Due to family trips that will take some chunks out of our school year, I decided to get an early start.  We began our year on July 12.  We got one week in, then took a week off for VBS (ours is in the morning, and I’m wiped out for the rest of the day … a couple of the kids are, too).  This week, we did school on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday (except T, who was sick), and Friday.  On Tuesday we used our free tickets from Six Flags’ reading program for T’s birthday.  I suppose we could have studied the physics of roller coasters, but the only one who really cares about that sort of thing discovered that he really hates roller coasters. *shrug*

The rest of our school year looks similar.  Next week, we’ll all go M-Th.  T has a Girl Scout event on F that runs all day.  The following week the 3 older dc will be working for our mobile food pantry/soup kitchen Tu-Th.  Then we’ll probably get a week in, and then take a day off the first or second day that the public schools are back in session to do something fun.  Then there’s Labor Day, a rare day off for Dad.  And so goes the ‘routine’ of our school year, with me taking a Friday off to go to my high school reunion in October, grandparents coming to visit for Thanksgiving, a wedding in Denver the first weekend in December, and a family reunion cruise in the middle of December.  In the spring, they’ll have a week that  grandparents are getting a condo near San Antonio, and we want to do a Chaco Canyon/Mesa Verde camping trip with the other grandparents in May.  Dan and I also have a goddaughter who will be making her First Communion, and we’d love to take everyone out to DC for that.  W’s summer camp will probably be in July instead of June this year, so that pushed our end date back some, but it’s still going to be a busy year.

So far, things are going along more or less as planned for most of the children, which for anyone who knows me and my children, almost two weeks into the school year is pretty good to still be able to say that.

W is almost done with Unit 1 of TRISMS DAW.  We ran into a glitch in that the neighbor who I was going to borrow the IEW discs from forgot who she’d lent them to.  So I ended up ordering my own set ($65 for just the discs on Amazon Marketplace — a great steal!)  I’d already gotten the binder from someone on TWTM forums for $15, so overall, I’m happy with my bargain hunting, especially since DAW only cost me $50 on clearance at one of the Houston bookstores (HEP).  MEP’s GSCE prep is giving him just enough challenge without getting frustrating, and he is entertained by the stories he has to translate in Cambridge Latin.  I’ve been supplementing his History of Science with the Connections video series, which he enjoys.

T did follow along with TRISMS to a point, and may continue to do so, but it really is probably too much work for her, even if she were willing to actually DO work.  I picked up Beautiful Feet’s History of the Horse.  She’s a horse fanatic and the workload is definitely realistic (probably about perfect for a 6th grader).  I am definitely going to keep her working on IEW, but we’ll see how much TRISMS she continues to do.  There is relatively little complaining on the Glencoe Algebra I.  I think that my decision of going with the worksheets is giving her just the right amount of practice and doesn’t seem as overwhelming to her as the book.  She seems to be enjoying the lifeprint.com sign language course, and is doing well with that.  Really, my battlegrounds with her this year are going to be writing and math, since she insists on battling.  Anything we get done beyond that is gravy.  While I don’t particularly want to send her back to school, and she doesn’t want to go back yet, I think we both have a mental countdown going on … three more years.

A is still pretty enthusiastic about the school year.  He loves SOTW, loves Runkle’s Geography, is doing well with SRA’s Prealgebra.  He’s doing great with the TWSS lower level video (Units I and II so far), and if I can find the budget, I might invest in SWI-A for him this year.  He’s less thrilled with the fact that he still needs to practice handwriting, though I did let him pick his own book (BJU 5).  I still need to find my RS4K Chemistry worksheets (or buy new ones).  But we’re already not fitting everything into the morning, so while his friends are out of school, we’re just kind of rotating through subjects to make sure to be done by 11:30 or noon or so.

E is a challenge, but not necessarily in a bad way.  Just demanding … of time as is developmentally appropriate for her age, but also of harder material.  I’ve got her using Singapore PM 1B and Miquon Orange, and while she insists on completing every page, she’s also complaining of boredom.  She chose A Reason for Handwriting A, and is doing well with it when she focuses.  She’s following along well with SOTW, demands SL K Science most school days, and is flying through First Language Lessons.   She sees the big kids doing language and has decided that she wants to do Spanish.  Very practical, we’ll see when and how it gets added.  I’ve also been trying to make time to do read-alouds with her.  Some SL stuff, some other good children’s books (like Beverly Cleary).  She’s almost at a point where she can read some of them on her own.  (She’s at the Magic Treehouse stage at the moment).

Things I still want to add include a weekly teatime/read-aloud time for everyone, more singing, and some of the educational games we own in some sort of structured way.

A was my next conference.

He’s almost 9 1/2.   He has mostly unschooled,  though has occasionally dabbled in curriculum.  He has always been home.  Whenever he does do curricular things or when I test him, he comes out about a grade level ahead of where he ‘should’ be, so I’ve never felt the need to force things (he’s the type who digs in his heels when he feels forced, but is otherwise always agreeable).

This year, he dabbled with Singapore 4A and 4B.  About March, he decided to learn cursive and did the HWT third grade book.  He picked up McGuffey’s Fourth Reader and read to me from that off and on this semester.  Other than that, his school has consisted of library books and Cub Scout activities and belt loops.

I was expecting our conference to be short and sweet, but he surprised me.  He’s apparently been thinking about school goals for a while and perusing my materials.  When I asked him what he wanted to do next year, he immediately went over and picked out a SRA math textbook (5th or 6th grade), SOTW 1, and Runkle Geography.  I still need to test him for spelling, and will likely have him work on some formal grammar as well.  We might just stick with McGuffey for reading, as he’s not a big recreational reader (all of my others are).  Oh, and he also pulled Real Science 4 Kids off of the shelf.  I’ve found that for my children, 4th grade age is about perfect for them for this curriculum, so I was glad that he thought of it.  We’ll do at least Chemistry and Biology and see if we get to Physics.

He has crossed up to Webelos scouts, so I’m anticipating that to take a lot of his time in the fall, as he and a couple of Den mates want to get their patches by the end of December so that they get the special centennial one.  Taekwondo will likely get more challenging for him as he’ll likely move up to red belt in September or so.  He also has Youth Choir, Religious Education classes (maybe I’ll sign him up with his neighborhood friends next year), and I need to see about getting him back in piano lessons.  He’ll get to train as an altar server in the fall and is really looking forward to that.  So he’ll be a busy guy.

In hindsight, she’s probably not my best choice to start with.  This is my child who met the fewest of her goals and is resistant to setting new ones.  She’s really into the pre-teen attitude and we’ve spent a lot of time working on that.

T is 10 (11 in July), and did mostly sixth grade work this year, grousing all the way through.

T has been homeschooled all but 3rd (public GT magnet) and 4th (Catholic parochial school).  She deschooled from March to August of last year.  Her long term goals are to be a Vet Nurse or do something else in the Biology field.  She is primarily responsible for keeping all of the plants and animals in the house alive.

Math: This year — Life of Fred Fractions and Decimals and Percents.  We got through Fractions pretty painlessly, but starting with Decimals and Percents, we had grousing.  At one point (March or so), she decided that she didn’t understand anything in the book, and decided to re-start (pretty good tactic, I give her points for that one).  She’s only maybe 1/3-1/2 through the book, and looking for a change of pace, but grousing that she has to study math at all (she IS thinking about a science-based career, and DOES have an aptitude for math, so no math is not an option that I’m willing to give).  In lieu of her actually selecting a math program, I have selected Glencoe’s Algebra 1 program for her.  It’s colorful (which she likes), it ties in practical applications (which she needs), and when I was down in Houston, the guy at The Homeschool Store gave me a great deal on the whole set — textbook, teacher’s edition, all of the support books (tests, worksheets, etc), so I’m going to have her do that over 2 years unless she comes to me with a better plan.  Given my experience of Fred with W, it’s very entertaining, and the teaching is solid, but there just wasn’t enough practice for him, so it definitely won’t be for her.  I probably will go ahead and get the Fred Pre-Algebra books anyway for their entertainment while getting exposure to topics value, but I think that she IS ready for Algebra, but might need a more traditional approach.

Writing: She did a few assignments from Igniting Your Writing, and did some journaling, but I made it clear that I really need to see more from her this coming year.  We did our annual spelling test (Spelling Power lists), and she marginally passed into eighth grade list, which means no formal spelling IF she does a good job in her writing.  Same with grammar — she’s excused from formal grammar instruction, provisional that she shows no need in her writing.

Literature: We had picked out 4 books for her to read this year — Little Women, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Swiss Family Robinson, and The Story of King Arthur and his Knights.  I was supposed to receive some sort of product from each book.  She read part of The Swiss Family Robinson, no products from any of them, in spite of many reminders.  For next year, she will be expected to read a book tied to her core studies (more on that later, probably mostly in W’s post) every 2 weeks, and will be required to do a short report on each.   We will be using IEW TWSS with TRISMS.

Language: She has chosen American Sign Language as her other language.  I had downloaded materials from and sent her a link for www.lifeprint.com, and she did very little.  Next year, I will have a schedule for her for this.

Science: This year, she had picked Holt’s middle school Life Science textbook.  She didn’t grouse about this as much as some other subjects, and she covered 2/3 or so of the book.  Next year, she doesn’t want to do anything but the History of Science stuff included in the core curriculum.  She might listen in to W’s Astronomy, but didn’t want to commit.  She rejected both RS4K and Holt Earth Science as possibilities.  I suggested that she go through and pick a couple of science-based Girl Scout Interest Projects, but she hasn’t gotten back to me with a plan yet.

Social Studies/History: This was the most-complained about subject this year.  She’s picked Glencoe’s World Geography.  There was much whining and she got to the 1/3-1/2 point in the book.  For next year, she has decided to follow along with Big Brother in TRISMS Discovering the Ancient World.  She has picked as her area of special interest will be Crafts.  Instead of regular written reports, she will be scrapbooking her findings, but I am going to require at least paragraphs on most pages.

Art: This year, she has done well with a class at our local art school, but it has gotten expensive, and the socialization aspect hasn’t materialized — last semester there were just one or two other children in the class, and this semester, it was just her.  I have Artistic Pursuits Junior High level for her, and she’s doing nicely with that.  Along with her scrapbooking, Crafts study, and an interest project or two, I think we’ll be ok here.

Music: She took up guitar lessons this year, and has progressed well, and she also did Youth Choir at church.  She will continue guitar and pick up Choir again in the fall.

I believe that T did more writing for her Religious Education teacher this year than she did for me, and she really enjoyed the class (taught by the mom of a friend of hers and W’s).  She has now moved up to the Middle School Youth Group, so that should be interesting.

We also had her in a Girl Scout troop for the first time this year (second year Junior).  Overall, we found the troop (4th graders) and the program a bit young for her.  She often had fun, but was frequently frustrated by poor behavior.  Since she’s moving up to Cadettes, we’ll use that to find another troop (and look at some things more carefully).  I have a line on a homeschool troop or two, as well as another “hodgepodge” group or two.

I think that the main thing that I’m going to have to work on next year with her is accountability.  I’ll set up a more rigid schedule, as I think she needs it.  She really thrived in a school environment.  I’m switching over to HST+ (I’ve used basic in the past, and have just done paper methods for the last couple of years), so hopefully, this will help give her a more structured framework.

Several people at The Library and on Facebook have asked me about my Student-Teacher conferences, so I’ll elaborate here.

From the beginning, D and I have encouraged child-led learning processes.  Though we’ve sometimes gone with packaged curricula, overall, we give the children a pretty large say in what they learn and how they learn it.  Since they’re still at an age where procuring materials for learning isn’t something that they can do independently, I’m obliged as their facilitator to touch base with them every so often so that I can start gathering materials for them.  Thus, the periodic conferences.

At these conferences, we go over where they are with their previously selected materials, how that’s working out for them, and what their goals are for the far and not so far future.  I go over any sites that I’ve bookmarked that might have materials that they might be interested in.

Our child-led model does have a framework.  They must study math, they must have something that will increase their writing skills.  Science and History are encouraged for all.  Literature is not a problem with 3 of the 4 on their own, and since the one who doesn’t go for fiction is only 9, and he does read non-fiction.   From Junior high up, another language is pretty much required.

I’ll post the results of the conferences one at a time.