.We've Found our Groove....& it Feels Groovy.

Whew. We are in the middle of our fifth week of first grade, and I do believe we have finally settled into a really great groove. Oh, it's not perfect, so don't be fooled. Our days are filled with mess, chaos, and disruptions, but I am finally able to see how it is all blanketed in grace. I am feeling the best I ever have about homeschooling this year. I think it is because I have relaxed a bit, grown a smidgen, and finally found some home school connections with families through Classical Conversations.



We have only been to CC twice - due to getting a late start with area flooding, but it is already working so, so well for us. Cadi is thriving, and absolutely loves going to CC and doing CC work at home. It is the perfect fit for her, as Jim said on Monday afternoon. And it really is. I definitely do not think that it would work for all families or be something that would appeal to everyone, but for us I do believe we have finally found IT. I write finally as if we have been in this so long, which I am sure is hilarious to veteran homeschoolers. This is only our fourth year - our second official year.





What I am loving most about CC is the community and the support. I cannot help but also be drawn to the fact that there is a culture of adoption within our group, which of course thrills me. We just do not have that here -please do not misunderstand me - there are people here who have been extremely supportive and encouraging, but I have to be honest and say that there truly is no culture of adoption here. We definitely pray that will change in the future, but for now it is so good for our children to see that there are other families like ours. So this is refreshing to be a part of a group where families come in all different colors, where there is a heart for global missions (In Cadi's class there is a little girl whose family just came home from being on the mission field in Cameroon, Africa!), and where making God known is a priority. Plus everyone is so friendly and kind. It is lovely for me to sit back in Cadi's class on Mondays and soak everything in. It renews me for our week ahead at home. Jim likes the fact that CC teaches Cadi how to go home and apply throughout the week what she has learned in that one group setting - kind of like church. His hope is that in the future CC will have modeled for her how to, not only be a hearer of the Word on Sundays, but a doer throughout the week. I never thought of it that way, but he made a great point.

Academically speaking my favorite part of CC is the way History is taught. It is truly taught as His story. The children learn a timeline of History starting with creation and then incorporating the history of the world in chronological order rather than breaking everything up into a random order. I am learning so much myself! I also love the focus that CC Foundations puts into skip counting. I feel as if this is really going to help my children with multiplication in the future. I truly wish I had been taught this way.



Cadi reciting her memory work for week one. (You will have to scroll down and pause my playlist before playing)

I also am really pleased that CC has public speaking built into it in a big way. Each week the students have to give an oral presentation. By the time students are in highschool in CC they will be able to articulately and biblically debate and share what they believe. I find this so vital, and it is a weakness of mine. So I am thrilled that my children will have exposure to public speaking.



Cadi had to narrate a Bible story using pictures - very Charlotte Mason-esque. I loved this.

Things at home are going great, too! I love the curriculi that we chose for this year. I am especially loving A Reason for Spelling. This is our first year doing Spelling, and I was not really sure what to expect from Cadi. She seemed to be a natural speller, but I wasn't sure what curriculum would be the best fit. I am glad I landed on this. It is really fun! The suggested activities have been great. She has made spelling puzzles, spelled words in shaving cream, written words on the sidewalk in chalk, written her words in a fat marker and then decorated each letter etc, etc. The games are endless. I love that she is not copying her spelling list two times daily or orally spelling her words over and over. We have not studied for one test, all of the learning has been natural, and she has aced each test easily, and I really do believe it is due to this great curriculum. I also love that the weekly story and verse used matches our handwriting and Bible. It just really helps re-enforce some great truths for our lives.



The boys have finally adjusted to school in the morning, and I am doing better juggling them while schooling Cadi. We are all in this together. I keep reminding myself that as Charlotte Mason once said education truly is an atmosphere. I pray that the atmosphere here is one that always points my children back to the Author and Finisher of life.



So, yes, we've found our groove after five weeks, and it does indeed feel groovy. {grin}



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.Saturday Sharing.

I am really passionate about my children learning and applying biblical character traits into their lives. Last year I incorporated character traits into our homeschool, and it went over really well. I did the traits from scratch - decided what character traits to use, wrote a definition, and then came up with a tune for each trait and definition. A. lot. of. work.

This year I was absolutely ecstatic to find that my beloved Ambleside Online - free homeschool resources that reflect a Charlotte Mason method - had a link that provided teaching tools for biblical character traits!! The website is an e-zine called The Character Journal.
When you clink on the link you will notice that on the left hand side under home is a list of all of the character traits they have covered - over thirty! Simply click on the trait you are interested in to find definitions, verses, stories, etc. It is an amazing resource for any mom interested in instilling these traits in their children (and in herself! Last year I worked just as hard as Cadi on the character traits as I could not ask her to apply something I had not applied, and I am sure this year will be no different.)



Right now I have just written out the traits on index cards along with the definition and a few references. I also have included the opposite of the trait. I am thinking that I will just punch a hole in the cards and slip them on a d-ring, but perhaps I will get more creative. Any ideas? I plan to present one character trait a week for the school year.

Right now I am rereading Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay and Sally Clarkson. I am finding wisdom, courage, and confidence for our school year ahead. Only 16 days until we start!

And if you have not yet - check out my give away! Chances are pretty good that YOU could be the winner!!

.Our Home school Curriculum.

I have received several emails, many from first time home schooling moms, regarding what curriculum we use. There is no right curriculum for every home school family. What is right for my family may be very wrong for your family and visa versa. One thing that is helpful before choosing a curriculum is discovering your child's learning style. Another helpful piece is coming up with a home school philosophy and deciding what you want the product (your child) to look like at the end of your homeschooling year and at the culmination of their home school life. Goals for each child for the school year can also help lead you to a curriculum. Prayer for wisdom goes a long way in this process as well.

My husband is very involved with home schooling. While I am primarily the one in the day-to-day, he is knowledgeable about the curriculum we use and what our day looks like. I do not purchase any curricula without talking it through with him. It is a huge blessing to me that I am not alone in this, and that Jim is invested in homeschooling.

So this is what we are using for the 2011-2012 school year. (Cadi is entering first grade.) This year is going to be radically different from the last, but I am feeling peaceful and confident about this as we allow God to direct our steps. In no specific order here it is!

Reading: To me reading is absolutely vital in building a foundation to and for education. And a love for reading is icing on the cake. My Cadi has an intrinsic desire to read and has become a voracious reader. For this I am grateful, but really I can take little credit. I did give her the tools, but she was very motivated herself, and I never had to push her into reading. We will see what happens when it is time for my boys to learn to read. I really dislike basal readers, even as a teacher I hated them. I was required to use them when I taught school. As much as I delight in reading - that dreaded reading circle was a nightmare. It was so boring for me, and I cannot imagine how my poor students felt. I tried to implement creative strategies, but at the end of the day there is only so much that can be done with basal readers - in my opinion. Because of this I do not use them in my home. I want Cadi to interact with real books or as Charlotte Mason says living books. I use my library a ton, and I will continue to do so this year.

The reading curriculum that I am using is a Charlotte Mason approach. I will be following the Ambleside Online Year #1 Literature schedule. You can find it here. There are a few books that I will (and have) purchased, but for the rest we will check them out of the library. I have had to tuck the books I already purchased away as Cadi began to devour them the moment she saw them! A girl after my own heart.

Bible: I am taking a completely different approach to Bible this year. The past three years we have concentrated on Bible stories, verse memory, and biblical character traits. I really do not want to make Bible another class. I want the Bible to permeate everything that we are doing in our home. So I am going to be much more purposeful in that. Cadi will be getting formal Bible in her once a week Classical Conversation class, and I am pleased about that. She will be memorizing from the book of John. At home this year we are going to continue working on developing biblical character traits formally, and I will be using The Miller Family Storybooks. My plan is that we will set aside a time as a family in the morning after breakfast and before Jim goes to work to read one of the stories, discuss the character trait and work on Scripture memory. Then in the evening, before the children go to bed, we will sit down together again and use Window on the World: When we Pray God works. This book was recommended for my family by three different people. We are probably going to use it a bit differently than other families, but I could not resist it. Jim and I desire to instill a genuine love and passion for people around the world in our children. This book seems as if it will be a great resource for us. Our time together in the evening will primarily focus on praying for people around our globe. (This book can be found on Amazon for under $5!) Besides those resources I am going to concentrate on making the Bible an active and living part of all that we do, all throughout the day. I am still mulling over whether or not to pull in this Scripture Memory System as well. As of now I am undecided.

Handwriting: I am very excited to have been introduced to A Reason for Handwriting from a college friend. It seems gentle and fun, and not filled with busy work. I love that each week the student will concentrate on a Bible verse from the Psalms or Proverbs and then at the end of the week will be able to write out the Bible verse on pretty stationary to mail to someone. I think this is going to be a perfect fit for Cadi!

Spelling: This is the subject that I kept wavering on. I went back and forth between three really great spelling curricula. Probably I would have been happy with any of them, and in my perfect world I would have found one that was a mixture of all three. For various reasons I landed on A Reason for Spelling. I love the fact that because I am using this curriculum for both handwriting and spelling they will coincide nicely. For example she will be reviewing the same Bible verse for this. The curriculum is bright, colorful, and FUN. It should provide opportunities for written practice, dictation, and even some kinestetic practice as well. I will also be pulling some of her phonics rules into this curriculum.

Phonics: For the past three years I have used A Beka for Phonics. It works really, really well for Cadi, and there is no need for me to change that. She reads beautifully. She understands phonics rules by the systematic approach that A Beka uses. I must be honest, though, and say that straight A Beka would never work for her or for me. I find all of the worksheets to be tedious and boring. BUT I love the A Beka approach to learning phonics and, I believe that their method works. So I use the bare bones. I purchase the teacher manual. I do not use their scripted lesson plans, but I do teach their main objective for each given day. I come up with my own games and add my own creativity. Last year we did the Letters and Sounds worksheets along with daily lessons, and unbelievably Cadi loved them. If I can find them for a reasonable price I may purchase them for this year as well.

Math: I will be once again using Saxon for Math. Honestly, I have not seen a better approach out there. The incremental way that they teach math is exceptional and just makes sense. Math is taught in a very logical and concrete manner using a lot of manipulatives. It is gentle and starts out slow, but I believe this is one of the strengths of the curriculum as well as the way it continually builds and reviews repetitively. This is the way I wish I had been taught math. To this day I really struggle, and I believe it was because of the abstract way Math was presented to me. I pray my children do not struggle, and I believe we are headed in that direction with Saxon.

Social Studies/History: We will be using The Story of the World Volume 3-4. Cadi will be studying US History - Columbus to current events. I am so, so excited about this curriculum! Our history lessons at home will complement the history that Cadi will learn weekly in Classical Conversations. We will be able to expand on it as we wish in our home. I am so excited to have found a read-aloud narrative. I want History to be alive and exciting for Cadi and not dull or boring, and I truly believe this curriculum will be just that for her. In my opinion history should be told and learned in story format. It just makes sense to me.

Science: I am not choosing a formal curriculum for Science. Cadi will be learning anatomy and basic chemistry in Classical conversations. We will be checking books out of our library that have to do with the human body, the axial skeleton, muscles, nervous system, main senses, digestive system, excretory system, circulatory system, lymph system, respiratory system, endocrine system, purpose of blood, and elements, atoms, and periodic table of elements. I am really excited to do Science this way with real books, rather than a text book. Classical Conversations has provided me with a list of books that could go along with each subject Cadi will be studying. The list looks helpful and exciting. I have also started finding and pulling together some hands-on ideas. I am excited that Cadi will be able to do a lot of hands-on learning for Science in her Classical Conversation class. I think she will really enjoy this.

Cadi's music and art will be entirely covered in Classical Conversations. We may do a little bit of additional stuff at home, but we may not either. For art she will be studying American Masters and working on drawing, and for music she will be learning to play a tin whistle as well as discovering various composers and lightly touching on music theory. She will be thrilled about the tin whistle, I am sure! And PE I am still working on. {wink} She will probably pick a community sport or activity to participate in each quarter -swimming, soccer, basketball, etc.

Cadi will also be memorizing a timeline in Classical Conversations that covers from Creation to modern America. I am eager to learn this with her. We will be purchasing CD's to help us with memory work as well as Veritas press timeline cards. Cadi really enjoys memorizing, and I am excited to see her work through all of this.

So that is what we have chosen for this year. I think this answered the majority of the questions emailed to me, but please feel free to ask anything. If I don't have an answer, I will just tell you that! {wink}

I am very much looking forward to this new school year, and I am so thankful that God led us to Classical Conversations. I think it is going to complement our home schooling so, so much. I am in the midst of coming up with a few activites for my boys to do while Cadi is schooling. However, I want to be very gentle with them. I have been convicted lately about not pushing them and allowing them to be little boys. They will soon enough be men needing to provide for their family. Why not let them be little and have fun for a wee bit longer? I am sure they will be in the middle of a lot of our fun this school year regardless. Looking forward to it! If your family home schools what are you using this fall? Please share!

Happy curricula shopping!
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.Our New Approach to Homeschool.

We are about to complete our third year of homeschooling, although I count this year as our first official year. I did preschool with Cadi when she was 3. We did school two-three times a week and concentrated on the alphabet, numbers, shapes, and colors, as well as simple Bible stories. I made up my own curriculum with the help of free online resources. Last year we did K-4 using Hands On Homeschooling for age 4, as well as ABeka Phonics . I only used the teacher's manual, as I was confident in the ABeka program having taught it for a few years and going through it as a child. I made my own visuals, and we did minimal pencil work. This year we officially started kindergarten. I have been drawn to the Charlotte Mason gentle style of learning since I read Homeschooling Methods by Paul & Gena Suarez back when Cadi was only two.

A friend of mine pointed me in the direction of FIAR which is a literature based unit study approach that uses wonderful children's books to build the units around. I loved a lot of things about FIAR. I loved that Cadi was being exposed to such wonderful children's literature. We spent a lot of time snuggled together on the couch reading and Scotty was right beside us - very Charlotte Mason-esque. FIAR really encouraged Cadi along in her love for reading. She has a voracious appetite for books, and this curriculum just fostered that in her! I loved the character building themes that we were able to bring out in the books, and all of the fun, creative activities that gave us beautiful memories of her kindergarten year because of FIAR. I even recommended the curriculum to my sister-in-law to use with her oldest when she began homeschooling this November.

Having said all of that there is a but - yes, I am sure you saw that coming - it was a ton of work and planning on my part. A ton. I tend to be very driven in certain areas and tend to be an all or nothing kind of person, and it stems from my ongoing struggle with perfectionism. An area I need much refining in.

I really struggle with perfectionism (this should be its own post but provides the needed context here), and it is a daily battle and hindrance in my life. I have heard some people say, with a smug grin even, that their biggest weakness is perfectionism, and I get the impression they are rather proud of this, as if this area of sin might somehow even be desirous to some. I tell you that I struggle with this with sincere remorse. I need God to break this sin issue in my life, and I pray that I do not pass this on to my children. I have been in bondage to my perfectionism for as long as I can remember. I fear not getting things just right the first time. Sometimes that manifests itself very differently - there are times that I am manic and I can make myself sick trying to do things perfectly. At other times I will not even step out and try - I will just first give up - knowing that I cannot be perfect and equating anything less than perfect with failure. Many times I am compelled to prove that I am worthy by trying to be the best - at everything. Everything I strive for, because of this sin area, is unattainable. I try so hard to never make a mistake, to be the best, to do the best. I make one typo on facebook because I am rushed and trying to do 20 things at once, and am apologizing all over myself and beating myself up for an hour. Ridiculous -yes, but the truth. I know the root of this is fear.

This perfectionism crept into our homeschooling big time this year.

I did not think FIAR's curriculum guide was good enough, so I wore myself out by going way above and beyond it. I spent hours researching activities to add to the suggestions in the manual. I hated the Bible Supplement (which I still think is justified) so I created my own Bible curriculum - complete with me writing some of the stories, coming up with Bible verses that correlated with every book we read and a character trait that I wrote and defined and made up a tune to go with it. I did this for every book - every two weeks, and I got burned out, discouraged, and became unhappy. Add this to the ABeka phonics and Saxon math and adoption and keeping house, and trying to be the perfect mom, wife, friend, pastor's wife, etc. It was an impossible standard to live up to. And while I have very fond memories of many of the things we did this year (and Cadi has learned a lot - she was assessed to be reading at a third grade level, and yet I still count so much I did as failure - you see the problem? Nothing is ever good enough.), and I do believe that Cadi will remember those for her lifetime; I regret a lot of things as well.

I have done a lot of soul searching and praying about this fall and first grade. For awhile I thought God was asking me to just give it up and send Cadi to our Christian school. This was hard because for a long time I had held the false opinion that every Christian should be homeschooling, but that again goes back to my perfectionism. If I was homeschooling than I obviously thought it was the best because I could not swallow it not being the best. But God is slowly chipping away at me, and I see now that is not true. As parents, we have all been given our children to train and raise, and part of that is stewarding their education, but I now know that it can and will look differently for every family. So please do not ever take these homeschooling posts as me saying that you should also be homeschooling if you are not. I am not saying that. After many tears and prayers and discussions, I believe God wants to redeem this, but it is going to look very different than I had first thought. And I am going to be okay with that.

I now know that I cannot be left completely isolated when it comes to homeschooling. I think I knew that in the beginning even, and I tried to reach out to others in hopes to get some kind of community growing. But that was not God's plans for the past few years. I think He needed me to go through the isolation in homeschooling in order for me to really pursue what we needed as a family and I needed as a homeschooling mom. I need support, encouragement, and accountability, and although my husband does all of those, He cannot completely meet my needs, as he is not in the daily grind of homeschooling. So in rethinking this next school year, I knew that I had to find community. (I am noticing this reoccuring theme in my life - community) I was desperate for the fellowship. We also want our children to learn what it is to live in community and to be an effective member of the body of Christ. This is not being accomplished by us isolating ourselves at home.

I still love the Charlotte Mason method, and I want to continue on with ABeka and with Saxon math. For one thing they are working really well for Cadi, and for another they are not much preparation for me, and have not caused me to fall into my perfectionist cycle. One strength of Cadi's that I discovered this year was her love for memorizing and her ability to memorize quickly and accurately and incredible lengths of things. I wanted to capitalize on this - even though in the past I thought memorizing was not the best way to learn.... are you seeing a theme? Brokenness, humbleness, etc. Whew. I read an article here on the case for memorization, and I was sold. However, this is an area that I am not disciplined in in my own life, and I struggle. So I wasn't sure how to incorporate it into our schooling effectively. Then I was talking on the phone to my dear friend who mentioned Classical Conversations. It was the second time I had heard of it. My interest was piqued, and I started researching and researching and researching. Then I started praying and talking things over with Jim. I was finally honest with him about my discouragement from this past year, and he in turn was such an encouragement pointing out many of the positives that had come from school this year but the same time understanding what I needed to continue on in this path.

We looked into Classical Conversations more seriously and came to the conclusion that this is exactly what our family needed. We are enrolling Cadi soon, and she will begin this fall. It will be a financial sacrifice for us, but we truly feel as if it is the right sacrifice for our family. You can read about the program here. One of the things that first drew me in was their mission statement The purpose of education is to know God and to make him known. That is my heart's desire, and I had lost focus of that this past year.

My brief description of Classical Conversations is as follows: Cadi (and our whole family, most likely, as it takes place on Jim's day off, and at least one parent is required to attend) will attend Classical Conversations on Mondays from 9-12 starting after labor day for 12 weeks and then picking back up after New Year's for 12 weeks. At meetings, families are introduced to new memory work in timeline/history, science, geography, English grammar, Latin, math, and Bible. The memory work is followed by science and fine arts projects as well as practice in orally presenting information. They work with a trained tutor, and the program is very careful to emphasize she is just that a tutor - not the teacher. We will continue to be Cadi's teachers. Classical Conversations is a community - not exactly a co-op and not a school.

And although the method is Classical we will be putting a Charlotte Mason twist on it at home. I believe with just a little thought these two methods can easily complement each other. So now I suppose our homeschooling method is officially eclectic! But then again, that is probably what we have been all along. In another post (since this is getting very wordy) I will share what we are using for Bible, reading, handwriting, etc, and how Classical Conversations will be incorporated here at home. I am extremely excited about this major change, and I pray that God blesses our family in homeschooling this year.

I am embracing this new school year and holding 2 Corinthians 12:9 close to my heart, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. I am going to try to let myself fail and make mistakes and allow God to redeem that into something beautiful, because He will if I lay aside my ridiculous measuring stick. And the stick is not working. Begging His grace to pour out on me.

.Six Weeks In.

I blinked and somehow between my lashes flitting on my lid and opening up again six weeks of kindergarten have come and gone for my sweet Cadi. I want to do a really detailed home school post, but as always lately, I do not have the time right now. So I will keep this brief and really hope to add the details and photos later this week.

We are loving Cadi's main curriculum FIAR. This gentle Charlotte Mason-type approach is absolutely perfect. I cannot say that enough. The curriculum is a literature-based unit study, and I love it. It has allowed me to be really creative with my lesson plans, and the whole family has had a blast. This is exactly what I had dreamed home schooling to be like. As with anything there are always kinks to work out here and there, but for the most part we are in a great rhythm.

FIAR is great, but it definitely needs a phonics and math curriculum to go with it. Like last year I chose A Beka for Phonics. (I mainly just use the curriculum as a guide, as I am not at all fond of A Beka's love for busy work.) It is going well, Cadi loves Phonics, she loves reading, and we are working on building a love for handwriting too. {wink} I chose to use Saxon for math and am really loving, as I knew I would, the manipulatives included and the incremental method it engages. I love that Cadi will learn her math concretely before abstractly - something I feel was missing in a lot of my education.

We are choosing to take two weeks to study each of the books presented in FIAR volume one. So far we have done The Story about Ping , Lentil, and Madeline. For each book I pulled a godly character trait for Cadi to learn and apply to her life as well as a Bible verse that depicts that trait. This was not necessarily spelled out in FIAR, but it is something I really wanted to focus on this year. It is not hard to come up with godly character traits and verses that tie into each of the stories presented in FIAR. To me this has been the most rewarding part of our school year thus far. Cadi has picked up on these quickly, and we have been able to have many teachable disciplinary moments using her character traits that have happened outside of "school". Here is a video we put together of the the three traits and verses that she has learned thus far.

While, I of course, want Cadi to learn Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, to me these character traits and Bible verses that she is hiding in her heart are just as important. Along with the traits and verses, Cadi has studied the country of China for Ping, the state of Ohio for Lentil, and the country of France for Madeline among other things. We have studied the culture, the foods, the people, clothing, and language for each place. It is making geography come alive for me! We have also learned about buoyancy and how God created ducks to float for Ping, the 5 senses - specifically the tongue for Lentil, and the inside of the human body for Madeline. Cadi has also learned about different mediums for art with her daddy and especially loved building a replica of the Eiffel tower out of sugar wafer cookies. We have listened to Chinese Han music, and studied different wind instruments. Our lessons have been fun and hands on and have allowed both of us to be creative. The last two weeks we talked about the poor and needy and showing compassion to them for Bible class, and without even collaborating with Jim we ended up studying the same passage of Scripture that he preached on for Compassion Sunday at our church! I love how God does that!

I have implemented Lap books this year for each unit study, and they have been amazing! I love that it organizes what Cadi has learned and now she will have a scrapbook per say of all of her FIAR books. Tomorrow I will try to put together a little slide show of our past 6 weeks. I have taken pictures of all three of her lap books. I plan on saving these lap books for her for years to come.

This week we started a new unit study using How to make an apple pie and see the world. I am really excited about this book! Can you guess where we went on a field trip yesterday?? (A whole post - I hope- coming on that!)





I have had so many people email me about home schooling. If you have more specific questions about what we are doing, how our day looks, etc., please feel free to ask in the comments section, and I will try to answer soon. I am not an expert, and even though I have my education degree and taught in a classroom, I am learning right along with Cadi. Home schooling is a whole different ball of wax.

One that I am thoroughly enjoying!

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