Ready for the next school year!

Everything I need for the next school year has arrived, along with positive attitudes in myself and all my boys! We decided on My Father's World : Adventures in My Father's World for Bible, US History, Geography, Science, Music and Art for Aidan with Ethan and Ryland participating in many of the activities. I like this program because next year we'll start Exploring Countries and Cultures for 3rd-6th Graders (and 2nd graders with older sibling in the program). It features a 5 year cycle so that all the boys (and perhaps T~Bella?) being able to be taught mostly together. For spelling we're doing Avco Sequential Spelling and for Math we're doing Singapore math. For handwriting we're using Handwriting without Tears. And lastly we'll add Language Arts lessons from a wonderful book recommended by MFW. I love that these materials work well with a Charlotte Mason approach to learning. There are many great websites you can check out about Charlotte Mason. A couple of my favorites are here and here.

For Ethan and Ryland the Bob books have been wonderful for building confidence in reading. They start out quite easy for very new readers and get progressively more difficult. The kids write their name and put a sticker in the front of each book after they finish it, so they always know where they are. It will be fun to see their writing years from now when Hope and Halle read them too (there will be five names in the front eventually~maybe more?). I was surprised to see how T~Bella's signature has changed so much already.

I laid out most of the curriculum for a couple pics, then tucked everything away in a different cupboard, one for Aidan, one for Ethan, T~Bella and Ryland, one for science, one for crafts, one for the workbooks we're finishing up this summer.

We're doing school Mon-Thurs even through the summer, with some days missed here and there for appointments, and then Fridays off for field trips. I think we'll try to continue that during for the whole year and try to read every day. The only glitch may be the Bible study I am hosting starting in August on Wed ams. Hopefully we'll be able to get into a good regular routine starting in mid-August so if there are any changes to be made we'll know early enough to be doing well by September. Can you tell I'm excited! :o)