again with the blogging!

we are finished with this week's lessons!!!  yay!! 

we started doing things a little differently this week, and it was a smidge of a rough transition for us, but we made it! 

too bad next week is going to bring new things as well.  like bella and xander having their own unique curriculum that i teach them SEPARATELY along with what i've already got planned for beau.

maybe i didn't think this homeschooling thing through properly.

sometimes, though, i look around at the work my kids have been doing, at the grades which i dutifully plug into the gradebook (that i still hate), at the fun we (sometimes) have when doing school, and i think to myself.  i'm actually doing this.  i'm one of those people. 

i'm a homeschool mom.

i already know this in my head, of course, but my head is usually about to explode or something and today i had one of those oh-my-goodness-the-kids-are-quietly-doing-worksheets-i-can-sneak-in-a-bit-of-mommy-reading-time moments and it sort of hit me. 

we homeschool.

and we're pretty good at it, thank you.

now.  please send me good thoughts next week.  i'm going to need it.

this might be harder than i thought.

so this morning i wake up with big ideas. 

i should always be wary when this happens.

i never learn.

i decided this morning that i was going to take a look at the first grade and kindergarten curriculum on the curriculum-website-that-shall-remain-nameless, just to see what we had waiting for us in the fall.  this was a mistake.

of course i decided it might be fun to go ahead and start a little early with everything, to give it sort of a trial-run during the summer. 

during the course of this, i added no less than FOUR subjects apiece for each of the children.  FOUR.  not only that, but each child has his or her own separate history and science curriculum, something i've never attempted before. 

it turns out that lesson planning for three individual children takes a lot more work and time than i'm used to spending.  probably because i'm used to being done in 1/3 of the time.  duh.  but i'm exhausted and i haven't even finished the lesson plans yet. 

what will next week look like?  why did i do this during the summer?  why am i asking you all of these questions?

odds are that i burn out halfway through next week and do some serious pruning of curriculum.

also, i've all but decided to just buy the books sonlight recommends and continue using the curriculum-website-that-shall-not-be-named for history and language arts.  something about it being what we're used to and actually pretty good and also free.  but new books are always a plus.  i'll just need to buy a new bookshelf.

yes, well.

if i could send a message back in time to myself at the end of november, i'd say a lot of things.  the most prevalent being WHY IN HECKFIRE ARE YOU TAKING THE ENTIRE MONTH OF DECEMBER OFF?  THAT'S THE STUPIDEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD.

because i just realized that if we had worked through the month instead of going ahead and taking a nice long break from schoolwork, WE WOULD BE ABLE TO HAVE SUMMER VACATION RIGHT NOW.

ugh.

there are no words for the amount of difficult it is to reign my seven-year-old into sitting at a table and doing simple worksheets.  worksheets that a few short weeks ago, he happily sped through while i watched on, serenely sipping a cup of tea.  okay, so maybe not happily, but with little to no complaint.  i had no idea just how lucky i had it.

i know i'm being a bit overdramatic.  shut up.  it isn't as bad as i'm making it out to be, i'm sure.  but right now, i'm about to lose my mind.  i've already lost my temper.  multiple times.

not sure if it's the beautiful day, or the allure of better cartoons on TV all celebrating the completion of the school year, or the fact that our pool is sitting right there, beautiful and crystal clear and inviting.  maybe it's a combination of all three.  but we have been at it for THREE HOURS NOW, y'all.  worksheets generally take an hour per kid.  this is just beau we're dealing with here.

so you see my pain.

not to mention having to witness everyone's beautiful and fun memorial day updates on facebook while we're stuck here with nowhere to go and nothing to do while everyone else celebrates.  oh wait, we have something to do.  it's called school. 

again, shut up.  we celebrated memorial day yesterday with a family fun day in the pool and burgers and everything else you're supposed to celebrate with.  it was awesome.  i'm just jealous of everyone who's getting to do it again today.

i did do something fun today that we'll get to enjoy in a couple of weeks.  i ordered some books from amazon.  rachel will be so proud.

anyway.  i'm letting beau have a little break now.  he needs it, i need it.  then, after we've both collected ourselves, we're gonna head back in there and slay the beast.

and then we might go swimming. 

stars!

i totally should be cooking dinner right now.

my kids are now totally obsessed with stars.  no, not like the ones in the heavens.  i'm talking about the kind that look like this

and are drawn at the top of a worksheet, usually in marker or something, signifying a job well done. 

i'm not sure if i consider it a mistake or not, the first star i put on beau's worksheet yesterday afternoon.  he was so excited i was sure i had stumbled upon something AMAZING - if he were willing to work harder, focus a bit more, and do his very best to get a star, then surely this had to be the BEST THING EVER.

the kids sure thought so.

so now i have xander demanding stars on his worksheets.  okay, he deserved them today.  he. was. a. SUPERSTAR with worksheets today.  so i gave him stars on the ones he did the best on.  good, right?

not so, says my little brown boy.  he was unhappy that he didn't get stars on EVERY INCH OF HIS WORK; so unhappy that he slumped off, pouting, to go play the xbox, tears in his pretty eyes.  he almost guilted me into going back and plastering his worksheets with the things.  almost.

i decided he could do without bajillions of stars. 

but seriously.  i think it might be gold, this star thing.  either that, or i have just opened pandora's box.

blurb.

so.  i just did a really nerdy thing that will hopefully help me out A LOT over the next six months.

i made a spreadsheet with the week numbers at the top, starting right now and continuing until the end of the first grade (which will end sometime at the end of june, if all goes well).  in the first column, going down the left-hand side, i put the names of the subjects we go over, plus the ones i hope to add this semester.

and then.  i went through the long.  and tedious.  process of typing in the lessons we would cover over the course of that week.  THROUGH TWENTY FIVE WEEKS.  AND EIGHT SUBJECTS. 

it took a while.

but now i can look at my pretty spreadsheet and know exactly what we'll be covering in week [insert number here] in any given subject. 

it's pretty cool.

now all that i have to do is plan the day-to-day stuffs in each subject for each of those weeks....oh dear GOD now my head is spinning. 

and the best part? 

i get to do this every. year.  for the next TWELVE. YEARS.  always assuming i have no more children, of course.

uhm.

help?

gasp!

yes, i'm blogging.  weird, i know.

christmas is coming!  i'm UBER excited.  i still believe in santa claus.  most def. 

something exciting happened this evening that got me blogging. 

i got to start thinking about ordering new books for this semester!  i'll probably be able to order the week after next...and here are the books i'm going to be purchasing:

for beau:
1 - math-u-see: alpha
2 - theory time: primer level
3 - discipleland: level one
4 - note reading for very young piano students (he MIGHT be a SMIDGE too old for this one, but we're going to give it a shot, and after all, i've got other children...)

for xander:
1 - HWT: letters and numbers for me
2 - math-u-see: primer workbook

for bella:
1 - HWT: get set for school

i MAY start bella in the math-u-see primer book this semester, too, but i really don't know.  i'm thinking i'm just going to buy her a kindergarten workbook when she finishes the preschool one and see how that goes for a while.  as for xander, i'm going to get a supplemental kindergarten workbook for him to work through this spring.  he'll be starting first grade this summer, more than likely.

i also want to start beau with a spanish curriculum i found...and it won't hurt the others to be exposed to it.

i'm starting to get excited again.  for the past month and a half, we've all been kind of sick of school, and totally avoiding doing worksheets at all costs.  or maybe it's just me.  but i feel like this break has done us (read: me) tons of good and we'll be ready to start back after the new year.

yes, we're still alive.

well.  it's been almost a MONTH.  for that, i apologize.  i just haven't had the time.

lie. 

okay, so i've had the time.  i've just been using my precious downtime to play stupid, mindless games on facebook.  because that's what i NEEDED.  shut up.

updates! 

we are horribly behind.  but that's okay.  we were all kinds of crazy ahead to begin with.

i noticed today that everyone does INSANELY better if i work with them individually on their worksheets.  i don't know how i'm going to swing that, but i'm going to try to work with them one at a time on worksheets.  i feel like that portion of our day would be so much less stressful if we just changed that one little thing.

beau is doing great.  he's ace-ing all of his subjects, and he really does enjoy his work, even though getting him to actually sit down and do worksheets is a bit like pulling teeth.  and keeping his focus once he's there.  that's one of the reasons i want to start working with him one on one, because he seems to be able to focus much better when i'm sitting next to him.  he likes that individual time.  in other news, his handwriting is improving, slowly but surely.  we're working on spacing now between words, so his sentences look less like one big word and more like, well, sentences.

xander is making so much progress all of a sudden i want to do a little dance of joy every time i let him up from the table after finishing his worksheets.  his fine motor skills are improving like CRAZY, and he's recognizing numbers and doing so much better in his counting it's unreal.  i want to shout it from the rooftops!!  he zooms through his worksheets now.  i'm so proud of that kid.

bella.  oh, bella.  is there such a thing as the terrible fours?  i think bella invented them.  she. has become. a terror.  hitting, biting, yelling, scratching, fighting, arguing, asking the same question ten billion times even though she keeps getting the same answer.  suddenly, my helpful, friendly, polite little three year old has become...some sort of monster out of a horror film.  you think i'm exaggerating.  i'm not.  today, she has bitten, punched, slapped, pushed, pulled, tackled, and tripped both her brothers - in the last ten minutes.  but as much as she can dish out, she cannot take.  she can be reduced to a sobbing pile of flailing limbs with a single WORD or LOOK from anyone.  she will sit and "do school," but only for a few minutes at a time, and then she proceeds to try to distract everyone else as much as possible.

long story short, it's been a crazy month since i last posted. 

and now if you'll excuse me, i have to go stop bella from killing her brothers.  for the eleventh time this afternoon.