in crawling, standing, or anything other than playing and eating! I try not to be too worried about it because he does try to crawl, so I do think it is something he will eventually do. It is his lack of motivation that is more concerning. He's more than happy to sit back and watch the activity of the world around him. I guess I can't blame him for not bothering to crawl around--everything gets brought to him! He has a great sense of humor, though, and we enjoy him a lot! I think he is his sisters favorite toy!

Elaina just turned 3. She's growing into her vibrant personality. She has recently discovered how to use the word "me" and instead of referring to herself in the third person ie. "Pooka do it" (Pooka is her nickname) she now says "me do it". She is the sassiest and the sweetest all mixed into one little girl. She loves to do school with her sisters and doesn't like to be left out of anything! She has developed quite the affinity for singing...just put a princess doll in her hand and she starts right up. So funny!

Grace is gearing up for kindergarten. She'll be 5 in a few days. I don't think she'll enjoy having "structured school" as she thoroughly enjoys playtime. I'm hoping that by the time we start something more formal with her in August she'll be ready. I think she would like to know how to read without doing the work to learn! She has started "pretending" to read now. She moves her head from side to side as though she's thoroughly absorbed...if it is a picture book she'll make up the story. She is ever the princess. She isn't interested in anything if it isn't at least distantly related to being a princess, or at the very least, a girl in a dress.

Hannah just turned 7. She seems to be thriving in the homeschool environment. We've discussed public school (I like to touch base with her now and again to make sure that she's content with where we are) and she doesn't have any interest in going back. I'm not sure we'd allow her to now even if she did decide she wanted to as we're invested in at least trying it for a few years. She's reading really well now and seems to be progressing well in math (that's daddy's subject). We're delving into American history a bit deeper as the year goes on and she's very excited. Her favorite thing, though, is "projects". If I don't provide a project that is up to her standards she will come up with one on her own! She's very creative and thrives on making crafty things.

We are 2/3 through our school year. We'll be finishing up our first grade reading/math curriculum by the end of April. The rest of our curriculum will take until mid-May to finish up. Throughout the years I space (every 6-7 weeks) a "light" week where we only do math and reading, which is why we are a bit ahead for those subjects. Hardly a bad thing. We've opted to toss our current curriculum for math and reading and try something else. We're going to do something a bit more laid back over the summer months and then gear back up to start sometime in August. Most days we really enjoy it and even on the hard days I prefer it over sending Hannah to school.

Elaina snuggling under the blanket Grandma made her.
Sean with his new favorite toy.
Sean showcasing his church duds.
Eric and Hannah at the Father-Daughter Dance.

All of 'em.

Daddy's Garage Helper--complete with drill!!

Lots more has happened in all these months--but that's enough for today! If I chronicled it all we'd have a novel on our hands!

Happy Birthday Papa!

Due to "library night" and having to shop for a last minute birthday party the girls were invited to, by the time they got to call Papa for his birthday the phone was busy and unfortunately it was already past their bedtime...and they were so disappointed. So we had them record their message to Papa...and since I couldn't decide between the two better takes, I uploaded them both :-)

Happy Birthday Dad!!

Vacation

We opted not to do a summer vacation this year, due mostly to Sean's age. We also knew that we planned to start homeschooling at the end of July. If we choose to continue homeschooling after this year we won't start until at least August, but for this first year we wanted to have some experience under our belt before public school started. From the beginning we planned to do 6 weeks of school and then take a break while all the other kids went back to school. It worked so well I imagine we'll do something similar in future years.

So the first week of September Eric took a week off of work and we planned a few fun things. We enjoyed Labor day with a picnic at some friends and then, probably the highlight of the week for Sean, he got to try his first solid foods. Which, believe or not based on the below picture, he did seem to enjoy :-)


We decided to space out our "field trips" a bit so Sean didn't get too out of whack and that turned out to be a wise choice since he was spent by the end of each day. We chose to go up to Door County and "The Farm" for our first trip. Since there were very few others there the girls got to give the baby goats several bottles (much to the delight of both varieties of kids).



While there the girls also got to feed corn to the older goats, milk a mama goat, pet a mini horse and her filly, explore an old well, meet a variety of other animals, and probably the highlight of the day...watch a baby chick hatch. We passed by and saw that there were a few eggs ready to hatch in an incubator in one of the buildings but figured it would take a long time and we didn't want to spend all day watching an egg crack. So I told the girls we'd check back on our way out and sure enough there was very little progress on the couple eggs we'd noticed had started to hatch. However, a new egg had started to hatch and this one was determined. When the progress was obvious I told Hannah that we could stay and watch, much to her excitement. And within 10 minutes it was out. It was a precious sight and an awesome way to explain to Hannah how chickens come to be.

They enjoyed their trip to the farm.

Our attempt at a family picture.

Our other chosen field trip was to the Milwaukee zoo. The girls have been looking forward to this since day one of school, so the entire day was a lot of fun. We printed off a "scavenger hunt" that we found online and helped the girls find the things on the list. One thing I really love about the Milwaukee zoo is their signs. They have some really great signs about the animals and their endangered levels, plus lots of interesting trivia. It is easy to read a sign like that to little kids and have them actually enjoy hearing it. Of course, the first thing we had to do was ride the train for Eric:

And after a hard day of walking, they needed to take a break and rest their feet in their "animals thrones". Everything is a throne to these little princesses.


We had so much fun as a family this last week and I think it helped affirm to us that we've made the right choice to homeschool. We feel so much more connected as a family and I love that learning is a family event. It is easier than I thought to find educational value in the world around us. Particularly with Hannah since she has an incredibly inquisitive mind. If we didn't offer the information, she would probably ask anyway!

We are looking forward to many more family vacations. Maybe next time we'll actually get to go away somewhere!

Swimming

We have done lots of swimming this summer, probably because with Sean being so little and unpredictable it is one of the easier things we can let the girls do! Eric started taking the girls to "family swim" at our local pool every Thursday night starting in June. It is an hour of swimming that is offered at half-price, with the idea that parents are in charge of their children's safety. There are lifeguards, but in limited quantity. You are allowed to bring pool toys and other things that are normally not allowed, and Dad's are allowed to catch their kids (who are unable to swim!) jumping off of the diving boards.

Eric got Hannah started on this right away. It was something she loved and eagerly latched onto once she started swim lessons end of July. By the end of her swim lessons she was able to swim and go off the diving board by herself. And not only the lowest diving board but the medium one, too. She decided last week that she intended on going off of the "high dive", the highest one available for the last family swim of the summer...which was today.

Now this mother did not embrace the idea of her 6 year old who could barely swim jumping off of the high dive, even if Daddy was standing by below to save her if need be. But I agreed if Hannah could pass a "swim test" that Eric put her through. Once she passed, I reluctantly agreed to video tape her crowning moment. She has literally been talking about this for days and was very nervous about doing it, but excited nonetheless.

Her successful jump!

This is one of those moments where I sit back and realize that this is yet another reason why I want to homeschool. I love to witness the joy of discovery. Hannah is learning to do so much right now and she's very excited and proud of her accomplishments. Her enthusiasm is contagious and I love that I get to see so much of it firsthand. I love how she informs me how much easier math is getting for her and the way she assured me today that "of course" she could read her assignment to me, as if I was a silly question for me to ask.

Grace is night and day with Hannah. She's our cautious child. She does not enjoy the pool nearly as much. But we've discovered that if allowed to swim in the baby pool she is a lot more adventurous. I think she feels insecure in the deeper water and enjoys being able to test her abilities in a situation she feels in control of. After watching Hannah jump into the pool from the high dive, Grace "imagined" herself to be diving into the baby pool much the same way. I'm sure much of the hilarity of the moment is lost in translation and this is very much a "you had to be there" thing, but I took a video which I still think is funny :-)

Elaina seems oblivious to all the jumping going on. She seems to enjoy seeing just what she can do in the water. She's a lot like Grace in that she much prefers the shallow water. But Elaina will float (propelling herself with her hands) to the deepest part of the baby pool until her head goes under and she jumps up, sputtering and indignant. When she's not doing that she is running back and forth between the pool and me, yelling "It's fun!"


And of course, the amused audience :-)


We've enjoyed this summer...it makes me sad that the pool is closing (already) next week and that summer seems to be wrapping up. At least this year I won't have to prepare myself to say good-bye to Hannah. We will be hitting the books at home!