[Extra Practice for OPGTR]

That's a big lesson--are you repeating it because you don't think he "gets" blending sounds to read a word? Beginning Bob books are a great supplementary thing we do after lessons.

 

PS If he really has just memorized the order of the words on the page, it should help to do the follow up activity suggested, where you're forming words at random with magnetic letters.

[introduction]

Hi all,

 

Though I joined this groups month ago I have only poked my head in now and then. I found your discussions and the conversion story thread fascinating. I figured I'd introduce myself and try hanging out here a little more often. (I came to the WTM boards because we have a 2 and a 4-year-old, the latter of whom has been demanding books and worksheets since age 2, so we have a little homeschool routine and would like to continue through elementary school. Susan Wise Bauer's book and practical wisdom have been such a blessing!)

 

I grew up in a moderate-liberal Baptist home, "converted" to Presbyterian/Calvinism after making some philosophical Reformed friends online, who introduced me to Jonathan Edwards, the Puritans, Westminster standards, etc. At the time it seemed like, wow, here's someone who takes the Bible seriously, and this tradition is really old! (To an American Baptist, "old" is like over fifty years...) But I was also a teenager, and Calvinism constituted my rebellious phase, though there was plenty of actual disrespect toward my parents going on too, which must have made my sudden concern with doctrinal correctness look extra impressive. Turns out I was part of a movement (young/restless/reformed)! Hah. A group that is so much about glorifying God through reverent worship and (more) historically minded theology is a very attractive, but not too radically different (such as becoming Catholic or Orthodox), alternative to the shallowness and man-centeredness of American evangelicalism right now.  I took it for granted that Calvinism is logically the only way that God gets all the glory for creation and salvation.

 

Only a couple years later I was leaving college (without finishing a degree in classics) to get married after a long-distance relationship to someone with a very different background from me. It was my husband (now getting close to ten years later) who on the Sunday after Christmas last year woke up and decided to visit the nearest Orthodox church for reasons he can't remember. For him, there was growing disillusionment and cognitive dissonance in the Presbyterian churches (where was a church, as opposed to tiny seminary or theological book or podcast, that was actually interested in being heirs to the Reformation, rather than a more doctrinally sound evangelical church?), and for me a stagnation that I now recognize was a spiritual crisis I was trying to conceal from myself, because I had two tiny kids and just couldn't deal with it at the moment, sorry. 

 

We've met a handful of times with the (wonderful) priest at the parish we've been attending, made a few friends and found people very open and welcoming to converts---which to be clear, we are not yet. Part of me is in love with Orthodoxy and all the things that make sense for the first time; the other part is variably freaked out by how different it is from my whole conception of God and the Church til now. Things like the openness to miracles (I know our whole faith is based on such, but it's very different coming from a rationalistic Protestant mindset to hear all these stories of angel sightings, etc. that aren't in the Bible), monasticism...pretty much all the typical modern western person hangups. I'm reading The Mountain of Silence on the recommendation of our priest and that is helping clarify some of those things. The whole journey so far has been a huge blessing to me and my husband. Thanks for having me here.

[Retiring Homeschooler]

Welcome! I'm new here, too, on the other end of the experience spectrum. It's kind of you to offer your experience and curriculum when you must be extremely busy with your own family and work. Congratulations on your first graduation!

[Finally registered]

...after lurking for a few months. My oldest is almost four, youngest almost two, and as most of the oldest's playmates head off to four- or five-day-a-week preschool, our once-abstract plan to homeschool is becoming very real. How did that happen so fast?

 

Mainly I'm scoping out what to expect/how to plan in the younger years, and seeing how different methods play out--- at this point I am partial to classical, thanks to WTM, my own (brief, college) background in classics, and seeing enough of classical schools to impress and inspire me. (I've only read parts of WTM as I've checked it out from the library...it looks like I should wait to buy the newest edition next month.)

 

My daughter has been doing well with phonics using OPGTR. For a more regular schedule after she turns four, I want to be doing math-concept activities regularly and maybe start basic handwriting. She has done a few piano lessons through Hoffman Academy (great resource for young kids on Youtube) and loves listening to music. Between that, the inevitable spur-of-the-moment activities, and outside play, it should be more than enough for us now, but I know I need to have more structure and learn to do actual lesson planning as she gets older. So I keep my eyes open for discussions/resources/advice on organization and planning, because my big fear is that we will not have a learning, or curiosity, or resource problem in homeschooling, but a Mom-can't-stay-on-task problem. :)