A decision

I have decided that instead of trying to update this blog daily and getting bored and overwhelmed, I will do my best to update weekly.  I am sure I can find a few minutes a week to share little bits of our homeschool experience.

We actually did start school work this week, but it has been a slow start.  I still need to write and send in my IHIP (Individualized Home Instruction Plan) to the school district, and we've already taken a day off, but I'm okay with a slow start since really, I just want to keep the kids in the learning frame of mind as opposed to let them forget everything they have learned and have to start from scratch in September.  Fun stuff.

Anyway, we'll probably be doing a little bit of school work today, but I plan to keep it light, partly due to the weather, and partly due to the fact that our school year this year IS divided into weeks instead of days.  :)

Time flies

I cannot believe I haven't posted in this blog in well over a year.  That is so sad.  We are still living (and loving) the homeschool life.  We used My Father's World for Kindy.  Sonlight for grade 1.  Oak Meadow for grade 2.  And we have decided to, yet again, switch it up for grade 3.  We are doing Charlotte Mason style for grade 3.  I got some books yesterday and I am already loving it.  So exciting!!  Grade 2 ends on June 28th, and I figure we'll pick right back up with grade 3 the first week in July.  It's so much easier to continue through the Summer in the same routine than it is to stop school and restart in September.  It will also leave us with the flexibility to take time off when we feel we need to throughout the year.  AND we'll be able to start grade 4 before she would be out of grade 3 in a public school setting.  :)

So, one of my goals is to keep this blog updated.  And hopefully I am more successful than I have been.  :)

Second Quarter

We are officially finished with the second quarter and I mailed the quarterly report into the school district yesterday.

I am TERRIBLE at keeping this blog updated and I hope I get better at it soon. Here are some pictures that show things we've been doing lately. Nothing too exciting...

Reading...

Math

Copywork..

Watching Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a Dream Speech" on MLK day.

Phys ed....Wii! :)

Delaney showing me the doggy she drew...

Spelling...

LA - Explode the Code

Math again...

Delaney doing a "shapes" worksheet

Glueing circles...

Science experiement - mixtures and solutions...

Delaney wanted in on the full too. :)

7 weeks down...

We are having a great time homeschooling. Lilli is doing really well. I LOVE the curriculum so far. So does Lilli.

Right now we're finishing up magnets (physics) and learning about North American Animlasls for Science.

Math, she's onto adding two digit numbers with carrying.

For reading, she's half way finished with her first reading book and reads anything she can get her hands on as well.

She loves LA, so I'm thinking about getting Explode the Code books for her to use with her LA curriculum.

World history is exciting and fun for her. I'm glad because I HATED History in school.

We are loving Sonlight at this point and so far, I'm pretty sure we'll use it again next year.

First day of school

Well, we started school today. I'm not happy about a few things (but it's all Lilli and her likes/dislikes, not the curriculum) so we'll have to tweek a little but it'll all work out.

We finished everything except our Read Aloud which includes today's map lesson, but we'll use that as a bedtime story/family discussion lesson.


Delaney wanted in on the action, so when Lilli finished her Science for the day, we read Delaney's alphatbet book and sang the ABC song. I think she liked it.




Lilli LOVES Math, but apparently hates copywork/writing. In her Horizon's Math workbook, she had to write numbers in a bunch of different ways (copy work, number lines, fill in the blanks, etc) and she got sick of all the writing. UGH!




I love Handwriting without Tears. It turns everything into a fun game.


Doing some copywork from her reading assignment. She's way ahead of the books for the reading assignments so I'll have to come up with something different.



Art....a "finish the picture" project. I cut a picture of a llama out of a magazine and pasted it to a piece of paper. She had to finish the llama and draw the background. She liked it!



That's all the pictures for today, but as you can see, she has actually started school. :o)

Ready to start!

Not that we ever really stopped learning, but school officially starts in our house on Monday. Lilli is excited. She keeps looking at her books asking when we can start. I'm really excited about using Sonlight this year. Hopefully I still like it at the end of the year. :o)

I do still have to hang Lilli's map, timeline, and get a globe.

Here is the room. The easel is on the left, then Lilli's books, the desk, the drawers with math manipulatives, science experiment supplies, and art supplies. In the corner is the turtle tank and the hamster cage.

Regs

I am SO frustrated with the NYS regulations. I'm looking through the IHIP (Individualized Home Instruction plan) examples that I have. I don't get what you are supposed to write in them. Some people include the actual books they use. Other's just put "various books.....etc" and explain their plan of action. I'm pretty sure the regs ask for book titles, but I'm not 100% on that. I need to print out a new copy of the regulations so I know for sure. It's just so frustrating. I'm trying to do what's best for my kids, and the state tries to make it SO difficult. AHHHHH!!!!