Homeschooled Goobers: We've started!

Blogging has definitely taken a backseat these last few months, though not for lack of material!!

Last school year ended. We had a wonderful friend of my Mom's eval Indigo at the elementary level, and picked someone off askpauline.com to come and eval Chase at the secondary level. Both were amazing!! It was great to see my mom's friend again, someone I've known and admired for many years, and the evaluator who came out for Chase was a great resource for his upcoming high school years, with information on building his transcript and more.

The 2nd half of last year saw us getting out with our homeschool group a bit more, and making connections which then led to making friends, which led to getting invited to casual playgroups at parks where we met members from other homeschool groups, so, basically, we met a lot of like-minded homeschoolers in the past 6 months! It is exciting to finally be connecting with people who are on the same wavelength, and we've made a lot of friends who are homeschooling for the same reasons as us - their kids needed more than the district could offer, they enjoy being home with their children, they want to offer opportunities for their kids during the day that they wouldn't be able to do if in public school all day, they don't want their children to be tied to strict curriculum.

And so, the schooling ended and we enjoyed our Baby Shelby for most of the summer and instead of starting in July like last year, we waited until August 1st. This year I'm using Homeschool Planet, an online planner, to help keep track of everyone's schedules and to help the older kids be more independent. I enter everything in the planner, and I can print a Daily Plan each day and check it off. The big kids receive a Daily Plan in their email, so it is clear what they are to do each day. This year, we're doing our core subjects (except science) Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Tuesday is for block science and art, and Thursday is art appreciation, block physical education, health, and after lunch we have Exploration Time - a field trip, hiking, out and about, something fun.

Chase is an 8th grader, so we are preparing him to potentially begin dual enrollment with college courses next year and also to begin his transcript. He's taking foreign language and using www.alison.com to take courses like American Civics in addition to his core subjects. He will continue to participate in trombone lessons and the 7th & 8th Grade Band.

Indigo is a 5th grader, a middle-schooler. I've begun my push with the district to allow us back in to the communication we were abruptly cut from when we withdrew from the building and became Home Educators. We're crashing 5th grade orientation since she doesn't know the school layout. She'll be continuing with violin lessons and Strings, and also beginning percussion in the 5th Grade Band. She can play by ear, and I suspect music will be a big part of her life always.

Riley, well, we'll call her a 2nd grader for all intensive purposes, but if she were in public school, she'd be a 1st grader. She works at a 2nd grade level for some subjects as we don't want to miss foundational things, and she works many levels ahead for other subjects. Our plan with her is to let her be the guide, and slow down when we hit something she struggles with. She needs to know what it's like to struggle, and have to buckle down and actually study and learn it. Roger and I both know all too well what its like to have everything come easy, and to not be challenged enough.

RJ is turning 4 in a few days. We knew we'd include him, but once again, I underestimated him greatly. I had a few activities planned for him, some in the Pre-K category, some in the Kinder category. The first days he banged it all out and demanded more and more and more! I was scrambling to find things for him to do. Some of what I had planned was too easy and I had to regroup. He knows more sight words than I expected. His math is well ahead. We did a quick online assessment just so I could get an idea of where to start, and it turns out he scored High Kinder/Low 1st Grade levels for both language arts and math!! I also didn't expect him to sit for much, and perhaps that will change over time, but he doesn't seem to mind the brain work. Since I hadn't expected to use so much of my time to work with him, I'll be looking into things he can do on his own that will still build his skills. I really do love working with that age group, though.

Can't leave little Shel out - she is almost 4 months and just so darn cute! She is a really easy going baby and just goes with our flow. She is often lying on the floor with us while we're learning or sitting in a seat with some toys nearby. Love our little Shel-bell.

Here are some pics of our start!

A little piano practice... on our very broken piano!

RJ does his Sight Word games with Mom

Counting Bears and Dry Erase Markers (the paper is in a plastic sheet) to show and draw numbers 1 through 10

Our fresh little 6 year old gets a Daily Journal this year as she is becoming more confident with her spelling

Riley is so adorable...

Numbering to 100, and the pictures are TRAINS! Bonus!

Riley still gets to take the Chapter tests first in Math, and then crumble up the lessons if she gets 100%, if she missed a question, then we do the lessons. We started off crumbling all the lessons in Chapter 10.