Homeschool Update

Meant to write this post over the weekend but it was a crazy weekend.

Last Thurs the girls asked if we could start doing circle time again. Conveniently I *had* unpacked the box that had the Read & Learn Bible that we use for the worship portion of Circle Time, as well as a few books that we were using when we stopped all pretense of "school" to focus on packing/moving. So we did circle time that day (& Fri, and today, each day at the girls' request). One reason I didn't try to keep up with Circle Time during the packing/moving process was because it had become something the girls didn't want to do and forcing something that was/is supposed to be fun/beneficial seemed counterproductive w/ everything else I had going on. So I'm quite excited that after our "break" they're ready to be back to doing it again. I took time on Thurs & Friday to sort through the half-done curriculum we'd left off on when we stopped pre-move. It was probably the most confusing time in the entire year & a half curriculum to drop everything & try to pick it back up because the last 2 (spring) units for this curriculum just do.not.work logically for the dates (the FIRST 6 week unit recommends not starting until you can see sheep sheared which happens in May. The SECOND 6 week unit includes starting seeds, and other "April" activities. However, some of the handwork in the 2nd unit builds on things learned in the first unit so just switching the 2 units doesn't work either . . . So, initially I'd scrambled the 2 units together to make it all work, which made it fun & exciting to figure out what we had & hadn't done, and what order the remaining things needed to be done in. We DID go see the sheep sheared so we can move forward w/ the wool portion of the curriculum now, for one thing. But I've got it all laid out in a way that should work assuming I can find the needed "stuff" as we need it (since playroom/school stuff is an area that is very much NOT unpacked yet), of course now that I've done that, I fully expect the kids to be "too busy" to want to do much of it, but there's no set time frame really, since we're beyond the season it's supposed to happen in anyway (and conveniently, other than starting seeds (which I need to do this week regardless) it's probably the least season-specific of the whole curriculum, so we can drag this out all summer & into the fall if we want.

A also made a request last week that we study the solar system this fall, and I have a pre-school/K solar system unit study we can use so we'll probably do that (or at least I'll see if they're still interested) once we wrap up this "spring" stuff from the waldorf curriculum.

I'm so glad that we're in a state where we're not yet required to report (if we'd stayed in MD I'd have filed the paperwork to say I was holding them out a year, but this means I don't even have to do that LOL) they are so enjoying just being kids & I'm glad I don't have to worry about creative record keeping to allow them to continue being kids.

Lest anyone fears they're not learning, they wrote their own Father's Day cards this year, sounding out the words. Needless to say, not spelled correctly, but it's still an important "next step" toward reading/writing, and one I'm thrilled to see, A especially take (A is SUCH a perfectionist (she gets it honestly LOL) that up until now she's been too afraid of spelling it "wrong" to be willing to sound things out, preferring to just have me tell her how to spell them, L's more confident in her phonetic writing, but A has started doing it as well).

This weekend we ended up doing quite abit of short driving around stuff. I put in the Hermie Scripture Song CD that they got for their birthday and over the course of the weekend they've pretty much memorized it :)