My oldest DS turned 10 a few weeks ago. Up till now we have had a pretty relaxed homeschool experience, but I think we need to begin setting and working towards some goals. I want to make sure he is prepared to step into logic stage work, with its increase in expectations, when the time comes. I don't want to just flip a switch and get crazy rigorous on him all at once either! I am not sure what goals to set. I have been reading through the logic stage section TWTM and am beginning to form some ideas, but I am still feeling pretty lost to be honest. I am mostly thinking about academic, time management/organization and level of independence goals. The academic goals are really stumping me, I have kind of just done what the curricula we have used has asked for with no specific goals. We have mostly followed the general plan in TWTM and he has found most of the work fairly easy. The only area that he really seems to have trouble with are narrations, we are using WWE 3 and he sometimes has a hard time answering the questions and picking out the important parts to form a narration. I am worried that he won't be ready next year to do what TWTM recommends for 5th grade. And I know that we don't HAVE to follow it, but I really like it and so far, so do my kids. So tell me, what are some goals you want your kids to reach by the end of 4th grade? Maybe by reading some of them it will jump start my brain for me! Thanks!

Today was only the second one we've had! I thought it seemed like a nice way to add a little something special to our week. We just have something good to drink in the teacups that came with my grandma's wedding china and a snack. I've made a batch of cookies each week so far, PB last week and oatmeal raisin this week. But if I didn't have time store-bought would be totally ok! I read some poems from a children's poetry book we already have. This week I was going with fall themed poems. Our book didn't have many so I turned to the internet and we passed my phone around reading the ones we found. I talked about the ones I liked and how the choice of words helped me make a really good picture in my head. Very laid back! Once we were done today my kids had the idea of composing poems. I was more than a little surprised! My kids aren't really what you would call willing writers! But they are all busy writing now and told me they will read their poems next week at our tea. Poetry Tea for the win!!

Good morning! We had a pretty nice weekend. Saturday was spent with a little housework and a lot of reading, gaming, playing outside and movie watching. On Sunday we cleaned house, went to a birthday party and watched the eclipse. A pretty relaxed weekend overall. I feel like we needed it. I am mostly ready for this week. Yesterday I made some general plans and did some printing and prep for now through the end of December. I didn't quite get all the printing done that I needed to, but plan on finishing it this morning before the kids get up. I'm feeling a little concerned about DS10 and writing. He is working through WWE3 and seems to be having a really hard time answering the questions after he reads the passage to himself. I don't know if he is reading too quickly or just skimming it and wonder if reading it out loud to me would help him remember. We are going to try it this week and see what happens. On the list for today: Math Reading Writing Spelling Handwriting History Poetry Tea-maybe Basketball practice - DS8 Time to get off here and get this day started!

Oops, I haven't got back here for two days! I love reading all the posts, its nice to get a glimpse into the days of other homeschoolers. Tuesday was a good day, except for their science class at our local natural history museum being cancelled because the instructor had an emergency. Wednesday was a stinker of a day! The whining and complaining was out of control. We managed to get math, reading and handwriting done and that's it. I have a really hard time on days when the kids are like that, it's like the constant fussing just drains my energy. Most of the fussing came from DS8. The main problem is that he is having a really hard time with reading. We went all the way through OPGTR and he mostly did fine during the lessons, but it did not transfer to reading anything else. I think that I was too easy on him by cutting the lessons down some and by giving him more help than I should have. We went through OPGTR in 2 years and he seems to have forgotten some of the earlier lessons. I didn't make him do enough reading outside of the lessons because he was always having a fit about it. I was way too relaxed with him regarding reading, assuming that he would pick it up as easily as his older brother did. And his younger sister, she just took off in reading a couple months ago and has completely outpaced him! So now I am mad at myself, feeling like I've failed him and freaking out a little, trying to figure out what to do next. I cannot go back through OPGTR with him, he hates that book! I don't really have any money to spend on something new at the moment either. I think that I am going to go through Blend Phonics (free) with him. They recommend doing it over the course of 4 months. He has seen all this before so I am hoping that a refresher will get him over the hump. Also going to have him read to me daily. I am thinking about starting with the McGuffey Primer and moving on from there. We also have a free 4 week trial of Reading Eggs that he is using, I don't know if that will actually help or not but he is enjoying it, and at this point anything that makes reading fun is a good thing. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I am considering dropping a couple of his things until he is reading better. Mainly spelling, which he HATES and grammar. DH and I decided that if there isn't improvement by the end of December we should probably get him evaluated in the new year because at that point I won't know how else to help him. Ugh, sorry, I could have probably done that as a separate post all on its own! Today we are going to try to get all of our stuff done, but we have to be done by 3 for evening activities. DS9 has his learn to shoot archery class, then there are two baseball games back to back. Its going to be a busy day! And I better get off of here and get on it.

Our day went pretty well. Everyone was up on time, not a lot of complaining, except from DS8 about reading and spelling. Which is usual, he finds those two pretty hard most of the time. After lunch we started our states study, and did a section from history. We were going to do science but we need the bathroom scale for an activity and it is no where to be found. I spent half an hour digging through our remaining unpacked boxes with no luck. Now I'm just peeved and think I will go read for a bit. I'd be willing to bet money that DH will find it for me in a matter of minutes once he gets home. He's lucky like that, lol. Probably just going to push science off until tomorrow. Soon it will be time to get dinner made so DS8 can eat before basketball practice. All I really want to do is take a nap!

I need some accountability this week! At the beginning of July we started doing light school and worked up until the last 2 weeks, when we took off school to move. The new place is mostly unpacked and all our stuff is ready to go so its time to jump into our full plans. Tomorrow we don't have anything going on out of the house until DS8's basketball practice in the evening so we have a whole uninterrupted day to work our plan. As of tonight the kids were looking forward to starting up again, we'll see what the morning brings but I'm not anticipating any huge problems from them. Hopefully those words don't come back to bite me! The hard part is going to be dragging myself out of bed before they get up, its been an issue since we moved. So on that note, I'm hitting the hay. I'll check back in tomorrow, hope you all have a good days!

Can I jump in here? I need some accountability this week. We are moving this weekend and I have a ton of packing to do still! Luckily, we are only moving about 10 minutes away so nothing has to be packed extra carefully except the breakables. We aren't doing school this week except for a couple things we need to finish up from last week, so that won't take up much time. Here is today's list: animal chores - kids (done) fold laundry - kids and I (done) school trash out - DS9 (done) dishes bathroom - quick clean (done) box up toys - kids pack up most of the kitchen whole house pick up dinner take DD7 to ballet (done) practice basketball drills with DS8 baseball practice for boys (done)

It's not a lesser crime, not at all. If this had happened in a unknown family it would be just as horrible. Were they an unknown family the media would not have thought it news worthy, or if they did it probably wouldn't have gone much past their corner of northwest Arkansas. I'm thinking that maybe people feel morally justified about dumping on them because of how they came across to so many people. Speaking for myself personally, I used to watch the show up until Josh and Anna's courtship stuff was being aired. I thought they came across as smug, holier than thou and believing they were morally superior to others.In real life, maybe they are and maybe they aren't, but that is how quite a few people see them. So this news about Josh molesting 5 girls came out, and what appears to be an attempt to cover it up by his parents, and all the people that felt similarly turned off by them are saying, "Ha! Not so morally superior after all are you?! Here's what you did wrong ..." It seems to be human nature to enjoy putting people on pedestals and then we also really enjoy knocking them off. I can't say if it is the right thing for other people to be doing. For me, to be honest, when it has come up in conversation I have not made any bones about the fact that I think he committed a crime much more grievous than they are trying to play it off as, that the way Josh and his parents seemed to focus on themselves and not the victims is disgusting and that his parents handled the whole thing terribly from beginning to end. I'd be happy if they never were on TV again. It is a good question and made me think, I'm still thinking about it but don't have anything else coherent to add at the moment. I hope it made sense, having a hard time waking up this morning! I haven't participated in this thread at all till now, but I have been reading and I was irritated at being chastised by someone who(not you SKL), came across as being a bit holier than thou. Apparently that attitude really ticks me off, lol.

They brought this on themselves by putting their family on TV. By becoming "celebrities" they opened themselves up to criticism and judgement from the public. They had to know that people who didn't like them were going to dig and dig to find some dirt on their family. If this didn't occur to them then they were incredibly naive! If they weren't on TV then I doubt the public would have ever learned about it, or given a crap about it. Jim Bob and Michelle can lay the blame for the beating they are getting in the media and places like this solely on themselves, they choose to be on TV and expose their family to all the garbage that inevitably comes with celebrity status.

Lots to do today so I need this! Done: Breakfast Made jello Laundry - 1 load Animals fed To Do: School Laundry - 2 more loads Get dinner in the crockpot no later than 1:00 Wash dishes Make a grocery list Boys make sure baseball gear is ready Whole house pick up Baseball games from 5 to 8 Dinner Tidy up the kitchen

All of it got done except the dishes and straightening up the house. I think DH will do that because the cold that's been threatening for a couple days has gotten a lot worse this afternoon. I feel awful and I'm going to bed.

I'll join, I've left way too much till this morning as usual. Procrastinating is a bad habit I need to break! -make a lemon raspberry cheesecake -put together the seven layer salad -waffles for breakfast -get myself and three kids in and out of the shower and ready for church -church at 11 -dinner at my parent's house with the extended family -Easter egg hunt for all the kids there -look over school plans for the coming week -wash dishes -straighten up the whole house before bed And with that I'm outta bed and off my phone! Have a Happy Easter!

Yesterday was my birthday and we pretty much took the day off. The weather was overcast and raining so we stayed inside. I spent my time sewing and reading and left the kids to their own devices. We watched a couple things about the American Revolution on Netflix, I helped DD with spelling while she wrote a short little story. I read aloud. It was a nice, relaxed day. Today has been the same and Friday will probably be similar. DH is home and we don't get as much done while he is here, but the kids have been pretending they are at Valley Forge and playing chess. Later we will all read. Hopefully the forecast holds, Saturday is supposed to be sunny and in the upper 60's so we are planning on taking a picnic to a small, local lake and spending the afternoon. I love MO, it really is beautiful here! We love camping and hiking and exploring outdoor areas that are new to us. We've all been waiting on spring. The last few winters here have had a lot more snow and really cold weather than usual and that doesn't help with the winter blahs.

This is pretty much what I did around 4:00 this morning when I couldn't sleep. I focused only on history and science. We don't need a curriculum change for history, we just need to add some more things on to it to make it come alive. We do need a curriculum change in science, and my previous post has what we are switching to and why. DH has a 4 day weekend starting tomorrow and I will have him be on kid duty at some point so I can go to a quiet room and do some more uninterrupted thinking about our other subjects.

I think I need a plan, but a loose one. Not exactly flying by the seat of my pants but not as structured as what I have been trying to do. Math, reading and language arts have just become do the next thing subjects. I'm going to decide how many times each week would be ideal to hit upon each subject, but other than that I'm not going to plan. I'm going to write down what we do, after we do it. Then we can move ahead as fast or as slow as they need to. I already have SOTW planned out by chapter/section but I'm going to remove the dates assigned to it. Then if we miss a day or even a week due to outside activities or unplanned circumstances we can just pick up where we left off. And I won't feel like we are behind. I'm not worried about doing a whole book in one year, if it overlaps a bit I'm fine with that. I am going to make a concerted effort to add in some of the activities and books listed in the activity guide and other online resources in the hopes that they will bring some of the joy back. We are going back to BFSU for science. We did several of the lessons earlier this year and really liked them. It was a little bit of planning for me, but the style of the lessons really clicked for the kids and I. We did the demos, looked up things online and in our own books, found library books that corresponded and did a lot of talking about what we were learning. The discussion and the fact that for weeks after the lessons they were making connections all over the place to what they had learned was the best part of it. I will do this the same as SOTW, plan the lessons but not assign dates. I have been up since 3:30 because I couldn't quit thinking about how to make things better. I have a couple pages of notes with ideas. I'm going to decide what I can realistically do right now, and what will take a while longer to implement.

I think their actual education is going well. I am satisfied with where they are and the pace they are going at. I suppose they could be considered a little behind in math because they are all still in the A books for their grade level. But they will each be moving onto the B books within the next couple weeks and will work on it all summer. But I'm okay with that too because they are moving at a pace comfortable for them and are retaining what they learn. I just wish that overall we could have less complaining and more enjoyment!

Last year I recorded hours in a similar way, except that I did plan what subjects I wanted to do each day, but not how much. And I didn't worry about it if I missed a subject or two one day, we just picked up with them the next day. We didn't quite reach 1000 hours last year and so I thought that if I scheduled more this year that we would hit that number. We have had a lot more outside activities this year. We joined an art group, took science classes, took a lot more field trips and spent much more time on sports. If I had recorded hours the same as last year I would probably be a lot less stressed. I'm curious, how do you count hours? Actual time spent or more like in units? The homeschoolers I know seem reluctant to talk about it. I think they do a lot that could be classified as learning in their free time. Legos, reading, target practice with their BB guns, playing with and observing the outside cats, watching the birds in the yard and field next door, helping their dad with yard work, helping my parents in their garden, helping their other Grandpa cut firewood, creating art on their own, they like to sit down with our different encyclopedias and look through them for fun. They watch shows like Wild Kratts, Liberty's Kids, Magic Schoolbus, and any other documentaries I think they'd be interested in. Minecraft, but I don't really think that's educational. I write some of this down, but not all of it. Sometimes I forget to write it down. Sometimes it doesn't even register with me that I could. I did a lot of the same stuff as a kid, outside of school hours and never thought of it as educational. I guess to get our hours I am going to have to be more diligent about writing it down.

One last quick question and then I'm heading to bed. Right now we do spelling and grammar 3x each per week. Can anyone thing of a negative to alternating those subjects each week? For example, doing only grammar this week and next week doing only spelling, then back to grammar again. I wonder if being able to really focus on only one of those for a solid week would help us enjoy them more. We will move through them more slowly but I'm okay with that. We would still doing writing every week. What do you think?

I explain it to them and things are good for a day, a week if I'm lucky and then it falls apart again. To be fair, the majority of the complaining comes from my youngest two. My oldest DS is a pretty laid back kid, he rarely puts up much of a fuss and it never lasts long. My youngest has really just started the complaining and whining since Christmas. Not sure what is going on with her, I'm still trying to figure that out. My middle DS just does not like school, period. He is perfectly capable of doing everything I ask, so its not that the work is to hard. I don't think he'd like any form of school. I think the style of our homeschooling is changing. When they were younger they were happy to have me be in control of what we were doing and when. I was steering the ship and they were cool with that. I thought they would be okay with that for a little while longer, because they are still really young! But I'm starting to think maybe not. It doesn't sound Pollyanna-ish, its the truth. Their constant complaining sucks the energy right out of me and leaves me little to do the fun stuff with.

We might try that. I think that I will for sure move reading aloud to the morning. Part of the reason we haven't gotten as much done this year is because every afternoon when I sit down to read I begin to get very sleepy. Lol, I have fallen completely asleep several times!

Yes, I need to be having fun. I used to have a lot of enthusiasm, especially for history, science and art. I think I just need to start going through our subjects one by one, figure out what I can do or change to bring back my own enjoyment of them and then start implementing it slowly, one at a time. The slowly, one at a time is probably the key. I tend to jump into changing all the things gung-ho and then crash and burn when it becomes too much to keep up with. Thanks for the ideas!

I had to take a look at it! Yes its up to date. I'm going to list this out by kid, otherwise I can't keep it straight. The times don't seem very long, but once you add in all the fussing about everything, especially from my middle DS, it takes longer. DS - 9 Math Mammoth/XtraMath: 1 hour Assigned Reading: 30 min Typing: 10min WWE 3: 30 min FLL 3: 15 min AAS 3: 20 min DS - 8 Math Mammoth: 30 min OPGTR: 20 min HWOT 3: 10 min WWE 2: 20 min FLL 2: 15 min AAS 2: 20 min DD - 6 (almost 7) Math Mammoth: 20 min OPGTR: 20 min HWOT 3: 10 min WWE 1: 20 min FLL 1: 15 min AAS 2: 20 min Together SOTW 3: 2-3 times/week 30-45 min Science: just reading from books right now 2 times/week 30 min We do WWE 4x/week, FLL 3x/week and AAS 3x/week. I don't really like that schedule. Around 2 hours for my oldest, close to 1 hour 45 minutes for my middle and 1 hour 30 minutes for my youngest. I don't generally have them working at the table at the same time, they just end up distracted by the others and it takes even longer. My oldest does XtraMath, typing practice and his assigned reading on his own and I work with another kid while he is doing those. We are usually doing school from 9 -12 and then again after lunch from 1-3. I spend a good deal of that time trying to keep them on track and dealing with the constant complaining and whining. Really we have plenty of time to get all this done and still do some of the things we enjoy. I think I'm just so wiped out after we get done with those things that I can't even muster up the energy to do the fun stuff. ETA: Forgot that we don't do everything, every single day when I first added it up!

From what I understand, in MO it is 1000 hours, 600 of those have to be in the core subjects which are math, reading, language arts, social studies and science. The remaining 400 can be in whatever subject/activity you wish. Some people count literal hours, so if you did math for 45 minutes one day then you count 45 minutes towards math. Other people say that each time you do math then you can count it as an hour. I haven't found anywhere that specifically states which way is the correct way. The law is pretty vague. You don't have to turn in the record of hours unless you get prosecuted. Many people don't even record them. Some people fudge them. So I guess I just need to figure out what I want to do. I think its been a slow slide into not enjoying it. The things that bring us joy have been slowly slipping out of our day for months. February just brought it all to a head. First thing I'm going to do is get more consistent with reading aloud to them! Goals for 1-3 month blocks sounds like a good idea. Hyperscheduling is not working for us at all! I will never do that again. I'm not sure why I did it to start with, it is completely opposite to my personality.

At the beginning of March I posted this. I was frustrated with how messed up this year has been and our inability to get into any sort of a good routine. I got a lot of good advice and we have been much more consistent with school over the last few weeks but things have still felt "off". I have spent some time mulling things over and just this morning it hit me, we have lost the joy in our homeschool. We have begun to focus way too much on box checking and not on including the things we enjoy. We've almost gotten to the point that our life feels divided into two categories, school and life. That's not what I wanted. I wanted things more balanced. I feel like math, reading and language arts are non-negotiable. The subjects that should be most enjoyable, especially at my kids ages, like history and science, have begun to feel like we are doing them just to get them done. Very little enjoyment. No going deeper. I have not read aloud to them as much this year compared to previous years. We've done very little art. No poetry memorization. My oldest son and I were going to start teaching ourselves how to play the guitar, hasn't happened. We haven't spent as much time outside and have spent far too much time in front of screens. I wanted to do more baking and cooking with them, hasn't happened. Our school just feels flat, like there is no beauty, no richness to it. We live in MO and I have worried about meeting the hours requirement more this year than any other year before. I don't know why. I know that over the course of a whole year, if you were to count everything that could be considered educational that we would meet and probably exceed the 1000 hour requirement, because you know, as a kid just living your LIFE tends to be pretty educational! For some reason I decided after last year that my rather loose approach to planning and scheduling needed to change, that flying by the seat of my pants wasn't how to properly homeschool. That I was going to fail them if I didn't stick to a clearly laid out plan. I think I read one too many blog posts about planning your school year almost down to the second, at least that what they feel like. Almost every week I type up the plan for the coming week, of course then I feel locked into it and when we don't get everything done in a day I begin to feel stressed because we are "behind". I turn into a mom who yells, orders and harasses her kids into doing their work which results in anger, frustration and tears. Theirs and mine! I feel like this worry of mine about meeting hourly requirements has been a big part of the problem. I know that making sure we are doing the things we enjoy falls mostly to me. I've been stinking at it. I feel like we either can do the academic stuff or the fun stuff but not both. I know that there are homeschoolers are successful with doing both. How do you balance what you feel needs to be done as far as math, reading and language arts with the things that bring joy to you and your kids? How do you keep your plans flexible, but still continue moving forward? Help me help us get the joy back! Thanks!

I am thinking about getting them each rain/muck boots and then tying each pair together with some pretty Easter ribbon instead of baskets. I have already ordered them each a mini terrarium (hope they work right!) and a small tin of Thinking Putty, all from Rainbow Resource. I'm putting a Minecraft mini figure and Nerf darts in the boy's baskets and earring and hair ties in my daughter's basket. Then they will each get a book and a little bit of candy. The boots alone will be more than I usually spend on Easter baskets, but I planned on buying them anyway so I figured they would be a unique basket!