So Close!!

Courtney is officially done with 4th grade math and Megan finished up 6th grade math today!!

Tomorrow, Courtney will be taking her final test in 3rd grade English and that is DONE!

We went through the last three lessons of Megan's English today and tomorrow, we will go over the review together, and then she will do her test. How is that for efficiency?? Unfortunately, she has a final over the entire book, so that will have to wait until Monday.  Megan did say today though that she is willing to go to school on Saturday just to get everything done before Monday!

I am getting everything ready to start afresh on Monday, which will be our first day of school. I actually ordered Courtney a desk today from Wal.Mart. Since our basement isn't done yet, I decided to put the girls in my office for now. Megan already does all her homework on my desk, so I thought I would just buy Courtney a desk, and put her in there too. They will be doing some history assignments together. The computer is in there too, and they will need to do research on it for history.  Courtney is also going to learn to type this year. They may be spending quite bit of time in my office!

As I was looking forward in next year's math book for Megan, I was kind of shocked.  Almost every lesson is a repeat of something she learned in 6th grade. I did not find one new concept until the second half of the book. There were three chapters of completely new information (out of 12). I know that most kids have a three month break over the summer, so they need the review, but we JUST learned a lot of this information! I talked to Matt, and I am contemplating trying to finish the 7th grade book by December.  I would then start the 8th grade book in January.  If I was able to finish the 8th grade book by next fall, I would go ahead and start Megan in Algebra I as an 8th grader. This would give her another year of math before college.  She catches onto math very easily, so this just may work! I just need to figure out HOW to make it work.

I think we are also going to skip the first chapter of Courtney's math, but we are going to do a lesson a day like we usually do. She will be starting 5th grade math (as a 4th grader), so she is already a year ahead.

As for everything else, we are just going to start from the beginning and work our way through everything. It will be nice getting back to more schoolwork and moving through the curriculum.

I just hope Micah cooperates!!! If he is not cooperating, the girls have plenty of independent work to keep them busy while I deal with him. :)

Finally a plan for next school year!

For the last month or so, I have been trying to get everything I need for the next school year, but I didn't quite know when we were going to start. We are still working on stuff from last year, and I really want that all done before we move forward.  I think the girls are tired of working on these subjects. Honestly, I wish we could just get it done too! They keep wanting to know if we can skip something!

Today I gave myself a deadline to finish it all. The deadline is Friday, August 19th.  We must have 3rd and 6th grade English DONE along with 4th and 6th grade math. I think this is a very manageable goal. We will definitely have both math programs done by then, but will have to push English a little bit for Megan. I guess I will just have to figure something out! We should be able to finish Courtney's English without a problem by then too.

My goal then is to start everything new on Monday, August 22nd. This will be our first day of school for the 2016-2017 school year. This will also begin my 6th year of homeschooling. :)

Comparison trap!

I have a neighbor who has a girl the same age as Megan, and they are both entering 7th grade. I have learned to stop talking to this neighbor about homeschooling, especially math. If it does come up, it usually turns into a "my daughter is further ahead of your daughter and if you don't put your daughter back into public school, your daughter will just get further behind and she won't be able to get into college."

A couple of months ago, we got on the subject of math and I walked away double guessing our decision on a math curriculum. Her daughter, in 6th grade, did pre-algebra and now for 7th grade, she will be doing Algebra I.  Megan will be going into "6th grade Math." I even came home that day and looked to see what you learn in pre-algebra and looked to see what Megan was learning in 6th grade math. It was almost identical. My conclucions was that even thought my book wasn't titled "Pre-algebra", we were still covering it. That made me feel better.

Today I was talking to this mom today and I purposefully did not bring up school. Her daughter mentioned that she was going into Algebra I and it kind of hit a nerve again, but I refuse to get into that comparion trap.

Both of us are striving for a good education for our children and what we are using works for us! Maybe Megan can do Alegebra I in 7th grade, but why? Why do I need to push her way ahead? I would rather take our time and cover all the other itmes that she is probably missing in Algebra I, like balancing a checkbook, interest, percentages, etc. 

Don't we all have the same goal with our children? To foster the love of learning and to provide them with a good education??

Don't even get me started on what she thinks about the fact that my kids don't play a musical instrument!!!

The "M" Box

When I started teaching Christian how to read, I found these fun books at the library.  In these books, the author takes one specific letter and  centers the book around that letter. The main character has a box called his "sound box" and anything that starts with that particular letter goes into that sound box.

Here are a few examples of the books.

?

Here is a page from inside the book. Everything that starts with that certain letter goes in the sound box.

They are really fun to read and the kids love them!!

Today, Megan made her own "sound box" and the letter was M.

Can you guess WHO she put in her sound box??

Yes, Micah!!!

Do you see what else is in there? A microphone, a monkey, money, a book about Meriwether Lewis, "Mercy Me" CD, and another music CD.

Pretty funny, huh?? I certainly laughed!!

Sick mama!

Do you know what happens when you are up with your 8 month old TWO nights in a row for 2-3 hours each night? (Wednesday night, we were up from 2:30-5:15 am and Thursday night, we were up from 1:30-3:45) AND mama gets NO nap during the day to catch up on sleep unlike the baby?
And then gets up early Saturday morning to go to a conference in town all day?

Mama gets sick. :( 

I had been battling a sore throat for awhile, but when I don't get any sleep and get run down, it just culminates! Last night after I got home from the conference and from the car dealership (Matt bought a new car!), I could barely talk and my throat hurt so bad! I knew I needed sleep, so I took some Advil, put the kids to bed, and went to bed myself.

Thankfully Micah slept again all night, but we had to wake up early again this morning because we were supposed to serve in the church nursery at 9 am.  I had no energy! My throat hurt so bad again that it still hurt to talk. I could feel it into my ears and up my neck.

I decided to stay home from church. I didn't even have enough energy to take a shower. I told Matt that I usually feel better by about 10 am and if we didn't have nursery, I probably could have gone. (And now it is 10:15 am and I do feel a lot better!) I also didn't want to infect all the kids that I would be taking care of at church.

I am home with Micah and trying to rest. I know that is what my poor body needs.

I know I am getting run down on a few fronts. We are in a couple weeks of transition here at our house, so I have more stress going on than just not getting enough sleep at night. Our gym classes finished last week and I let our gym membership expire, so now we are in school mode. I have almost all the books I need to teach three children next year, but I have to admit, it is kind of stressful thinking about going back to school full time in a week or two. I haven't done full time school since before Micah was born, but we need to get back to it. My mind is in so many different directions with all the curriculum, notebooks, children, etc. I almost feel like I am starting my homeschooling journey all over again! We are switching curriculums too, so I need to pre-read all the books and figure out how everything is going to work for the school year.

But before we start school, we need to finish last year's curriculum. Yes, we are still plowing through 4th and 6th grade Math and 3rd and 6th grade English. We have been working lately on these and I am trying to figure out if I can skip anything just to be done! I think we are going to skim the last five lessons or so in math since they are all review and be done there, but I really think we need to do the English lessons. We have about twelve left for Megan and about 8 for Courtney. I may go ahead and start history and science while we are still finishing these books up. I want to start a little bit at a time and add a subject every couple days or so until we are doing all our subjects in one day. When we are done with math and English, we will just start the next grade the next day. This is what we get for taking a two month break in November and December!! It was definitely be a juggling act for me this fall. And we can't forget about Micah in there and his needs!!!

I would also LOVE it if Matt could get the basement finished before we started school. Megan and Courtney are going to be doing more things independently this year, and they need space to work away from the kitchen. I was hoping we could get some desks set up down there for all the kids.  All we need to do down there is finish putting up the woodwork and put some flooring down. That is it! Matt worked on it last weekend, but it doesn't look like he will have time this weekend or next.  This has been a project over six years in the making! Can we just finish it??? (hint, hint Matt!!)

Courtney's birthday is also next weekend and we have two small parties planned for her. We also have another birthday party and a bridal shower next weekend. YIKES!  Lots to do!!

Ok, back to the couch I go to keep resting and drinking water. :)

UP Again!

Micah has been doing sooooo well at night lately. He has sometimes slept up to 10 hours at a time and it has been wonderful! I thought our visits of 2-3 hours at 2 or 3 in the morning were over.

I was wrong.

Last night, we were up for awhile. He woke up at 2:45 and I let him cry a little bit. Around 3:15, I went in there because the other kids were starting to stir.  After nursing, watching Olympic videos on the computer, lots of rocking, some more crying, and some sweet talking him into going back to sleep, he finally fell back to sleep about 5:15 this morning. Matt actually came into his room about 4:45 and was wondering what was going on. I refused to nurse him for a 2nd time to get him to sleep, so he was having quite a fit.  He eventually fell asleep on my chest.

I went back to bed after he went back to sleep. Guess who was back up by 7:15? Micah!! What??  I got up, nursed him, and of course, he went back to sleep. I wish I could go back to bed!! But now I have the bigger kids to get up with!

After I got thinking about why we were up half the night when we had been doing so well, I thought about what I had to eat yesterday. I had been putting some of his foods back in my diet, and I had about five things off his list yesterday! (Three things at the same time for lunch) I probably just overloaded his body. I guess I won't do that again!!

Blog anytime soon?

You know you haven't blogged in awhile when google requires you to remember your password to log back in....I guess I have been too busy keeping my 8 month old occupied. Why can he not occupy himself these days??

Speaking of the eight month old, he is now crawling!

Not far, but he is finally figuring it out.  His poor knees get so rough from the carpet and his face is a little bit redder too. I think we need to get the carpet cleaned and get all the allergens out. We will get to the bottom of his eczema some day! He also loves to walk when somebody helps him, so I bet he will be walking sometime soon too!

Because Micah is getting around now, I have a rule that no Legos are to be in the living room anymore. They have all been moved into the piano room for now, but once he gets super fast, they will have to be picked up too. When this happens, I think we have two options at that point. Our first option is to put up baby gates and gate off the piano room. Yes, put the big kids in the baby gates! Our second option is to move the Legos somewhere. This "somewhere" would probably be the basement, which is not finished yet.

Speaking of basement, I finally convinced Matt to finish it! I need some school space! My kids are going to be doing a lot more independently this year, and I really want them to have desks. Matt has not worked on the basement in over three years, even though everything we need is down there.  All we have left is to put the woodwork up and get carpet. Matt started putting the woodwork up last weekend, so maybe this weekend, he can finish it. Then it is off to a store to purchase some good, cheap basement carpet and we can move our stuff down there! We have decided that he can still have his couch and big screen, but the kids get desks. It will work!

The kids are super anxious to get going on school. That is a post for another time. :)