Tuesday, March 30, 2010

next school year- SOLVED

Well, I think we have decided officially what to do for schooling finally. I told Scott to man up and TELL me what he thinks, to have a freaking opinion already on the schooling. I started with the simple question of public school or homeschool. He didn't hesitate. He said homeschooling, so that was set. Then I said to weigh his opinion on curriculum, and he and I spent a couple hours discussing the programs I'm considering and looking at them on their web sites. He said to stick with Sonlight, it is a better program from what he's able to see and we have experience with it. THEN he threw me for a big loop. He said that he's prefer that we do core K before we go into world history. Now, I already have a used core K, minus a couple books (part of why I got it for only $50, besides it being a 2002 edition) so that gives me a while to figure out how to afford history. So, we're looking at doing core K with the girls for 2nd grade and 1st grade.

Now next school year is a different story. Thanks to a wonderful friend who reads my blog, I got the opportunity to get the instructor guide for core 1+2 PLUS the guides to languages arts 2 regular and 2 intermediate. I'm going to be purchasing them from her this weekend, and then I'm going to spend the upcoming school year picking up the books for the core and lang. arts levels to do the following year. I plan to go into 1+2 as soon as we finish core K, and will stretch it as needed to last the next school year (and possibly the next school year as well)

Friday, March 26, 2010

figuring out some things

Well, its officially getting close to the end of the school year, so we're planning for next school year officially. We are leaving OHVA once the school year is up, which is the biggest change for us. I posted all about our decision before, so if you don't know why then try reading my earlier posts from this month. Now, here is what we're *considering* for next school year.

Melissa will be in 2nd grade, Lydia in 1st grade, and Kimmy and Jordan in preschool. Melissa is still struggling with her reading, but is coming along nicely. Lydia is taking off as well with reading, and is above grade-level in math. Lydia will do k12 math 1 until its finished, then move into Miquon with Melissa. For language arts, I plan on doing Sonlight lang. arts 1 with Melissa and going through lang. arts K with Lydia for the writing portion. So, that covers the basics of math nd reading.

History is a completely different matter. This year, Melissa studied ancient world history and has really enjoyed it. So, Scott and I are considering studying world history next school year. I've narrowed it down to either Sonlight or Winter Promise for world history.

Sonlight has cores 1 and 2, or core 1+2. Cores 1 and 2 are a 2 year world history program, with 1+2 being the condensed one-year version. It is a literature-based program with all kinds of goodies such as mapreading and working on a timeline. There isn't much hands-on material for crafts and such, so I'll have to come up with that on my own. I have experience with Sonlight after doing P3/4, P4/5, core K, science K, and lang. arts K. We went with k12 originally to give us another year to allow Melissa to really catch up with us for core 1, based on my experience with the program. You can learn more about it at http://www.sonlight.com if you want to.

Winter Promise is also a literature-based program. Its early world history program, Hideaways In History, is designed for K and 1st grades. It is a one-year run from the beginning of written history to pretty near current day. There are hands-on activities incorporated into the program, which makes it easier for me since I don't need to come up with ideas myself. I have never used this program, but it is appealing to me. You can see more about it at http://www.winterpromise.com if you want.

Now, both programs appeal to me for a lot of reasons. They both are literature-based, which means they use real books instead of stupid boring textbooks (sorry, remnants of my hatred for my own substandard public school education coming through) Instead of reading a passage in a textbook about lower and upper Egypt becoming one nation after years of war, they can listen to me reading a book about the war and its resolve from a child's point of view (ok really bad example, I highly doubt such a book exists, but you get the general idea) Both come with well laid-out instructor guides, complete with schedules on what to read and when, comprehension questions, timeline assignments (this stuff is really cool too), and other goodies.

Winter Promise is about half the price of Sonlight (that's assuming ONE core by the way, its approximately 20% the cost when you look at the 2 year program for comparison) and is scheduled as a 4 day program. Sonlight, however, goes deeper into history by spending 2 years on the subject if I don't choose the 1 year condensed core. Sonlight also includes both the 4 day and 5 day schedules for their program, so I can buy the 5 day and do the 4 day program instead if the 5 day is too much (which in reality I would just take longer to complete the material)

FInancially speaking, Winter Promise is the better option for our family immediately. However, Sonlight has much more potential for us in the long-term. It is more expensive, so it will hurt our budget a bit to purchase their program, however there is so much more material with Sonlight that I could more than easily stretch out each part of the program to last 12-18 months instead of just 9 months. But on the flip side, with Sonlight I would have to find hands-on activities to help make the literature come alive more, especially with Melissa, while Winter Promise has the hands-on already added in. With Winter Promise I would have to heavily supplement to make it stretch out to 2 to 2 1/2 years, while Sonlight I can easily do that with little to no work at all.

I can NOT decide which route to go. There are so many pros and cons for both programs. They are running pretty equal to me. Please feel free to comment on this situation if you want, I'm more than willing to consider all views on this decision. Scott has pretty much NO input, just "whatever you want dear" whenever I ask his opinion.

Science, well I'm thinking that if we go with Sonlight for history, then I'll use their science 1 program. If not, then we'll study astronomy and plants (Sonlight science 1 covers these subjects as well as a couple others, and yes I do feel that it is worth the money to not have to put together my own program LOL) The only reason I will not purchase Sonlight science 1 if we go with Winter Promise is because buying a complete core package with Sonlight gives me the perk of having a 10% discount and free shipping for 12 months. I have received this discount twice now with the purchase of their preschool-leveled cores in the past few years, and it has come in very handy as we needed more materials that Sonlight carries. Hmmmmmmmm another perk to choosing the Sonlight history program over Winter Promise......... ACK!!!!!!

Saturday, March 13, 2010

looking ahead to next school year

Well, it has come to be that time of year. Scott and I are discussing next school year in detail, trying to decide if we want to remain with OHVA or if we want to break loose and go off on our own. This year has been REALLY good for us, the kids are really learning a lot of great stuff and they have definitely grown with k12. I also have experienced a great amount of growth this year, my confidence has skyrocketed by having the accountability to a school for our lessons. I have done amazing things with my time management and ability to actually do something by pretty much being forced to all school year.

When we first chose to use OHVA to teach this school year, we saw it as a transition for us from traditional public school to homeschool. We needed the support for our own lack of confidence in this area, although we knew flat out that this was the right choice for our family. I can't imagine having my girls in public school now after 3/4 of a school year with OHVA, and I'm seeing myself learning more about their learning styles and needs and my own teaching needs every day that goes by. We weren't sure a few months ago what we would end up doing, specifically because we were doing so well with ohva up to that point.

As the school year progressed, I started getting antsy about how ohva requires us to teach all subjects a certain amount. I understand why they dictate this, and fully agree that the girls need history and science; however, Scott and I both feel that at this stage in their learning, we need to be focusing more on laying a solid foundation in reading and math. Melissa is dyslexic, and struggles every day with her reading still. She's made amazing strides in her reading this school year, and I know that continuing to work with her daily we will continue to see these improvements. We aren't at all concerned about her not learning to read well; we know that this will come in time. We also know that for her to suceed at reading, she needs the freedom to be able to explore it more than she can right now because our curriculum dictates that she does x, y, and z for each subject and these things take valuable hours from our day. These hours we could spend sitting together and reading books together, building her fluency, confidence, and improving her skills. I want to be able to focus on this area with her, and provide her with a wide variety of materials in multiple areas that she can sit and read to us. Same with Lydia, her own reading has stalled because I am unable to really sit and spend time working with her on it just like I am unable to do with Melissa. OHVA won't allow me to combine the girls into the same history, science, and art programs even though they are only a grade level apart, and I can't teach 2 full day programs completely separately like that. It is hard enough for me to teach a full day and a half day program within the time that I have outside of doing chores, soccer practices and games, cooking, and all the other aspects of my life. I am stretched at my limit with the program as it is currently, and I am failing to provide the girls with all the time they should be given as it is with their lesson materials.

All these things have led us to make a very difficult decision. We do truly love the k12 materials, they are wonderful. We enjoy working with ohva also. The school has been a wonderful experience for us, and our teacher for the girls is amazing as well. We have truly enjoyed this school year, and have learned a lot. It has given us something that we never thought we'd get either: our happy little girl back in Melissa. The public school here in our city completely killed that light in her eyes last school year. She went from an active happy child to a scared, withdrawn, shy child who was rude, mean, and disrespectful to everyone she came in contact with. This in itself was reward enough for us, and has sealed our fate to homeschooling for the rest of our girls' schooling until they enter college (if they choose to go)

So, we decided that we just can not continue to work with k12 and the program as written to make it work for our family at this time. We need to go more independent in our lessons to provide the kids each with the individual time they each deserve for reading and math. So, come June I will be figuring out my notification letter for our district to homeschool the girls next fall independently. We will continue to work on reading and math at their individual paces, and will "lifeschool" for history, science, art, and other subjects. We are planning to get the garden up here soon to provide us with opportunities for science and health lessons, and will read great literature and go on field trips to areas around the state for history/ geography. I don't know how it will work out for us, but I have faith that it will work beautifully in the end.

As the girls get older and their needs change, our homeschool will also change. But at this point, this is what we need to be doing for our family.

Friday, March 12, 2010

bike riding and spring yardwork

Yes I know, its technically still too early to start on the gardening. HOWEVER, it is NOT too early to start clearing out the stuff I don't want any more and start making plans for how we're going to change it up. So, I started doing just that today. We're removing a BUNCH of shrubs, some are prickley and some are just ugly and those two types are being thrown away while the ones we ARE keeping will be transplanted out front. I also am removing one garden, tearing out my current concrete walkway, putting down a new brick front walkway, changing the layout of one garden completely, and putting in 2 new front gardens. LOL Yes, I am doing all that this year, along with having to reseed at least 2/3 of my property because of that water main break and a few other little issues with some shrubs that we tore out last year (they blocked the sun perfectly so that grass didn't grow at all in half my back yard) Oh, and we're removing 2 old trees from our front yard (one is diseased and the other is a climbing hazard because it isn't sturdy enough and the kids won't stay out of it) and we'll be planting some new trees in their place (I'm thinking cherry trees) All this will be part of our science lessons for next school year, so it will work out perfectly for us.

And on a TOTALLY kid-related note, today we dusted off the bikes and bike helmets for the kids, and Melissa decided that it is finally time to take off the training wheels. She's been at it for aobut an hour now (I love having a laptop and wireless home network) and has *almost* figured out how to ride without falling on her face. I am grateful of the bike helmet though, she's landed on her head a few times already. I have a feeling that if the weather holds out, by the end of this weekend she'll be zipping up and down the side street by our home. And YES, I was smart enough to take pictures of her attempts.



As you can see, it went pretty well with grandpa giving her pointers. If you are on my FaceBook list, I'll have all the pictures from her riding lessons available there, and will try to remember to add another post here when she's mastered the two-wheeler to share some more pictures.

Monday, March 08, 2010

science 1 joys

Well, since I totally missed a BIG thing in our science unit on plants, I decided to skip that unit and move on to the next one for now. So, we are going to be studying habitats while we wait on our grass to grow LOL Chances are, Lydia will be joining in with us for the science unit like she always does since OHVA doesn't do science in K. K for them is a half-day program so we only do math, phonics, lang. arts, and history. We are encouraged, but not required, to do health and technology in K yet we get a lot of hours with those subjects since my 1st grader has to do them.

When I finish the unit on habitats, we'll go back to plant life. I seriously doubt the kids will be damaged by my moving around a unit like that to allow time for a total stupid slip on my part.

Saturday, March 06, 2010

watching grass grow and Girl Scouts

No, I am NOT kidding. LOL We are about to start a new unit in science for Melissa, one on plants. One of the labs involves me having to grow a patch of grass in a container so that we can examine the root structure. Soooooo, we will be literally watching grass grow this week. I just thought that was funny.

But on a more serious note, we are planning on starting Girl Scouts this week. I tried to get them signed up at the start of the school year, but due to some major changes with the local office combining with 2 other regional offices, our paperwork got lost and it didn't happen. So, on Monday Lydia has her first Daisy meeting, and Tuesday Melissa has her first Brownie meeting. Yes, I know. They could both be Daisies, but if you have EVER spent time with those two in a group setting you understand why I am not going to go there. They are terrible together in a group with other kids, they band together and gang up on the others and just torment people. However, get one without the other and you have a child that is dedicated, serious, and a joy to have in a group setting. The troop leaders will thank me if I can pull off keeping those two split up for a couple more years....................

Friday, March 05, 2010

randomness

I was looking through pictures on my computer, and thought I'd share a few that I found.

Melissa hard at schoolwork




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Homemade hopscotch in the entry

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Scott reading to the girls from Sonlight core P4/5 at bedtime at our old house

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There are more, but these are just a few of my favorites from schooling lately...............

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

revisiting Horizons Health K

I told you that once we got into it a bit that I'd review it based on uage. Well, we are finishing up unit 1 of Horizons Health K and I thought I'd give some insight on how we like it.

We've been talking about how we are all unique and special, feelings, and responding to feelings appropriately in this unit. I added a little to it for them as far as other feelings that are beyond the four they teach, and we did a lot of role playing with it for practice. The activities in the unit were perfect for my K daughter, she had a LOT of fun doing the lessons. Lessons didn't take as long really as the guide suggests they do, although I didn't do everything listed in them either. We've really had fun with it. The lessons are laid out very well for me to teach, and it was really easy for me to go with it even though it wasn't scripted like I'm used to with our k12 materials. We truly are enjoying this program, I am very happy that we decided to add it to our schoolwork.

Our next unit is about living in a family. We'll be starting it next week, if all goes according to plan.