Choices...

I know I am behind in posting. I will get Easter pictures up sometime soon.

Jeff is out of town with a church event; I was gone last weekend. This week was my little brother's birthday - Happy Birthday Jake!! He got a new house for his birthday, so he is finally big enough to receive old person birthday gifts like weedeaters and hoses!

I've been looking at our homeschooling materials and choosing what we would like to do next, and praying about whether or not to send Trystan to Kindergarten this fall. I am so torn about this!! I really like the kindergarten program we sent Isaac to a few years ago, but I hate that Trystan will be gone from our routine EVERY morning during the week. I like all of the scripture memorization they have poured into them, but I kind of feel like REAL homeschooling is on hold until we are ALL home to learn together. I really like the Tapestry of Grace program, but when I envision it in my mind, we are all doing it together... It feels like planning a party without him being home.

So in the meantime, I'm looking at other options and evaluating where we are. I like the language arts portion on Time4Learning.com, and Isaac loves that he just blows it out of the water on tests. Everyone needs an attaboy, and he likes it. The math part, he hates. Of course he hates math workbooks, too, so this is not unfamiliar territory. He can not tolerate missing a question, and to him 4 out of 5 correct is just the end of the world and the beginning of self recrimination. We are working on this. I'm looking into MathMammoth books to add a little skill mastery over the summer, and if we like them we might continue them next year. They are extremely affordable! We are also considering MathUSee, it sounds like a great program, although it is more expensive. If Math Mammoth can't help us stop the pencil grinding, perhaps a change in format like Math U See might be in order. I really like the theory of a mastery approach, and I think Isaac will respond to one.

For Science we are planning on adding Apologia's study on astronomy. It is so affordable! Isaac and I discussed the different options available through apologia and he immediately gravitated to this one. We will be finishing up our current book of Backyard Scientist this summer with our friends, the Thompsons, and are looking forward to a summer full of experiments. Boy fun!!

I like the Weaver curriculum we have been looking at, but finding all of the books for each unit is time consuming. We enjoy the books, but having to choose substitutes for most of the titles looses the coherency in a unit. I feel like I am stretching it to make connections between the books we have available and the information in the guide. I am torn about this one, because we really do enjoy the incredible variety of books. We may use it a little more over the summer...

We like the looks of Start Write for handwriting. I can use it for each child and make their handwriting lessons go hand in hand with scripture memorization or anything else that needs reinforcing. It works with print and cursive, and depending on our choices for next year, may be in our budget at around $40.

For Alyza I would like to start Little Hands to Heaven. I like Heart of Dakota, and I think this would be fun for Alyza. She is always wanting to do school and coloring... They also publish Drawn into the Heart of Reading, which I may add in for Isaac. Especially if I go with booklists from Ambleside Online or other similar Charlotte Mason booklists for next year. If we send Trystan to Kindergarten we will probably go this route and save Tapestry for the next year, starting as soon as he graduates.

For the summer, at least, I will keep Isaac on Time4Learning's site. Since we will have company several days a week, this is an easy way to keep Isaac moving forward. I just don't know about long term, but it is serving it's purpose for now!! I'm still getting the hang of how many assignments to give him each day, and how to implement this effectively. It is geared towards use in schools as a supplement, and takes a little digging to figure out how to use it in homeschool.

Oh yeah, and Latin. Affordable!! Prima Latina and it's sister programs are pretty affordable!! If Trystan goes to kindergarten, we might wait on this for a year so I can teach them on the same level. That would be so much easier for all of us.