First month of school!

Wow, this summer went by fast.  I have concluded that I need to make changes to our summer plan before next summer comes - namely giving each child a specific task that he/she is responsible for daily.  Also, a plan for maintaining the garden - and a schedule for working on school work for those hot summer days when I can't keep the kids outside - things get wild in the house when they are inside all day!

However, this post isn't about what I plan to do next summer, but what we are doing NOW!

My first task of this school year was to make some awesome discovery bottles. The kids enjoy playing with them, and I have a few more to make.

This year I am doing  a hodgepodge of curriculum.  I have started Andy on kindergarten with our reading lessons coming from Teaching Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. He is also doing handwriting and Bob Jones Spelling 1 (because Lydia is also doing spelling 1).

Lydia has begun first grade, and she is performing far better than I expected her to do.  After three weeks, she has received a 100 % on two of the three spelling tests, she's catching onto math (Christian Light), she's enjoying reading (Bob Jones), and English (Shurley) - I told you I was using a hodgepodge of curriculum.  She's also doing handwriting, and of my three kids Lydia has the best handwriting - probably because she actually cares about doing a job well.  The others tend to rush through things so they can go on to the next.

Kara has started second grade, and this school year is going far smoother than every other year of school.  Kara is also doing BJU spelling, Shurley English, Christian Light Math, BJU Reading, and handwriting (I can't tell if I've left any subjects out or not).

Together we are doing Bible, Science (Answers in Genesis), and History (Mystery of History).  The kids have really seemed to enjoy learning, and our school time has already fallen into a normal routine. 

I have to admit I was a bit nervous about homeschooling this year as I would be schooling three kids in several subjects (+Ezekiel and Gabriel).  However, the day has not dragged on as I thought it would, and typically we are still finished with school by lunch time (last year it would drag on all day with Kara because she would refuse to work).  We have music practice in the afternoons - which with both Kara and Lydia taking both piano and violin will mean we will have plenty of music around the house :)  Hopefully naps will continue on through the beautiful melody of children playing instruments!

Well, that's it for the start of our semester.  We are hoping to do some more enjoyable school activities in the next couple of weeks, so I will try to update as we get past the boring book work :)

What curriculum are you using this year?