Let me start by saying I'm sorry I have been quiet for so long. It has been a looooooooooooooooooooooooong winter. Winter is the time when the Earth wraps herself in a blanket of snow, and turns her thoughts inward. I defiantly was doing that this winter. However Spring is here! It's time to give birth to all the internal growth. I had a challenging winter with both my physical and spiritual self, but I'm feeling much more energized with the return of warmer weather.
So, time for an update on the homeschooling. When last I posted we had just dove into Oak Meadow. Things have changed somewhat since then. We are back to using more of a buffet style of curriculum building. Here is the short list of what we do:
~For our spine we have switched to Time 4 Learning. It is an online, interactive curriculum that does a good job of teaching the 3 R's, with a little science and social studies thrown in. The kids love it, especially Patch. It also has some printable worksheets and lesson plans for offline activities.
~ For math we do a combination of things, in addition to T4L. We still do some practice from OM, we do mathercise (math/exercise~practice skip counting and other facts while doing stretches, jumping jacks, sit ups, etc)and I have a few work books the kids dabble in.
~Language Arts: T4L, OM for writing practice/ creative writing and some reading, work books Patch for learning to write (along with all his little notes), reading lots of books from the library, OM, and home, Schoolhouse Rocks videos and game, and worksheets for Em for cursive and spelling.
~Other is where we are still having issues. They are getting tidbits of science, history, social studies, art/crafts, health and wellness, etc. from various places. However it's all very informal, scattered, and not enough. UGH!
To fill in the gaps I've got a few ideas, I'm just so bad at putting them into action. So, my goal for this week is to get a rough outline of the "other" stuff I would like to cover over the next couple months, including a schedule. I am thinking unit studies, I'll keep you posted.
