Golden Acorn Homeschool

When I got home from co-op today, these were waiting for me in a lovely box from amazon.com.

Because I enjoyed them so much, and because I had to send back the ones I borrowed, and because they were nearly 50% off!  For the whole set!  How could I resist a deal like that?!?

Also gracing my shelves today is Stephanie O’Dea’s new cook book, Make it Fast, Cook it Slow.  I cannot wait to crank out some yummy recipes with my crockpot!

The happiest days are the days when new books arrive in my home.  *happy sigh*

Here is a book I purchased specifically for Diva and her upcoming CM school year: For the Children’s Hour.

I first saw this book on amazon.com, but I hesitated in buying it initially as I wasn’t sure I really needed it, or that it would be just what I was looking for. However, I did want a book that would provide me with plenty of short stories, using rich language and literary styling, and something I would not have to turn back in to the library every few weeks. I realize that Diva is Year 0, but I still want to expose her to the language and pacing of these books now, with stories that her five-year-old mind can grasp. Year 1 is the first truly “formal” year in CM philosophy and meant to be started no sooner than age 6, but I still have to meet certain requirements for my state which has a compulsory attendance age of 5.

Anyway, I did eventually order the book and I am glad that I did. It is organized in a very teacherish sort of way, by seasons, holidays etc, which means it will be easy for me to plan appropriate readings all throughout the school year. When I am looking for readings in the fall, I can just flip to that section and choose the appropriate number of selections. When I want Christmas stories, or Easter stories, or winter stories, it’s all organized for me. And, the stories are lovely, and not at all twaddly or dumbed down. You can also find this book for free on The Baldwin Project, I am just not fond of reading from the computer, or having to print all the time. My ink is expensive!

I think this book is a perfect edition to a library for young students. I am looking forward to using with with Diva this year, and Monkey in the coming years. I am sure Super-boy will even get some use out of it. It has a lovely name too, which conjures up images of sitting snuggled with my babies on a cold, blustery day and enjoying a good story.

We got our economic stimulus check yesterday and I took the opportunity to order the books and curriculum I need for next year. However, even though that money is a surprise bonus (and I easily could have gotten carried away), I stayed frugal and only ordered what I really needed. I really, really wanted to order a microscope, but I decided that can wait at least one more year.

I took the book lists from Ambleside Online (Years 2 and 0), and I checked all of those books on the library catalog and eliminated any from the list that I can borrow for free. I did decide to buy the Holling C. Holling books since we are reading them over such an extended period of time (12 weeks at least!), and I am not the only CM/AO mom in the area using library resources. I learned that the hard way with Paddle-to-the-Sea and I ended up having to buy that book in order to read it when we needed it.

I used amazon.com to order the books since I would be able to get free shipping. I hate to pay for shipping! There was one book – A Child’s History of the World - that I ordered from another source as it was rather pricey on amazon.com, and was not eligible for free shipping anyway. I chose to order it through Sonlight instead.

I checked Librivox.org for recordings of other books we can listen to, and I made sure the quality of the recordings were good before crossing those books off my list as well.

I also ordered the new curriculum sets of Math-U-See for both Super-boy and Diva. Super-boy will be a “third grader” and moving into Gamma, and Diva will be in “kindergarten” and doing Primer.

All told I spent less than $300 (including a few books I ordered earlier in the spring) to educate both of my full time students next year – other than school supplies of paper, pencils, crayons, markers and ink for the printer – which I will pick up during back to school sales. Also, since these are living books/literature, I will not have to buy these books over and over again; I will be repeating them for both Diva and Monkey in the future, driving future cost down even more! Even with Math-U-See, I will only need to buy new student texts in the future for the girls since I will already have the teacher packs. :-)

Not bad, not bad at all!

So, my week long internet hiatus is at an end.  I have so much to share, but not enough time to share it in at the moment.  I will probably be blogging my thoughts on my “unplugged” week here rather than myspace, but I am not sure when I will get to it.

Our homeschool is thriving in the meantime!  Super-boy checked out 15 books from the library last Wednesday and has read 12 of them already!

He earned enough points on Book Adventure for a new video game and couldn’t be happier.  (Yes Heidi, it’s a parent inventive prize).  I took him to Game Stop yesterday afternoon to pick out his game and spend some quality time with just him.  It was nice, and I am so proud.

We are nearly done with our 2nd term of school.  We got a little behind with that darn flu bug in February, but I dropped a couple of books from our schedule (Parables from Nature, and Trial and Triumph) and can combine a few weeks to catch up and still finish during the last week of June and have July and August off for summer break.  We will resume in September for Year 2.  WOW!  I can’t believe it has gone by so quickly!  Of course, I will have Diva as a full time kinder in the fall as well.  Time is surely flying right by me.

So far this year, I have done ALL of the reading since the kids just could not pay attention to audio books.  However, Super-boy is definitely showing signs of an increased attention span, and he was able to listen to a story online the other day from Librivox and then narrate it beautifully.  If I can have him listen to some of his stories on Librivox in the fall it will really help me schedule enough one-on-one time with both kids for lessons that they need my full attention on.  It’s a huge relief to me to know that I can let him be independent with a few things.  He worked all of last week on memorizing his basic addition facts and I can see the results of that too.  I think we will be ready to move forward with Math-U-See next week and finish that up on schedule as well.

All in all, things are going well, and I enjoyed my time offline very much.  I certainly feel like I have a better balance on my time and energy.  More from me soon….