Unclutter

With my life a complete cluster right now I am more grateful than ever for the clarity God has given me over our materials. I am such a curriculum junkie, and yet, I am absolutely at peace. Yes, it's only week 3, but seriously, we LOVE what we are learning and how we are learning it, together.

A few tweaks ... 

We shelved A Child's Geography to study this summer instead. Our history program is perfectly full and the girls find themselves on delightful rabbit trails ... and that curiosity makes me happy. Plus I'd really love to incorporate Five in a Row after Christmas and so something has to give, right? FIAR will be better suited for all of the kids versus just the girls with ACG, and we have time to come back around to that book.

I decided to use the manual for Adventures in My Father's World for Bible, the neat hands-on history activity ideas, the tremendous book list for our coveted book basket and state study, and for the read-aloud and Tchaikovsky schedule ~ not for history, science, art, and the other core subjects. I know, strange in a way. It works for us. I initially needed a really, really good, tried-and-true book list from a wholesome, Christian perspective, so I considered TruthQuest, but I also wanted more Jesus in our school day. Voila ... the Adventures manual and student sheets solved my dilemma. Each day I fall more in love with A Living History of Our World and just cannot see our family history curriculum without it. Hooray, a hard-earned victory!

After ten lessons of Primary Language Lessons, minus some of the memory work since I prefer right now for the girls to memorize scripture and hymns, I felt stirred to incorporate a little more grammar, narration, and dictation, especially since this year we are not using a "formal" spelling program. (All of our spelling comes through dictation of great works ... the Bible, Aesop, Milne, Burgess, George Washington, etc., and I wholeheartedly believe in Charlotte Mason's philosophy with regard to this.) On my shelf I had Classical Writing Primer ~ Autumn, which is beyond lovely, and we are now enjoying this as well. I have dropped the picture study from CW since we are very, very happy with Come Look with Me, so that leaves three days of lessons ... one of which is nature study and we naturally add that into our quiet Fridays. Essentially, our week is two days of PLL and two days of CW, aside from the CW nature study. This feels so much more balanced. I am not pure CM in this regard ... may be my English-y past ... or that I just love grammar. Either way, again, it works for us and at 20 min per day, Mae is not overwhelmed and CW incorporates beautiful literature and drawing/art that Viola cheerfully sits in on, too.

Last, to unclutter our school time, I had to pry my fingers off of Queen's penmanship, both Printing with Pictures and Pictures in Cursive. In theory, this could be a gorgeous handwriting program, but in execution it falls short, and at nearly $15 per book, per child, my expectations were a little higher. I am a true devotee of Queen Homeschool, and my respect and thanks for Sandi's gift to the homeschooling world does not change, but we have set this aside. My first concern was the cursory instruction and minimal space for practice ... especially in the cursive books. If I have to create extra practice pages, then I'd rather not pay so much for three books per child per year. 

Mae has gorgeous handwriting (I owe this all to our first handwriting program which is excellent, excellent, excellent) and Viola is just barely learning to write top-to-bottom and frontward, since she is severely dysgraphic, and with two boys bringing up the rear I would love to see all of my children learn to write together and in the same hand. Enter Italics by Penny Gardner (not Getty Dubay). Since Mae is only in second grade and has accomplished printing, this is the perfect opportunity to teach her and Viola italics printing together this year and cursive next year (the boys will subsequently learn as well). Why not use the same program for Viola that I used with Mae? Well, 1) I want them to learn this together to encourage one another, 2) italics is simple and simply beautiful, and 3) the less strokes the better for sweet Viola. I anticipate that by the end of our second term both girls will be writing their copywork and lessons in printed italics. Oh ... italics is new to me, too, and sitting at the kitchen table with my girls with hot tea, cookies from Grammy, napping brothers, music, and learning pretty writing together is such a dream. (The dream for daddy is that the program only cost him $10 ... total ... and I can use this for all four children.) Anyone looking for Queen's primer penmanship books? ... leave a comment. :)

Every day with James brings new ways of thinking and sets of challenges and moments of absolute wonder. I am learning to be still more in my at times blurred days and to find our center in our school time ... which is the heart of our family ... which is the most amazing gift bestowed by our God. I'm just so grateful.

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”  ~ Mother Teresa