Golden Acorn Homeschool

This is just me posting about my general excitement with homeschooling.  (Yes, I am still excited about it.)

It seems like we have really hit a stride where the kids just know what to expect from the day and I don’t deal with very much resistance anymore.  I love that we have finally sunk into a good routine for the year.  I have realized that I CAN homeschool three kids, still manage to bathe them, wash some laundry, and put a meal on the table (that I cooked myself) nearly every night.  Yes, sometimes we eat out, or I let people fend for themselves.  No shame in that!

Adding Zoey into the mix as an “official” preschooler took some juggling.  Also having Sydni working in Ambleside Year 1 and Cole in Year 3, meant a lot more work and reading (for me) overall.  At this point, I have stopped trying to work with them at the same time.  I was reading/working with one child while another did independent work, but no more!  It worked for the past two years, but this year I was finding that I was being constantly interrupted by the “independently” working child and that everyone was losing focus and getting frustrated, too distracted, or just slipping through the cracks.

Now, I am starting the day with all three kids and doing the things we do together: Bible, hymn, artist study, composer study, Spanish (not everything, every day!).  After we complete the “circle time” session (as I call it), I choose a child to work with one at a time.  Zoey takes about 15-20 minutes a day, so I usually begin with her since she has a much shorter attention span anyway.  Then Cole and Sydni take turns on a daily basis over who works with me first, and who takes a play break first.  I get through all of their work quickly and efficiently, and then move on to the next kid.  We are still finishing up our school work most days by lunchtime or shortly after.

This does mean that for those hours we are doing schoolwork that I get almost nothing else done because I am literally moving from kid to kid to kid.  I used to be able to do some dishes or start a load of laundry while they were working on their own – not so much anymore, but that’s ok.  Cole is working his way to being independent much of the time, as his reading fluency continues to increase, along with his ability to digest more complicated readings.

I am also SUPER excited about some good things happening with the kids and their development and learning.  Sydni has already finished her first Pathway Reader for this school year, and at the rate she is going, will be moving on to the 2nd grade readers by the Spring.  I am also happy about a VERY long and detailed narration that Cole gave on the “Pecos Bill” tall tale.  I think I will type it up and share it this weekend.  The chapter was quite long and I stopped five times during the story and had him narrate.  He did a great job and remembered some really interesting details.

It’s also nice to see additions to our “Staircase of Time.”

(This was taken right after I finished drawing it, I should take a new one!)

Having a huge visual tool for tracking historical events is really helping things stick in the kids’ minds.  Sydni even drew little crowns over the names of Phillip the II of Macedon and Alexander the Great to help her remember they were kings.  CUTE!  Tell me how many 1st graders you know who even have an idea of who those people are?  :-D

Yeah, I really love homeschooling.  WOOT!

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….