Man you guys, you should move to Northern BC! We had two weeks of scorching weather, a month of fire bans and extensive forest fires, and now we've had a week of rain and the sun is starting to peek through the clouds. I think it's going to be a fantastic day. Down side of that is that I think summer may already be done and we didn't get to the "beach" (lake with sand around it - only a few leeches :P) once. There's that certain crispness to the morning air that tells you things are changing. And winter starts soon after that. . . your call lol. So. Did I mention dh brought home three ducklings unannounced about two weeks ago? He did. Not sure how I feel about that. But I changed the water in their little pool, changed the straw in their enclosure, hosed down their ramps and tidied up their little nest bucket. Our twelve chicks have 1/2 feathers and 1/2 fuzz. The four older chickens in the tractor are in grasshopper heaven lol. My zucchinis WILL NOT let up but at least I found an awesome zucchini patty recipe that everyone loves and freezes well. They'll make awesome mid-morning snacks - full of veggies and protein :) Going to can tomatoes this afternoon. Some math with dsd. I've been reading up a YA storm lately, working my way through Time Magazines top 100 books. Some really good ones! I was surprised to find I'd only read through about 40 on the list, so that's given me lots of options and since they're so good, and fairly popular, my library has had them all so far. The boys are camping with their grandparents and I expect they'll be home in a few days. Then I'd like to get some nature study done. I'm reluctant to start without them!

I have something similar . . . at least I have things sorted by "work type". Anything we need for morning time in one basket (mostly just read aloud books). Everything for group time (sounds the same as your table time as we do writing, grammar and science or history) is in vertical file holder (keeps things upright better than a dishtub) next to the table. Everything we need for one-on-one work in another vertical filer (spelling and reading and math). Their assigned reading (independent) is in a small basket for easy access. I do have seperate handwork tubs for each kids to occupy them during read aloud, each kid has an art tub for use as needed because otherwise the kids who take very good care of their art supplies still end up with dried up glue and smooshed felt tips and that just doesn't seem fair. I'm a year-long filer so I put their papers for the week into a binder on Sundays and estimate daily workload which is separated with tabs so they can see what needs to be done each day. But those binders are kept in the one-on-one filer or in a group binder in the group filer. At the end of the week I put the complete papers into notebooks by subject. Sounds like you're you've got a system that may work better for your family - at the very least you'll only have to supervise the putting in and taking out of one tub at a time so you might be able to build better habits in your kids. I'm a tweaking junkie, I'm constantly changing and improving things as our circumstances and family continues to evolve :)

Well. Seems like all my best laid plans always fly out the window when it's summer. ILs are taking the boys fishing for a week. So fun for them! But there goes more of my summer plans . . . although I intend on sending a CLE math unit with ds8. MIL is a school teacher, she can handle it, along with a stack of Berenstein Bear books for the two of them to read. And no iPads! (twists evil mustache). The weather is not inspiring for camping - lots of rain. but it's oh so needed so I certainly won't complain. No school today. I'm taking a personal day today - partner will wrangle remaining children while I go geek out in the library, treat myelf to lunch and then . . . not sure. Wish the weather was better, I'd go to a beach or at least a park! Will have to see what I come up with :)

ha! Us too! I wouldn't count this as the start of our school year since all we did was sit down together for five minutes to discuss the new school year (and it ended with them outside building fairy houses lol!) but when I sought out dsd8 to do math for the first time - as discussed this morning - I ended up with so much drama I just sent her to her room. Which some might say means she wins, she didn't do math, but I now technically count her as needing to make up for a day which can happen the next time the grandparents come to take all the kids fishing (don't worry, they come all the time so I'm not ruining a once-in-a-lifetime bonding experience for her). Blah. she just came in and apologized. sincerely. maybe she can read minds? I guess we need to go do math now . . .

I'm jealous :) We have too small of a community for coop. I think? In any case, there isn't one lol. The best we can do is homeschool swimming at the rec center where all the kids, from K-12 can take swimming lessons within the same hour, with play time before and after. So nice to be able to have all my kids swim at the same time, and only once a week. Also, I get a solid 1 1/2 hours to sit in the lobby with all the other home schooling moms and drink coffee and chat! This morning, we reeeeaaaaaallllllly eased into it. All I did was sit down with my two olders and talk about how this year we'll be doing school all day instead of just the mornings. I tried to dress it up a bit by saying we'd have more time to get things done during the day and more time to throw a few new things in. Then I pulled out my list of handwork ideas for them to do during read aloud time and we got into some great hobby discussions and ended up looking at fairy houses on the iPad. Both of them then spent the next three hours building their own fairy houses :P We'll tackle math in about 20 minutes lol. Luckily, that's really all I want to accomplish today! I figure if I start building in the habit of sitting down together in the morning and working a bit one-on-one in the afternoons for the next week or two, it will pave the way for the bits and bobs I want to add in as the month passes.

Morning ladies :) I'm also getting back into planning. An awaited cheque has arrived and now I need to prioritize how to spend it. I was expecting it mid June and so had it slated as "summer fun" money, but now that summer is half over, well. . . I'm good at spending money on fun, but that seems a little excessive - even with four kids lol! So now I've purchased dsd8's reading program and deciding what else I should get before school starts "for real" in September. IL's would be here by now only their motorhome's fuel pump has apparently stopped functioning. They'll get it replaced tomorrow and head up. So I have one day's grace lol. What to do with it? So much to do, as always, only it's mostly outside work, I think. I have a list as long as my arm as far as school prep goes, but I'm sadly uninspired. I'm always uninspired in August, that's why I just go with it in June lol. I'll dismantle my list into baby steps and see if that doesn't help progress. Have a great day - closet cleaning can actually be quite satisfying. Once it's over lol!

mechanical pencils a set of felts and pencil crayons per kid - hoping if they each have their own set, they'll take better care of them! better binders (also hoping for a sale) electric sharpener (how does one lose this kind of thing?!) geometry set per kid - just for fun :P tape, tape, tape A few other things that I'm sure will catch my eye and I won't be able to resist . . . :D

Funny, us too! I really wanted to do Miquon . . . then Math mammoth was my compromise because I was intimidated by Singapore lol. Also was loved until mid-second grade. . . finally, after a TON of research and reading, switched to CLE. LOVE IT! I have an older daughter using math mammoth a year ahead, so I think I'll be able to add in some more conceptual teachign if I feel it's necessary, but for now, CLE really, REALLY fits the bill - and I'm 100% secular as well. :)

Absolutely, they need to learn comma rules - but not RIGHT NOW. They've got years to learn them and chances are they'll learn them faster when they're older ;) Go ahead and switcht things up and when you start to itch for more structure, add more in, slowly, until it's enough. Repeat as needed. Back off again if it's too much. It's YOUR homeschool. You seem like a pretty concientious parent. You can't fail your children in a few months (years?) of delight directed learning! It's impossible!

I don't know anything about you and your family, or your specific circumstances or what is making things so unbearable right now. I have so much sympathy for you though and I also want to send some prayers and hugs your way. If it were me though, I'd cut myself some slack? Your kids are fairly young. . . what about a semester of completely different approach? If you follow a fairly traditional classical method, what about a few months of Project Based Learning? An hour on reading and math each day (work with one child while the other practices an instrument, math facts and other independent stuff), then a few hours of projects. For you too! What do your kids like to do? Do you have a passion to share? Follow that up with some time spent reading your favourite books from childhood. Either you read or you all listen to audiobooks while you do puzzles, handwork, draw, play lego etc. Nothing bad will happen if you don't do history, science and goegraphy for six months. Give yourself permission to rekindle the joy in living and learning together - it's more important than mastering any thing else. Jeez, I've almost talked myself into it too lol !

Oh Boy. Just found out the ILs are coming ASAP - not in a week as I thought. Sigh. They're staying in their motorhome for as much as a month so we're going to have lay out some ground rules since we haven't even started our summer work yet. I've got things planned - and beyond that there is actually a few things that NEED to happen (math, reading). Still crossing my fingers that August won't be as crazy as July . . .

Morning everyone :) We're back from our mini-holiday finally and now I refuse to go anywhere further than town for the next month! Seems like you've all been way more productive than I have! Oldest ds and dh are still away - they're working on a chunk of land five hours away - so we won't reallly start any school until next week, I suppose. I *do* need to get some stuff done though! Each of the olders have a chapter of math to complete and I have 1/2 of Donna Ward's Canada's Natives Long Ago to finish. Plus we need to get back in the habit of daily reading. They pick at picture books in odd moments (which really does delight me! Despite the reading challenges, they still choose to read for fun sometimes! That's been a goal all along!) but they really need more practice. Maybe now that all of us are back in the house all the time, it will start to happen again! So today's goals are to start picking up the peices of a regular daily routine again and reboot regular daily chores as well. Get our house running again - so important to homeschooling! mama25, to answer your questions. We *were* going to school lightly over the summer, but July was a madhouse! At least one kid (if not more or all of us lol) gone each week. So I think instead we're going to start carefully dipping our toes back into school, starting with our summer plans and adding in more as we go. No more fun lol! Full time school for us starts August 31. The weather is lovely here during those times but we're usually most motivated to get things done - I find September-December to be the most productive of the year so might as well capatalize on that.

Morning everyone :) Today's plan: housework. letting the kids readjust to each other (dsd is back!). Stay cool in the creek, although I think it's fairly breezy today, so that should help a lot. gardening - possibly pickle some zucchini. Read with each of the kids and do a bunch of reading myself. Ahhhhh, summer. Have a great day!

hello all! I'm here too just wrecked my back and find it super awkward to type while laying flat lol. Good news is that it's getting better and I'm able to go about my business more often - especially with a muscle relaxant. And I didn't really have anything scheduled this week. Full on do-what-you will summer. Also, I've made a ton of progress in The Story of Science by SWB as well as her Ancient History book. PLUS my mom left her latte machine for a week! I think we'll do more photography and start learning about blogging this week, but we're heading to a family reunion on Thursday so nothing too in depth. After that, we'll begin math and First Nations studies and attack our Nature Studies too. It should be really fun, mostly, but hopefully we don't all die of culture shock. Have a great day!

10 year old boys, crafty, indoor things. . . paper plane folding books? I've also seen some star wars origami and the like. soap carving? whittling? leather work (braiding and stamping to start)? Plasticene scenes - I'm thinking of those fantastic picture books which contain no illustrations, instead scenery made from play dough type stuff. . . what is called? Bas relief? something like that lol. Felting can be fun for any age - not that we've done a ton lol. I like my kids to be pretty independent before they do these kinds of things. I can't split three or four ways and they all want my help at once!

Well, I'm sure I'm old and set in my ways too - but we have no VBS with which to test my theory. bringing my mom in to town today to catch the bus home. I feel bad she has to catch a bus, but it'll be more relaxing for her than if my crew brings her home I bet lol! So today will be an errand day. We need batteries and groceries and maybe we'll stop at the library. Maybe I"ll take the kids to the nature center or museum while we're in that town? Sheep got sheared yesterday, and I made a bunch of jam too. We've all been so busly it's ridiculous and I'd love to just veg but . . .

Last Child in the Woods maybe?

Morning! Epic bday afternoon. Took the whole family to town for some window shopping (except we all bought ourselves a book - we have the best small town book store ever), then chinese buffet (as per the now six year old's wishes) and out to a movie. None of my kids have ever been to a movie before! So that was so much fun, but we got home really late. That's the third late night in a row and mixed in with a really busy, exciting visit at my mom and dad's. Hope the actually sleep in this morning, but I have my doubts! Sheep shearer is finally here. He's about six weeks later than usual. We'll finally knock some wool off of these guys so no school today. DSD8 is still gone anyway so we wouldn't do anything too exciting school-wise without her. Keep cool Critter! (and we're pretty far out of town too. We go in 1-2 a week. I prefer 1. I try and be super selective about extras they participate in. But we don't have a bushel of kids around so I'm always on the lookout for activities that are less structured so they can play with other kids too)

I'm an extreme planner. I have all my kids' work filed away by week in a binder - one binder for each kid, one for group learning. It's an ideal for me. I can still be flexible. If all the work that week doesn't get done I decide if I can skip it (such as happens if a kid is sick in pubic school, the teacher doesn't redo everything for him) or add it to the following week and see what can be done. We school five weeks on, one week off with a light summer load. I use the week off as a catch up week if things didn't go as planned - or we take it off if it did. We also take an extra week or two over Christmas and summer and there is no school on birthdays! I find if I don't have a physical reminder to do something that day (a page, a note) it gets forgotten, so I even have a peice of blank paper every week that says "All About Spelling" on it, but no lesson or page number, just a reminder to keep working on it. Some things are really just "do the next thing" - for us that's spelling and reading. Other things are more specific: science, history, grammar. I portion out what I feel is a reasonable amount of math each week as well but there are weeks when we don't get it all done or I start taking pages out of the following week because my kid is moving more quickly than I anticipated. I roll with the punches and it seems to even out toward the end of the year. That sixth week is when I plan the next five weeks in more detail. How will our day look? Do our extracurriculars change? Is the toddler still napping? What's the weather like? What kind of art/history/science supplies will we need for activities over the next six weeks - gather them up (big plastic bin for each). What kinds of books do I need to order in through the library/online? I also try and do some freezer cooking and baking, tackle any large-ish projects around the house and generally make my life easier by planning ahead. I don't know that this system is everyone's cup of tea, but it works for me.

I'm an "all grown up" competitive trampoline and tumbler. I LOVED it. I was good at it. I did wreck my joints :( Still, I have no regrets at all. I got to see and do things that wouldn't have been possible in my ranching family and I learned a ton with regards to work ethic and the belief that practice makes perfect - the harder you work, the further you'll go. The body awareness I learned as a young child made many, many other sports much more accessbile (I was able to pursue a semi-serious dance career in college and yoga was like a dream come true for me as a post-baby mom) Plus, the skills I learned in gymnastics transferred well to a diving board to wow all my school friends on class trips to the pool :P My kids aren't really into gymnastics or trampoline. Maybe my baby! I'm back from my parents! My mom ended up driving home with me and is staying with us for a few days. It's my 5yo birthday tomorrow! He'll be six! Not surew hat we're up to, but I doubt it has a lot to do with school accountability. Thought I'd just say hi and I'll be checking in regularly again :)

Morning everyone. Just checking in quickly as I'm taking three of my kids to my mom and dad's house for a long weekend. A five hour drive with a two year just isn't fun but the rest of it will be :) Ds8 finishined AAR2 yesterday! I'm so relieved to tie up that last loose end. They also started up the summer reading club at the library - sounds like a good time was had by all. Because we're so far out of town and only come into town one day a week, I squeaked in DSD8 (nearly 9) into the 5-8 year old class. Developmentally and reading-level wise it's a good choice for her, but the poor thing is nearly 5 feet tall - very tall even for a nine year old lol - so she sticks out like a sore thumb. . . not sure if she notices stuff like that? The rest of yesterday was spent at the splash park. summer at it's best. So I have nothing to be accountable for right now except more planning stuff. Probably the nitty gritty stuff since DSD8 will be visiting her other parent for a week when I get back so we won't be doing any summer school stuff until she returns. That will be my last wide-open opportunity to get the details ironed out before September when we officially start. Have a great day!

Morning everyone. Just checking in quickly as I'm taking three of my kids to my mom and dad's house for a long weekend. A five hour drive with a two year just isn't fun but the rest of it will be :) Ds8 finishined AAR2 yesterday! I'm so relieved to tie up that last loose end. They also started up the summer reading club at the library - sounds like a good time was had by all. Because we're so far out of town I squeaked in DSD8 (nearly 9) into the 5-8 year old class. Developmentally and reading-level wise it's a good choice for her, but the poor thing is nearly 5 feet tall - very tall even for a nine year old lol - so she sticks out like a sore thumb. . . not sure if she notices stuff like that? The rest of yesterday was spent at the splash park. summer at it's best. So I have nothing to be accountable for right now except more planning stuff. Probably the nitty gritty stuff since DSD8 will be visiting her other parent for a week when I get back so we won't be doing any summer school stuff until she returns. That will be my last wide-open opportunity to get the details ironed out before September when we officially start. Have a great day!

It's hit or miss. If it's something you think you'd like, it's worth it to check. But prepare yourself for disappointment, that's for sure!

haha! I mopped yesterday in the dining room, then set Curtis on it over night (roomba) and then had the *terrible* idea to serve fried rice and eggs for breakfast. What was I thinking?! And sadly, the dog that would eat it off the floor died this past spring so I was faced with the dilemna of either picking up each grain of rice with my fingers or waiting for it to dry so I could sweep it (this option seems like the best option but then you run the risk of getting grains of rice stuck to the bottoms of your feet and ground into the living room carpet. Ask me how I know). I did a combo: picked up traffic areas, left the stuff under the table for Curtis tonight :) I was *supposed* to clean the bathroom today but instead listened to the last Latin Stages and Ages webinar through Well Trained Mind. Now I think I'll read in the breezy, shady back yard since I'm absolutely melting right now. It's so hot out!

Just FYI - it's also free on the canadian site. YAY! :D thanks!