No More Classical School of Wiedz

Right before Christmas break Mr. Wiedz brought up a sensitive topic...what if we sent the boys to public school.

It was time. And I could feel it. If I'm honest I could feel it all last year too. But once Mr. Wiedz brought it up and brought it into the open it was time to deal with it.

So we talked. And we asked the kids. And I took some hard looks at where I think my identity comes from.

I had wrapped a lot of my identity in being a "homeschool mom". But that's not all I am. And that is not where God was leading us right now.

The boys were ready. They were making friends in our neighborhood and playing on teams in our community and making friends. They were ready for this step out into the world. #2 has thrived in public school these last couple of months...so ready was he to go out and be with people.

The little kids needed their turn. #5 and #6 had never had their turn with just mama. Oh, I took them out on dates. And snuggled them to bed. But during the day, I just got them busy so they could be out of the way. Now they have hours of mommy time. We do preschool stuff (watch for more adorableness about that) and play games and read books and sing songs. All the things that I was shoving to the side because of the pressing grammar and reading and projects of the big kids.

Lastly, I was sinking. I was losing myself to it all. And Mr. Wiedz saw that. He offered me a branch and helped me see a way out. I admit I have had a fair share of tears over making the decision and also with living with it. Interestingly I was reading Christ in the Chaos (affiliate link) about the time we were deciding all of this. Her whole point is we are not the "homeschool mom", or the "sports mom", or the "all-natural mom"...we are HIS. We belong to Christ and our identity is in the gift He gave us on the cross. That's the life line. 

So, the week before Christmas break I filled out paperwork, met with teachers, bought backpacks and enrolled the boys in school.

And the beginning of January, they went.

They love it. There have been some tears, some struggles, a lot of working hard, a lot of giving and compromising to fit in "the system" but it is working. We are all happy.

And we have made it to spring break! I have been looking forward to that all along!

Photo curtesy of #1 (follow her on instagram at sw_snapshots)

Best laid plans…that's what they say.

I'd gotten into a great groove these last few days.

Kids to the bus. A little break. Tidy up the bedrooms (open curtains, make beds, toss laundry down the chute). Treadmill for 20 minutes. Check out some blogs. Dishes. Snack. Preschool activities with the littles….you get the idea. 

A good day.

Today. Mr. Wiedz forgot a charging cable for his computer. His dead computer. Conference calls keep him from coming back himself (cause he totally would if he could), but make it necessary to go into town this morning instead of all that other stuff.

So here we go.

I'm kind of in the mood to blog again...I wonder if that feeling will stick?

We've made quite a few changes here in the World of Wiedz. I'll figure out how to share what's happening without writing a book...

I'll be back.

FIAR :: Make Way for Ducklings

Back in Week One the boys and I started our 2013-14 school adventure with a sweet book, 

Make Way for Ducklings. I had never read this book before. It is a sweet story and was fun to read all week.

We talked about Boston Mass. and found it on our map. I printed out little ducks; we colored them, labeled them with the names from the book, then put them in alphabetical order. We also colored Mr. and Mrs. Mallard. #4 had free play with all of our ducks, acting out the story, putting them in order, etc.  I made an -uck word can and we practiced that word family. We also talked about our address and worked on memorizing it (we moved and so everyone needed to work on this new one). We mapped out the mallards path and also mapped our route to church.

 

We used cashews (we didn't have any peanuts) and worked on counting and grouping.

And we found all the ways to make eight by adding (printable here from Rulin' The Roost). 

As a special treat we followed this recipe from The Country Cook and made Boston Cream Cake as our treat/after school snack on Friday.

My Make Way for Ducklings pinterest board.

It was a great way to start the year!

2013-14 School Plans

I started this post months ago...for prosperity's sake I'm going to finish it up and hit publish.

The goal is to write up weekly "look what we did" posts. It's a work in progress.

It's that time of year again! I was talking to my cousin this morning which brought me down reality that this fall is going to be quite a marathon in logistics. But I thought I'd join in the online sharing this year's curriculum plans.

I just read Jessica's post and like how she introduced her kid's ages before telling about their school choices so I'll take a page from her book and introduce my little students...

#1 is 12 and will be in public school again this year as a 7th grader.

#2 is 9, turning 10 this October, and would be in 4th grade in public school but will be doing 5th grade work at home.

#3 is 7, not 8 until February, and would be in 2nd grade in public school and in our homeschool.

#4 is 5, turning 6 in October. He is in Kindergarten, both in home and public school.

#5 is 3. We'll be doing some preschool stuff.

#6 is 1, almost 18 months - my favorite age!

I will be "teaching" three while keeping the little two happy and engaged and loved.

So let's start with the little ones...{affiliate links are coming your way}

I'll be doing some preschool with #5. I got God's Little Explorers. I've downloaded and printed out (I purchased the program so I could have everything at once and since it was inexpensive and went to a great cause) and bound myself a great little book of the plans and ideas for all year. It shouldn't be too much but just enough of a sweet time with my boy...something I think I was missing last year.

Morning Meeting :: years ago we called this circle time like everyone else but when #1 was still at homeschool she thought she was too old for "circle time" so we changed the name and it stuck. We do calendar, counting, corporate alphabet reciting, and Latin. We will also use our Kid Life (our churches version of Awanas) materials to work on memory verses, journaling and devotionals.  We started with some SQUILT lessons last year and I would like to continue them once a week this year. I love this simple way of bringing music education into our school.

History :: We are finishing up The Story of the World Vol 3 then we'll be going right into Volume 4 . I have loved SOTW and the activity book . I am especially excited that #2 will have a complete cycle of history when we finish this year. I have gone through the books we will be using and have cut chapters so that we stay focused and finish the year with the end of the book. I've also given us the month of November to do History Pockets :: The American Civil War . We did the American Revolution pockets last year and when I've brought it up this year the boys remember that project fondly and are looking forward to the Civil War ones.

Science :: I am determined to do science this year. At the beginning that will be "easy" since our nanny is doing it for me... she is here on Tuesdays and covers school that day with the kids. I tried to separate topics so that the kids weren't having two different people trying to understand what needed covered or having different expectations. So H gets science. We are using the book I didn't stick with last year, Adventures With Atoms and Molecules . I think everyone is enjoying the experiments and I've enjoyed looking through their work and seeing that they are doing a good job with it.

Independent Work :: The idea is we do the above parts of school before lunch, then break for lunch and a little bit of running around. After that while I lay #5 and #6 down for their afternoon nap the boys can come down to the school room and work through their independent work. For #2 that is SOAP journaling, handwriting , logic and math drill (if there is one that day). #3 also has handwriting and a possible math drill. He is also writing a journal entry in a spiral notebook. #4 does a page of handwriting too. For handwriting I'm trying Getty-Dubay this year. I've always used Handwriting Without Tears and I thought it was fine but I'd seen a few blogs around who were using GD and their handwriting was so nice so I thought I'd give it a try. Already I can see some of the letter shaping from GD carry over into other handwriting and I like what I see.

RRSK :: #4 is doing Raising Rock Stars Kindergarten from 1plus1plus1equals1. I am doing the alphabetical order that God's Little Explorers follows so that #5 and #4 are working on the same letter. It is nice to have the memory verses each week and so far I'm happy we went with this program. #4 is also still working through Rod and Staff's ABC series. We picked up books G and I when were getting math books this summer. He has a love/hate relationship to these...I think they are nice books and they give him a good base of doing tidy work and concentrating and some basic skills practice. I like them...I'll use them again for #5 and #6.

FIAR :: Volume 2 :: I bought the manual and the literature set last year but it just didn't fit in. So far we have rowed two or three books and I think the way I have them laid out through the year will be nice. It will definitely work better to do two or so books a month with weeks off when we don't have anything extra.

Grammar :: #2 and #3 work on grammar everyday. #3 is finishing First Language Lessons Level 1 and will move right into Level 2 . I love how this program has built in copy work and memorization work and covers all the parts of speech so throughly. #2 did through level 3 of FLL and last year we used Rod and Staff's English program. He hated the text book style of R&S so I went on a search of something new. I found Grow with Grammar from Jessica's blog. After looking at the sample lessons and checking with what #2 thought I went with it. So far so good. Just the right balance between text book and work book.

Math :: This is our second year using Rod and Staff for math. #2 does fine with the textbook style of math. We don't do every problem...but when/if he needs more work we keep working through the problems until he is doing well with the concept. #3 got his own R&S math this year. For the younger grades it is all in workbook format which is good for him...maybe a little too much repetition, my boys really get math and the whole page of problems really gets to them. I'm working on hands-on math stuff with #4, I've got a whole lot of ideas on my Pinterest board.

Extras :: I took a lot of time with our schedule this year. I tried really hard to work through it all in my mind. We moved last spring to a larger home, something our family needed desperately. Unfortunately, I am not the best housekeeper. I knew I would need to really think through our days so the house didn't take over. Once I got our basic school day down on paper I realized if I moved everything down some and utilized the afternoon nap time I would have an easier time at school (no crayon eater, #6, or destroyer of all that is good and evil, #5) and I could use the morning hours before school to get chores done around the house. But, what to do with the kids while I'm getting my stuff done? Other than their morning chores? Then I read an article about talent building. And I downloaded the free ebook (I think I had to subscribe to get it). I'm still reading through the ebook...but, the idea that I could encourage a talent in my kids that they could develop and use later in life? I started to think on that a bit more and tried to process how that could be incorporated into our morning.

#2 has always had an interest in computers and games and all of that. Last year I had tried to find a way to work with that interest. With this new talent idea I went back to the internet to find a way to develop #2's interest in computers in a way that, if he continued, could lead him into something more in the future. I found Homeschool Programming. We have started with the Web Page design. It is right on target as far as abilities go. He gets a little "lost" or hits a bump and tries to back off of it for awhile but we talk about problem solving and keeping at it.

#3 is all about work. Real work. Work that he preferably can do alone and actually matters. And he loves animals. I really think he is going to own a large working farm sometime. So,with that in mind, I gave him the responsibility of the animals. Feeding and watering the chickens each morning and the cats too.

The idea is they work on these two areas in the morning between getting ready for the day and the start of school. I also have a selection of activities in the school room that are open for everyone but #6 to work with. Playdough, ABC Find It!, Sensory tubs, alphabet projects, cutting practice, painting, blocks, puzzles, etc. So far, so good. Except a little incident with rice being outside the rice bin and possibly a raised voice or two the mornings are running pretty smoothly.

Ugh. If you made it through that post you deserve a cookie.

:: Yarn Along ::

It's been so long since I've posted a Yarn Along. Hopefully I'll get a chance to post about a finished project later this week...

On the needles :: I'm working on crocheting balls for Operation Christmas Child boxes. I got the idea while finishing my last project and thought this would be a good way to use up stash yarn I have in a bunch of fun, bright colors and I even have a bag of stuffing stitting here not being used...I found this pattern by searching pinterest but there were about a million. I'm using the instructions for the smallest ball and I still think they are a good size. I'm hoping to make 3 for each box we'll be making...we'll see if I can find that many once it's actually time to put the boxes together.

On the nightstand :: I've been wishing lately I had more time to read...I'm really enjoying both of my books and I've pinned a few reading lists that I'd love to look into more. I'm reading Radical for a book club and I'm reading The House of Hades because I've read all the other books in the series (and they are SOOO good). I wish I had read ahead of #2 in his readers...maybe if I order the next set I'll have time to get ahead of him a little bit.

Um, yeah...

So.

I'm not sure if this managing a bigger home, homeschooling, working for our company, wife-ing and mothering and crafting is going to mesh so well with the blogging-thing.

I want it to.

I really want it to.

But...

Who knows, I'll try. Because I really do have some fun stuff to show off. We are doing good in school. Some of the stuff we are working on is share-able (meaning you the reader might actually be interested in it). I'm knitting some fun things. Some actual finished projects! The kids are growing (I tried getting them to stop but they like it too much) and we are generally just having an awesome time...I'd like to share that with you.

I'll write up some ideas and see if I can squeeze some time to type and embed photos and the like into my day.