It's beginning to look a lot like October

We have come to our first term break. This year we are trying a six week on, one week off schedule. I am finding that I am in survival mode with the housework during the school days so I need this time to get the house in order, write the next block of lesson plans, and just catch my breath. 

So here's what is working, what isn't, and where we are headed:

James has dropped Latin. I was going to switch, but he is finding his work load to be pretty heavy this year. We had a bad experience with one of his online teachers over the summer and he is only taking three courses with them now. I am not very impressed with the English classes, but of course he likes them (because they are easy) and he'll take English 3 next year before starting dual credit English Comp. 

The subjects we are doing at home are through Oak Meadow. While the US History asks for a lot less output than what he is used to, he feels that what they ask of him does help him make connections as opposed to learning for a test. The reading, although still a textbook, is also more engaging. 

He has being working at a farm a day or two a week and has started at the local Police Explorer program. Combined with wood stacking, he has found himself quite busy lately.


The going is tough with Christopher, as I anticipated. He just has no interest in learning much and I am not going to sweat it. We'll move at the pace he needs. I have backed off a lot already and have just been reading to him a lot and letting him play. I will plan a slightly less academic kindergarten than I did with Sean. We'll get there...eventually.


We kept the jump between 2nd and 3rd grade in check for Sean by doing a mix of oral and written work. We start the mornings with all the kids (minus sleepy teen usually) on the sofa for read alouds, French, catechism, and grammar. We dropped Memoria Press' grammar and went back to the tried and true First Language Lessons. We do all literature orally. We'll change that up later I'm sure, but for now I am just using the teacher guides for discussion.

We switched back to Rod and Staff for math. Math Mammoth was far more conceptual, which is why I started using it in the first place(homeschool mom angst). In practice though, I learned just the basics in math growing up and I picked up a lot of the "tricks" they are teaching now with the common core math programs on my own. I naturally point these out to my kids as we go. I would far prefer they have a solid grounding with "just the facts please" math and be able to use their own methods and short cuts if that is what they want to do. I can show them that 7+5 is the same as 7+3+2 without requiring them to solve all of their problems like that, unless they find  it easier. Personally, as long as they understand our base ten system, I think it is far more efficient to just know with immediate recall that 7+5=12.

Everything else is going well. Latina Chrisitana is a great step up from Prima Latina. I am impressed with Classical Academic Press' writing program. As long as they stay ahead of us, we will continue it until we reach 6th or 7th grade when we'll start Writing with Skill. We rotate through Christian and Classical studies, Astronomy, and Geography so we hit them each once a week. Astronomy would be rather dry, but Sean likes to swipe my phone to use the skyview app and locate the stars and constellations he is learning, so that keeps it exciting.

We haven't managed to fit in any health or art this block, so I'm hoping we can make more room for those in the future.

The kids are all outside, so I am going to make a cup of tea, sneak some chocolate, and enjoy my vacation.