coming to an end and beginning anew

We are finishing up with formal lessons for the year and ordering curriculum for next year. It is an exciting time around here. Faith has finished several subjects and is now doubling up on what she has left so that she will finish within the next few weeks. Hope and Charity have also been trying to wrap up some formal subjects, but will continue some of them through the summer. We don't want to have to reinvent the wheel next fall, so we'll continue with math facts and our wonderful reading book. Writing Road to Reading. http://spalding.org/store/instructional.php

I am really looking forward to our new method of learning next year. After spending six months researching a new approach, I find that it is so very similar to what I learned in college. Why did I not think of this sooner? Who knows? All in His time...(I keep telling myself that). We will be changing our way of doing things and following a kind of Charlotte Mason/mom invented kind of approach. We will tweak it all to make it work for our family, so that we will learn as we live. I am a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of gal and so I will have to be diligent about sticking to a guide so that we cover everything, but that is what I like so much about this approach. There is always plenty of time for exploring in the afternoons. As long as we get Love on our time table, everything should work out just fine. HAH! He is ready to start learning right along with us and loves to color all that he can. Including his body!

I can't wait for the boxes to start arriving. It's one of my favorite things and makes me feel like Christmas morning. The girls and I tear into everything and devour it all right then and there. I love to see their faces and hear what they have to say about what the new school year will bring and what they would like to study.

This next year for history, we will be studying American History for all three girls. Faith will deepen what she learned in 5th grade and Hope and Charity will work on their own levels as well. We will use this for our vocab and spelling throughout the year. We are also switching our language to use Primary Language Lessons for Charity, Intermediate Language Lessons for Hope and Lingua Mater: Language Lessons from Literature for Faith. These books bring all of Charlotte Mason's methods together for daily language in a beautiful way. Through picture studies, narrations, dictations they are all pulled together in these books for each level. We are also beginning our own art studies and music appreciation. After researching prints from different artists, I decided calendars fit our budget best, so I hit calendars.com today and bought enough for free shipping! We will be studying Mary Cassatt, van Gogh, Monet, Renoir and da Vinci. We will also be studying nine different composers and learning about their lives as well. For science we will pick different subjects to work on together and separate. We will study life science, biology and some physical science as well. We will also throw in whatever unit studies we want to as we go along. For math we are sticking with Math U See as we really love the way he teaches the concept, not just the shortcut for learning the tricks.

Through all of this the most important message that we want to teach our children is our faith. The beauty of the Catholic Church and Jesus' gifts of the sacraments are such a blessing to all of us. A year from now, our Charity will celebrate her first communion and so this second grade year will be one filled with exploring and learning so many things as she prepares to receive her Lord and Savior for the first time. We are blessed to have the gift that Jesus left us the night he instituted the Eucharist. The love that He felt for us needs to be spread around to all that we meet. "All are to be welcomed as Christ" St. Benedict. So above all as we journey down this new year and new path, may we treat all as Jesus treats us, with Faith, Hope, Charity and Love!

Ocean study

Since we went on vacation to the beach in February, I decided to do a beach study in the winter. Crazy, I know, but it's working. All three girls have worked it into their studies. Faith is doing a whole unit on the food chain for science and Hope and Charity are loving all the "living books" I found on Amazon and in ALL the gift shops we went into. Even Love is listening to our stories. It is wonderful to see them learn in this whole new wonderful way. They are living what they're learning and so they have a relationship that will last so much longer than if I had just read them something from a textbook. I feel like I have been given the greatest gift from Charlotte Mason and all the others since who have helped expose this wonderful way of learning to me. Thank you all for I am eternally grateful!

The Freedom to Choose:

I've decided to start a new blog about our homeschooling life. I have two other blogs, one about our family (which is protected), and one about finding the roses that God sends us each day.

This one will be about our homeschooling journey, now in our second full year. We are going through a transition and searching for the perfect curriculum for our family. I have three dd that I homeschool and one ds who is learning along with us in between naps and nursing.

I have recently discovered the wealth of info that is out there for Catholic homeschooling families and fell in love with all these beautiful families. I wanted to share our journey in searching for the curriculum that fits our family and what I learn along the way.

First thing I learned is that no curriculum works for every person. We all have to develop and design our own thing for each and every child. Now as hard and daunting as that sounds, it really isn't if you pray and let God lead you to it. I'm not saying just sit back and do nothing. I'm saying that begin with prayer and then search like crazy till you find what suits your family.

I have just discovered the book "Real Learning" by Elizabeth Foss and I am so delighted that she took the time to write this book. It completely changed my life, and my childrens' as well. I'll share a little info about myself. I am married to a wonderful man and have been for almost 16 years. When we first married I taught in a public school and thought that I would NEVER homeschool our children. Then came dd #1 and I kept teaching, but longed to be at home. Then dd#2 and again I longed and we planned. Finally I was able to stay home and I didn't want to send my daughter to pre-k. I wanted to keep her home and savour every moment. Along came dd#3 and off my oldest went to public school for Kindergarten. My dd#2 went off to MDO (only one day a week) and everyone was happy. But I missed them. I missed teaching them and loving them all day.

We moved to a new house and with it came a new option, Catholic School. Well that was very difficult financially and I was determined not to go back to work and leave my youngest with a sitter all day just so the older two could go to this school. So, back to public, and let's just say we knew very soon that homeschooling was the best thing for our family. If only we had known the incredible gift God was bestowing on our family sooner, we would have done this from the beginning, but with all things, in His timing. We also found out He was blessing us with another beautiful soul, that turned out to be a BOY! He is GOOD!


So we began our homeschooling journey with CHC and fell in love with everything. Of course I ordered everything and only had time for some, so I still have lots of stuff left and no time to fit it in. Then I changed things up a bit and again, knowing that eventually I wanted to design my own thing, but still trying to figure out the logistics of schooling at home.

After reading Elizabeth's book, I immediately implemented changes that I used in my classrooms when I taught and just hadn't figured it out yet. The changes in my girls has been incredible. The freedom to choose what to study and write about has inspired them. In the two weeks since I finished the book, we now have 4 books authored by my dds, countless illustrations to go with our read alouds and 10 reports on animals. All because of small changes that I made. And we did this all while still getting in our "learning lessons."

Thank you Elizabeth Foss for your wonderful book.