School, School, School...

This year I am hoping for a much better year with homeschooling, as I've switched some things up, and have actually moved into a schoolroom of sorts.  Ugh, being unorganized and having everything everywhere led to more and more chaos.  There is much more organization put into this school year, and they each have a desk!  Yay!  And to make it a little more like school, we have a chalkboard, double yay (thanks to my handy husband!).  I am grateful for the flexibility homeschooling offers, and that I can teach my kiddos any time of the day or week if necessary.  Oh, and that we can take vacations and still count them as school days since lessons can take place at any time or place!


Symphony has a fun year planned out for her.  She chose her enrichment classes, and is just loving them so much!  Her selections include Theater, American Girl, Flat Stanley, and The Magic Treehouse.  Her days in class are filled with reading, crafts, acting, singing, and making new friends!  She is too cute when I ask her about all that she learned and did that day.  Her little mind gets scrambled because she wants to name off everything at once, ha ha.  Her sweet little voice can be heard throughout the house during the day as she practices her songs for theater, and I LOVE IT!  She's suddenly acquired a little vibrato that I never knew she had!  She is absolutely in love with American Girl (and the class), and can't wait to get one of her own (of course it will be one that looks just like her, she's made that clear).  The girls are encouraged to bring their dolls to class each week, so she takes extra care of her "girl" before taking her to school.  They have been reading about Felicity, and she's let us know about several crafts that she's in the process of making.  Flat Stanley has been a fun class for her with lots of crafts.  She's been reading the story of this character who has been able to travel due to being flattened out!  She has sent out three Flat Stanley's to family and friends in the U.S. to see what it's like in that particular state.  Her Flat Stanley's were sent to Hawaii, Colorado, and New Mexico, so lets hope she gets a good feel of each of those states.  Once they return, she gets to share them with her class.  The Magic Treehouse is taught by the same teacher as her Flat Stanley class, and she loves her teacher.  They are working away on projects, and she is so relieved that she finally finished one of them.  She couldn't wait to see what it would look like once it was completed.  As for Theater, she is learning so much.  She's learning about stage direction, acting, working as a team with everyone, and all that goes into makingand being in a production.  During the month of December she will have many performances, and I can't wait to see my baby shine in "An Old Fashioned Christmas."


She is very involved with her studies the rest of the week.  Seriously, I don't remember doing half of the requirements she has to master at this age.  Needless to say, mama is brushing up on EVERYTHING!  I wouldn't have it any other way, and I love being such a huge part of her education.


Here are the textbooks that we are currently using with her:

• All About Spelling
• A Reason for Handwriting
• Language Fundamentals
• Read and Understand
• Draw...Then Write
• Writing Poetry With Children (which we are doing as a family)
• Writing With Ease
• Arithmetic 2
• Health, Safety, and Manners (along with lapbooks)
• Our America (along with fun lapbooks)
• Enjoying God's World (along with fun lapbooks!)
• our trusty ol' Readers
• a fun morning read during breakfast The Mrs. Piggle Wiggle Treasury

We also have experiments and crafts planned out, logic games, extra fun reading time on her own, hopefully some basketball again, and perhaps a few lessons in sewing!   Sheesh!  I didn't know it would be so demanding at this age.  I was just informed by her Education Specialist, the best ever, that curriculum has all been pushed up a year now.  So that means standards that were held for Kindergarten are now required in Pre-K, Kinder now works on First grade curriculum, First grade now works at a Second grade level, and so on!  Poor kiddos, with such high expectations so soon.  I'm so glad that I get to homeschool my babes, and slow down where needed, and fly by where they excel.

Just to think, next year I'll have a Third grader, Kinder, and a Pre-K.  I'm hoping it will be a relief, and that my son will no longer be such a handful to the girls who are so eager to learn :)

With that said,  I am going to try my hardest to post some of the work of my students, because they deserve to be shown off   :)

                                                     

(a few pictures of our huge chalkboard)