Schooly stuff

Well we're finally starting to come up for air after the huge commitment for the boys in the adult theatre. A few pictures will be up here eventually. They are both very sad for it to be over, Jake especially. He's been playing the CD and singing the songs since he got up this morning. I have mixed feelings about the end of it. I'm sad to see it end for them, it was a huge opportunity. I'm glad that they don't have to be out until 11 half the week any more though. It's going to take us a while to catch up on sleep, chores, schoolwork, etc. Tiffany posted on her blog and our homeschool yahoo group asking people to describe what they are doing for school this year. I love this kind of thing, but it took me about a week to get myself together enough to post mine. Below is roughly what I posted although I've tried to leave out some of the names and locations for blog safety purposes. Also for some reason some of the lines are short, but oh well! Most of this I've said on here before because this is first and foremost a homeschool blog anyway, but like I said recently sometimes I forget to preach what I practice, so here it is again.


Hi Ladies,
I, like many of you, really love hearing about what other people are doing for
school. My kids are Jonathan 15, Madi almost 13, and Jake 8 and we have always
homeschooled. We started out in the delayed academics, somewhat unschooly, camp
and have grown and changed as the kids have grown and changed. I guess you
could call us flexibly structured. Currently my 8 year old does Singapore Math
2B, we have been big fans of Singapore Math for years and I highly recommend it.
He does Catholic Heritage Curriculum for spelling, language arts, reading, and
faith. We've not found a real groove for science this year, but he and I are
currently reading through the Usborne First Encyclopedia of Science. For
History he is listening to Story of the World volume 1 along with his siblings.
He also is very interested in the US presidents so we've done a lot with that
this year as well. Let me stop here and say, when the other two were this age
we didn't do this much "curriculum" we did a lot of reading (we're huge Five in
a Row fans), playing outside, field trips etc, but he is a different kid and our
lives are different now. The beauty of homeschooling is that you can tailor it
to your individual children and individual family circumstances. Madi is in 7th
grade and for the first time this year is taking some classes with FLVS, we are
very happy with them. She completed Art in the fall, and is currently taking
Science and Career Education. She uses Catholic Heritage for spelling,
language, and reading comprehension (she is 13 and this is the first year she
has EVER used a spelling book or a language arts workbook). She's used
Singapore Math since she was in 3rd grade and after finishing 6A (it goes to 6B)
last month, she begged to switch to Teaching Textbooks, so she just began
teaching Textbooks pre-algebra. Jonathan (15) finished Singapore 6B when he was
in 7th and went right to TT Algebra 1 for 8th. Madi probably could've done that
too, but she was getting increasingly frustrated with math (Singapore is very
heavy in word problems and doesn't explain a lot which gets harder in the later
years...it's worked great for all my kids in the early years) and is loving
Teaching Textbooks she'd love to finish pre-algebra before the fall then go
right into Algebra for 8th grade, but again with homeschooling it doesn't have
to be started or completed in any specific timeframe, so we'll see how it goes.
Jonathan... this is our first year homeschooling high school, and so far it's
going really well. Not nearly as scary as I and a lot of people would think.
We are and always have been registered with the county (we are big proponents of
that). For high school we just have to keep track of credits for his transcipt.
He is taking English and Spanish with FLVS, so those are easy credits to keep
track of. He also took Driver's Ed with FLVS in the fall and got 1/2 of a
credit for that. He is now doing TT Geometry. You can carry over three high
school credits from 8th grade, so he got a credit last year for Algebra also.
For Science he is doing Apologia Physical Science. I'm in the process of trying
to figure a credit (or 1/2 credit) for Theatre. All of my kids are very
involved with Theatre. Jonathan (and Jake) just yesterday finished an 18 show run of Phantom
with the mainstage adult theatre. Jonathan was very involved
behind the scenes as well as being in the ensamble. He also does lighting or
sound for many of the other shows. He had the opportunity this
past fall to be a production assistant for an independent movie that was filming
locally (Ryann Watters and the King's Sword)...yes I need to count all this as
something! Until this year History has always been our biggest focus with
school. This year we are doing Ancient History with SOTW vol 1, but it really
been taking a backseat lately. Jonathan has read or listened on audio to some
of the Henty books from this time period as well as Homer, to beef it up for
high school, but even then we don't seem to get to it as often as we should. I
just decided recently that we are just going to call it 1/2 a credit for History
this year, we will still finish the whole book with some (not much) writing,
tests, extra reading and activities, but I won't stress so much about making it
a "true" full credit high school class...again it's our homeschool and we can do
what we want! Next year Jonathan plans to take World History with FLVS, as well
as continuing with 10th grade English and Spanish 2. As I'm reading this it
sounds like a lot, but we definitely aren't getting to everything every day and
my kids are older, please please please if your kids are younger (like 6th grade
and under) just enjoy them, read a lot, talk a lot, be with friends a lot, spend
a lot of time outside. Jonathan never did a Language Arts curriculum in his
life and is easily getting an A in 9th grade English with FLVS. He is also taking a Theology of the Body class at church that I hope to count as 1/2 a credit.
People often
put so much pressure on themselves and their kids to get the curriculum done and
I personally think all that busy work is a waste of time. What we've always
done (relaxed) and what they are doing now (real big kid classes) seems to be a
good example of what I've always believed. I love to talk about homeschooling,
and am enjoying the our new experiences homeschooling high school so it any of
you want to talk about any of that please feel free to contact me.

Enjoy your day!
Enjoy your kids!