It's almost that time...

My girls have both reached that point again where it's just too dreadfully boring to go on existing. Which means...it's nearly BACK TO SCHOOL time! (It also means that I'm going to consider a shorter "summer break" next year. But that's a later post.)

It has been a rather boring summer, actually, with no real vacation to speak of. The girls have been camping twice - once with just their daddy (while I escaped for a much-needed girl's weekend) and once with not only our family, but another family of six as well! Still, those were just weekend ventures, and the rest of the summer has been filled with a dreadful lack of structure and excess of nothing-to-write-home-about.

Rachael did take gymnastics this summer, although we missed about half of the classes thanks to her having the chicken pox, my having a cold, etc.

She went to a four-day Green Thumb Gardening camp at the Spencer-Penn Centre, and she loved every minute of it. She was really looking forward to a creative writing camp last month that was geared toward 5-8 year olds...unfortunately, they didn't have enough people sign up to have the camp. :(

Rachael and I both started piano lessons this summer, and we're both loving it, for the most part. I started several weeks before she did, so I'd know enough to help her out. Let me tell you, after years of playing the saxophone and reading one measly little line of notes at a time, this two-staff both-hands-doing-something-different mess is blowing my mind! But I'm trying. And Rachael is catching on very quickly, as she'll gladly demonstrate to anyone who comes to visit.

And finally, I have to brag on my girl...she ROCKED the summer reading program at our local library! When it first started, she was allowed to choose from two options. One, she could set a goal for how many books she'd read during the program, and if she met that goal, she'd receive a free book. Or two, she could enter the big kid/adult contest, where you received one entry into a drawing for every hundred pages you read. No free book, but a CHANCE to win one of several donated gift cards. Rachael noticed that there was a $25 gift card to Walmart on the list, and that was the end of it - she wanted to win THAT. I explained and explained that there were no guarantees, etc. and she said that she got it. Well. After two months of writing down every single book that she read...after many trips back and forth to the library (because only books checked out of the library counted)...after counting down the days till the contest ended because I was SICK of writing down all those books (!!!), the contest finally ended. Rachael turned in four pages of books, with a total of 7, 126 pages.

That's right. SEVEN THOUSAND PAGES. Granted, a few of those were "Easy" books that she read to Milly and counted on her own list too. But most of those were books on a 3rd, 4th or 5th grade level - American Girl books, children's poetry, lots of novels. Most of the books she read ran around 200 pages, and she knocked them out in no time.

I'm still in awe. Girlfriend topped me by 3,000 pages.

Finally, the day of the drawing rolled around. The drawing box was so saturated with our entries that I knew there was a good chance that one of us would win something (and of course, if *I* had won, I would have passed it off as hers!) Sure enough, the phone rang shortly after the library opened...and Miss Cecil, her favorite librarian, told me that Rachael had won the $25 Walmart gift card. :) Milly got to pick out a free book. I won nada.

So, I guess we've had a little excitement after all.

BUT. I'm ready for some routine, and I think the girls are too. Our Notice of Intent to homeschool for the 2010-11 school year has been filed, and we have about half of our curriculum already. The rest is on the way and should be here any time. Time to start making lesson plans!

I'll tell you all about our curriculum choices soon...and the extracurriculars we have planned for this fall. I still need to sort out something for Milly too, as she's quite insistent that she wants to "do school like Sissy."

Happy New Year!

Originally posted on January 4, 2010

As promised when I first began this blog, I have been spectacularly craptastic about keeping it updated. New year, new attempt at keeping it at least somewhat regularly updated...

The first quarter of our 2009 school year couldn't have been more perfect. We were met with a bit of a challenge in the second quarter, which led to us only covering the basics (reading, math and Bible) on most days. Fortunately, reading and math are the big ones that the county requires us to do every day, so we're still in good shape. As of December 22, we had completed 90 out of the required 180 days of instruction for the 2009-10 school year. Halfway there!

After a week and half off for Christmas and New Year's, we're back at the kitchen table for school this morning. Quite a bit of what we're doing today is review, especially in the subjects that have been somewhat neglected (science, history, health) in the past months.

We'll be starting all new things before long, as Rachael is just two lessons away from finishing her math book - the one that we only started in September! Granted, we didn't do all of the review pages - I let her work on each lesson until she was ready to take the test, and then let her go for it. (As long as she has a good grasp on each concept, I see no reason to make her repeat, repeat, repeat.) So, she made short work of Math-U-See Alpha, which covered more skip counting, telling time on an analog clock, addition, subtraction, solving for unknown, word problems, etc. I'm very impressed (and, I admit, a little surprised) at just how well she's done with this math book, especially since she claims that it's her least favorite subject. Oddly, she complains about adding but has no qualms whatsoever about subtracting. We'll be finishing this book on Friday and then working on review pages until the next book (Beta) arrives.

We'll also be starting a new Bible study at the end of January, when we finish reading through her God's Little Princess Devotional Bible. As sweet and meaningful as the devotionals are for a girl her age, I'm looking forward to beginning something more in-depth with her soon. Train Up A Child Publishing has a series of "Choosing..." books that have gotten excellent reviews - I'm leaning toward Choosing Obedience or Choosing Self-Control to begin with, which will hopefully help nip some behavioral issues before they escalate. Other titles include Choosing Kindness, Thankfulness, Humility, Responsibility...all geared at children in K-5. There are more titles for teens that I think will be interesting to study with her later on, assuming that the reviews are correct and we love this series just as much!

Rachael still isn't a big fan of handwriting, although she doesn't fight me on it as much these days. She only takes offense when I erase a word for having capital letters randomly inserted in the middle...

She's still taking gymnastics lessons, and doing well with them. I love watching her flip over the uneven bars! She's also beginning her last year (sniffle) as a Daisy Girl Scout. I can't believe she'll be a Brownie this fall! The first meeting of the new year is tonight, and we'll be kicking off the COOKIE DRIVE! (No, I'm not at all excited about that!)

So, there's our new year update - hopefully it won't take me three months to post another one. :)  It's my intent to ease into a more classical method of education over the next few months, which focuses very highly on history (as well as math and language arts, of course.) If you're a homeschooling parent and have never read The Well-Trained Mind, I would highly recommend it. Lots of wonderful food for thought!

Happy 2010, everyone! I'm very much looking forward to making some changes in our home this year, and to a fun and insightful school year!