like whoa.

beau's handwriting...leaves something to be desired.  most of his education so far has been through online games and reading and him asking questions with me answering, so i hadn't paid incredible attention to the handwriting thing yet, really.

but when he went to vacation bible school last week, he couldn't (or wouldn't, which is more likely the case) write his name.  so i thought, hey, let's work on this whole handwriting thing.

whew.  it isn't as bad as it could be, of course; i mean, he knows all his letters and he can *read*, for goodness' sakes, but his letters are incredibly shaky and they definitely need work.  so i'm off to download some letter worksheets!  fun fun.

i'm thinking twice a day working on worksheets, and he should be up to speed in no time.

whoosh.

so this afternoon i'm sitting here, looking at lessonpathways.com, and suddenly...

i'm thinking of starting xander on the pre-k program.

nothing out of the ordinary, really; i should have probably done this last year, but he wasn't ready then.  he's ready now.

but i'm not.

i feel like the mom dropping her baby off on the first day, crying in the car all the way home: "my baby, my baby!"  except i won't have to leave him, obviously, but i'm about to help usher him into the wide-eyed world of letters and numbers and pencils and shaky renditions of his name written by his own chubby hands.

i'm crying.  this is all so exciting and yet it stinks big time all in the same moment.

but he's five.  it's time.  he's showing interest in things he never looked twice at before.  i've just got to suck it up.  i'm the mom. 

whoosh.

summer school

for some reason, i tend to get really excited about homeschooling in the middle of summer.  :)  it probably dates back to me hating the summer about three weeks in because i would be so BORED with nothing to do. 

we're jumping back in.  hubs wants to see something concrete that we're learning, and so do i.  unschooling is very freeing...but it's really difficult to explain to friends and family, and sometimes, to myself.  i know it's normal to feel a bit freaked and wondering if they're learning anything at all, but i'm thinking it's time for a change.  time for a shift in priorities.  time to jump in.

It’s hard having a big brother.

I know, I’ve been there.

You want to play with his toys; he doesn’t let you.  You want to play the game he’s playing; he doesn’t want you to.  He’s impossibly faster than you, being older, and you can never keep up.  Playing hide and seek with him isn’t fair, either; he knows all the best hiding places and he can run faster than you so you pretty much are always “it.”

I see Xander trying to keep up with Beau in everything.  Mostly, they play together really nicely – best friends.  But Beau *is* older, and he doesn’t always want his little brother constantly tagging along everywhere he goes.  Xander is almost lost without Beau sometimes; he misses him when Beau spends some quality alone time with his Nana.

Bella gets a double dose.  Beau is really good with her; he lets her play all his games and makes allowances for her since she’s smaller. 

But.

Xander has gotten it into his head that girls can’t do things that boys do.  He doesn’t like to play with Bella, and this really makes Bella sad.  She doesn’t understand, and I hate to see this “sex discrimination” in my own household, lol.  But there isn’t anything I can do, really, except try to argue with a four year old that girls can do everything boys can and that he should let his sister play.

It doesn’t help that he’s already pretty bossy, lol.  I see a lot of my bossiness in him.  I remember being that way when I was his age.  Talk about reaping what you sow!

It’s been a while.

It HAS been a while…since I posted.

That doesn’t mean that learning hasn’t taken place, though.  Beau has picked up reading SO quickly that it’s almost given me whiplash.  He has gone from not being able to read Kindergarten-level things at the beginning of the “school" year to being able to read at almost a second-grade level now.  His only problem is the fluency bit – he still sounds a little like a robot when he reads aloud.  :)  He is DEFINITELY getting there, though.

I’ve been checking my copy of “Home Learning Year by Year” this afternoon, trying to see the gaps that need to be filled in.  Beau is right on track to be considered a first-grader; he’s only behind in history and a bit in science.  I’m going to make a trip to the library (with or without the kids) to check out some books “Year by Year” recommended for history.  Science can be filled in using Lesson Pathways once we get signed up again next month.

Also, something very strange occurred to me just now.  I realized just how much I had been letting the traditional “school year” hold me back.  I’d been reluctant to consider starting new material on a new grade level with Beau because it’s the “middle of the year.”  What nonsense! 

That’s part of the beauty of homeschooling, isn’t it?  We can learn what and how we like, no matter what the school system is doing. 

So I considered making OUR school year begin in January, contrary to the traditional school year.  Or maybe I could just let go of the concept of a “school year” altogether and just focus on what the kids are learning and how much they know to classify them in “grade levels” (for the benefit of family members’ collective sanity, lol). 

I thought a bit about standardized testing.  I don’t really know how I feel about it and won’t until we actually pick a program and try it on for size.  I know I don’t personally agree with testing and grading in *general*, but for assessment purposes, I can see the appeal.  It would help assuage everyone’s worries about whether or not Beau is getting a proper education and is on par with others his age.  At any rate, I’m thinking we’ll wait until next year (or next semester) to worry about it.

I generally regroup about twice a year and assess the progress and direction of our homeschooling.  For my own purposes, I’m calling them “semesters,” because that’s a term I’m familiar with and it’s the best word I can think of to describe dividing the year into essentially two parts: Spring and Fall.

So now is really the beginning of the spring semester.  The “plan” for this semester is to get signed up with Lesson Pathways (already in the process of that) for the Science and Math sections, at least; library it for the History section; continue to be hands-off in Reading, except to possibly read more books with the kids and take more trips to the library.

Goodness, I feel like I could write TONS more, but the kids want to go outside and play and I’ve got to get them bundled up! 

Decoding the program

Today we're having a bit of trouble with Beau's online program...well, actually, we're having several problems. :)

First, our LessonPathway's subscription has supposedly run out, when it was supposed to be good for five more months. I need to get that straightened out, because we all love that program.

Second, Time4Learning is proving to be a bit more complicated than we originally suspected, haha. The "games," as we call them (always games, never lessons...I always want the kids to be having fun, not "working," so they will always have positive associations when it comes to learning), the games are great, lots of fun and great quality. That isn't the problem.

This morning, I switched Beau temporarily to the first grade program, just to see if it would be better for him. He's doing better with the first grade things...they're more challenging and he isn't bogging down in boredom because he already knew the material the way he was with the kingergarten program.

However, the overall structure of the system is something I'm having to get used to. I think that after a bit, we'll figure it out. :) It's just a tad bit confusing right now.

The Time4Learning system offers Language Arts (Phonics, for Beau), Language Arts Extensions (which we haven't explored yet, but I imagine will be something along the lines of Reading after the phonics section turns into English), Math, and Science. I feel that until this school semester is over, this is the best way for us to school.

As of right now, I'm taking the spring semester off from college. It's just proving to be too much. I might still take one or two classes a semester like I was before, but I don't imagine I'll be trying to take a full load again anytime soon.

Gettin' back in there...

Wow. So it's been EXTREMELY difficult getting back into a routine since everything was turned upside down in our lives. It certainly didn't help that midterms were last week for me, either. But we've been trying to ease back into some sort of schedule, and today is looking bright!

We did our calendar with breakfast this morning, instead of the afternoon like we had been doing the past couple of weeks. It really helped because everyone was sitting still so they could pay attention.

Then I set Beau up with his website time, doing a few phonics activities, which, to be perfectly honest, bored him to tears. He's having to wade through the things he already knows, like the letters and their sounds. I'm honestly thinking of upping him to the first grade program if things don't get better after this week. He's just more advanced than what they're giving him right now.

He did three of the activities in about fifteen minutes, basically just breezing through them. I'm going to give the kindergarten program until Friday and then switch him to first grade Language Arts unless the kindergarten program picks up pretty quickly.