My dear Noah J is in 5th grade this year! It is so hard for me to believe. We are doing some new school stuff this year and so far (I'm writing this in August) he is loving it. We chose Sonlight Core E for him. This covers the second half of American history and is right up his alley. One of the books used is his very favorite Usborne book about the World Wars. It is stretching him and really growing him and we are both in love with it. We are going back to Teaching Textbooks for math this year, simply so he and I don't argue so much about it! :) And then we're continuing with our regular things like Easy Grammar, Apples and Pears spelling, and A Reason for Handwriting. His favorite part of school is definitely the baking class I designed for him. He is so excited for Sundays to come since he knows he will get to bake with me! I'm already impressed with his skills.
Wyatt is in 3rd grade this year! Now this is easy for me to believe because so often I just lump the two older boys into the same age in my mind. Feels like he has been doing school for much longer! We cautiously decided to do Sonlight Core C with him this year, which is the second half of world history. He is not the biggest fan of listening ot me read aloud and seems to learn much better with hands on so we were not sure how it would go. After we figured out that he listens best if his hands are busy we started allowing color counts during Sonlight time and now he loves it! Begs to do Sonlight each day so he "can go on an adventure!" Yes, it sounds like a quote from the catalog but it is true! I am so, so pleased and surprised with what a good fit it is. He is continuing with CLE math because it is working for him and we are trying out Growing with Grammar this year. He's also thrilled to be learning cursive and typing this year too. I'm impressed with how quickly he is picking up the typing!
My little Rosie girl is doing another year of preschool. We really went back and forth on starting kinder this year but decided to hold off so she has some more time to really master writing. I feel like I pushed Noah too much in the early years in this area so I don't want to make that mistake again. Of course she LOVES to "do school" so we are still doing daily lessons with her. We are going through the Memoria Press pre-k program which she loves. We also do All About Reading Pre-level 1 and we are reading through as many of the choices from Honey For A Child's Heart as we can. I can't wait to start Sonlight with her because it is a perfect fit for her as well. She listens along with to the boys stories and really gets into them. I'm so surprised at how much she understands at such a young age!
And this little guy is pretty much just being a little terror all day. The first day of school as soon as I sat down to read to the kids he crawled over and started screaming and sobbing. He was so used to the kids paying attention to him the entire day he was not happy we were looking at books and not him! Seems like we might be finally getting into a rhythm with him. Maybe.
He did not want to cooperate with Wyatt to take a pic but then gave his sister girl a big smooch!
Well, for a little bit till she took the grass from him so he wouldn't put it in his mouth. Evidently grass tastes good!
I leave you with my gangsta boys. Here is to another great year of homeschooling! Oh so hard, but oh so worth it. Can't imagine my life without these little guys beside me all day. The whole concept of sending your kids away to school all day every day is so foreign to me now. I find it hard to remember feeling like that was what I would ever do with my kids. So glad God gave me a difficult child who I just knew would struggle in a traditional school. I remember the first time I saw positive info about homeschooling on the computer and I was blown away. Also thankful God put people in my life to take the plunge with me so I didn't have to start alone. Being with these kids makes my heart happy!
