What We're Using 2013-2014

Every year we evaluate the girls curriculum, we want to make sure that it's still working well for them. It would be easiest on me if we picked one and stuck with it of course, but I do remind myself frequently that the reason I choose to homeschool is so I can taylor my child's education to my child. Does this mean that we end up swapping, switching and moving things around sometimes - Absolutely! Totally worth it! 

Nanners - 10 years old

Math - Horizon's Math 5, Teaching Textbooks 5

Writing - Institute for Excellence in Writing

Spelling - All About Spelling Level 3

History - Hougthon Mifflin History 5

Science - Harcourt Science 5

Grammar - Growing With Grammar 4

Reading - One Minute Readers, Classic Lit Books

Geography - Mommy Made :)

Spunky - 7 years old

Writing - Institute for Excellence in Writing

Spelling - All About Spelling

History - Houghton Mifflin Social Studies 2, Internet Resources

Science - Harcourt Science 2, Internet Resources

Grammar - Growing with Grammar 2

Reading - One Minute Readers, Chapter Books of her choice

Geography - Mommy Made  :)
Math - Horizons Math 3

Baby Big Girl - 5 years old

Writing - Primary Arts of Language

Spelling - All About Spelling

History - Made Made :)

Science - Mommy Made :)

Grammar - Growing With Grammar 1

Reading - Reading Eggs

Geography - Mommy Made :)
Math - Horizons Math 1

So far this is working great, but I'm sure that we'll encounter a few bumps along the road. Every year we get better, and every year I learn new things about the girls and myself. Nanners will be doing Horizons math during the day, and following up with Teaching Textbooks in the afternoon as "homework". We decided to do this because while I like both programs, and so does she, we want some extra practice for her this year. We're hoping that it will help get her math level, and understanding of the areas that she continues to struggle with closer to her "grade level". Who knows, we may end up abandoning that before the holidays. We'll play it by ear.

Spunky & Smart

I've decided that as a parent we should brag about our children more often. Simply put, we tend to forget that these little gals need a little uplifting once in a while. Not so much that they think they're the next
 "Kar-Daaa- she an" (yes, I know that's not the correct spelling), but enough that they never doubt just how unconditionally proud we are of them.

Spunky Girl has well, more SPUNK than that of your average 6 year old. She sings, dances, twirls, hops, runs, bounces, talks loudly, asked a million questions and so much more ---- and that's in only an hours time. Simply put she's not your average little girl. Now when it comes to many situations you can imagine that her antics can stress even the most patient person. There are many memories I can recall of myself crying from not being able to understand WHY she can't just sit still for a few minutes. Why she can't stop twirling in the middle of the room as we read. Even shamefully, why she can't just stop being her for a few minutes. I would never want her to truly stop being herself, there are times when I just want nothing more than to have a small piece of quiet.

When it comes to something that she wants to do, Spunky throws herself into it whole heartedly. She's off and running before the bell has sounded, and she's approaching the finish line before the rest of crowd even began. This is a shining example of that....

In the first 5 months of school Spunky has completed an entire years worth of math. Yep, an entire YEAR of math. I decided this year I wouldn't hold her back no matter what. If she was racing through one subject I would allow that, even if she was struggling through another. This has allowed her confidence to raise to such a point that it is running over to her other subjects. She's ready to tackle a subject that she's less interested in, just because she knows that she can bust through her math in no time. Since she's so far ahead in her math she can proudly offer her support to her sister when she needs it. :)

I am so proud to have this wiggly, giggly, wild, dance machine as one of my own. We are so proud of you Spunky!! Great job!!

Finding a System That Works For Us

It seems like I'm constantly rearranging, restructuring, and changing things with the girls schooling to try and find something that fits all of their personalities well enough. Last year I tried at least 5 different ways of doing our school work, some of which included

~pulling books out each time we needed them (something was always "forgotten")

~giving each girl a special spot for their work (the world practically ended when someone couldn't get to their special spot quickly enough - huge pain for me)

~work boxes (I even talked The Boy into buying these special drawers for it, because I was sure it would work, ummm huge fail! I never managed to get their work in the drawers daily, and putting a weeks worth in each drawer was stressful for the girls)

Then I decided that I would make packets like I had in school. My godfather is a teacher, and he makes packets for the kids to work out of. They have a set number to days to complete each packet, and they know as soon as they are done with packet A, they can move right on to packet B. Yay for being ahead!

During the back to school sales when 3 prong folders are a penny each I stocked up, and ended up with only 3 left. Our school periods are broken down into learning periods, which run anywhere from 15-20 days. Each learning period gets it's own folder. I just write on the front of each folder the students name, and the learning period it's for. One key thing is that I choose to have all of their folders match for each learning period, so learning period one they're all red, learning period two everyone gets yellow, and so on. This makes it so that I can glance at what they are doing, and be able to tell immediately if they are ahead, behind or right on track.

Inside the folders they have a cover sheet that has all of their assignments for the entire learning period. After that we have reading logs, I like to keep these up front since we use them so often. Next we divide their work into a daily amount, and each day gets a check list as it's first page. The girls really like being able to have a visual of crossing their work off as they accomplish it. I like that there's no forgetting the easily missed things such as physical education or art. We always do those things, but we often forget to track it.

We made a few changes to our curriculum to meet the needs of some of my eager beavers who need a little more work, and this made the folders too small for our needs. Of course I don't realize this until I buy thirty or so of them. I jump on Amazon.com and start looking for ways that I can bind the work together. I remembered having a binding machine at my Godfather's school, but I wasn't sure we'd even be able to find one in our price range. A few searches later and I round up the Fellow Star Binding Machine. IT IS AWESOME!

A dear homeschooling friend who is also in the same boat as I am, with too many, too small folders, and I agree to split the cost of purchasing the binding machine. (insert happy dance!!) For just about $45 I'm able to get the machine, and the coils. Then I used the front and back of the folders (cutting out the middle piece with the prongs) for the covers. Score for using what we've got on hand! I'm in love! IN LOVE!!

It's fantastic, but it does take some time to get your system down. The good thing is that I have plenty of practice with 3 students. :)

Differences in Learning Styles

One of the (many) things I have noticed about homeschooling is that my girls have very different learning styles. Beanie is so smart, almost too smart, so she tends to procrastinate about everything. I just had to tell her three times to start her math. I think she uses my busy brain to her advantage sometimes, lol. She's the master of rote memorization. She also needs a little pushing to make sure she's putting her best effort forth, rather than just enough to get by.

Spunky Girl is much like Beanie, and catches on to things so quickly. She has an incredible number of books completely memorized and "reads" them to Baby Big Girl all the time. Show her something once and she's got it. Now if only we can get her to sit still, lol. She officially starts kindergarten this Fall. -WOW!-

Baby Big Girl is honestly too young for me to give an accurate opinion of just yet, but hey she knows most of her alphabet by sight. So what if it's because she comes from a big family and she sees those letters in our names, lol.

Nanners is a different story though. Nanners has dyslexia.

By no means does this mean that she's not smart - NOT AT ALL.

She just learns differently than the other girls. She prefers that things are introduced as a game. Flash cards and rote memorization are her enemy. I didn't understand this at all in the beginning. I just assumed that she needed more time to learn, so I slowed down the pace. The problem was that she wasn't actually learning, she was memorizing enough to get her through the week and then it would fall away like leaves in Autumn. Once I noticed that when she read things against pink paper she didn't seem to struggle as much. Completely by chance I picked out the pink paper. I was trying to make her work more fun by color coding it, now just about everything she does is on pink paper. The way she explained it to me was that on regular white paper the words are all "smooshed together". Can you imagine trying to read somethingthatlookedlikethis.Theentirepageshewasreadinghadnospaceswhatsoever.Justtypingthismakesmyheadspinalittle,lol.

Now I'm not assuming to be a doctor by any means, but what I know is that this worked for my kid. When it comes to books, we bought a pink overlay and she reads her books with the overlay covering it. Dramatic improvement in her reading skills were witnessed by not only me, but her reading teacher as well.

We don't make much of her dyslexia, because we don't want her to think that there's ever something wrong with her. We are working on finding the right way for her to learn, and it's ever changing. One week something may work perfectly and the next we both end up in tears by the end of the lesson. What we do make a big deal about is how far she's come. After reading her first paragraph written on her own, I cried. Tears of happiness. Tears showing how proud I was. Tears that my baby is growing up too fast.

Days when I want to give up, I will come back to this post and remember how proud I was of her. I will remember the "light bulb" moments that she has when she figures out a word. I will remember just how proud I am of her.