Homeschool update

 Hi there!  At the beginning of the school year I thought I'd like to try a new organization system to keep all of our daily work together.  Well, at the beginning of November, I took that system apart and now I'm using the crate system for what really is working.  

We started the year using BJU Press Online Homeschool for Math, English, Science, and History.  The online videos lasted about 4 days.  The worksheets lasted about 2.5 months.  Now, we primarily use only math from BJU.  I'll still pull out worksheets if it goes along with what we're learning about that week, but it's not too often.  We had found a good rhythm for science and history, but I received so much push back nearly every time I'd start a video.  Then we went to only the worksheets and I'd teach.  Now, we're watching videos from PBS, PBS kids, Smithsonian, National Geographic, History Channel, and YouTube.  There are so many good ones to choose from.  And I didn't get one complaint in November.  Winning!

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We're now doing Five in a Row.  It's a book unit study and technically includes all subjects, but I always add in our math from BJU.  It's fun.  We all love it and picture books are still amazing!

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For English we completely ditched BJU.  I didn't feel like it was enough.  We're using Rockin Resources for Writing.  They don't love all the glueing, but we're almost done with that portion, so we're pushing through.  It'll be good when the notebook is set up and we begin writing the big stuff.

I added in root words this year as well.  That's going well, so it's sticking around.

We're using Language Lessons for Today by My Father's World.  It's a quick refresher for them.

In reading we have done a bunch of read alouds.  To make sure they're understanding what they're reading, we use a reading comprehension book as well as book reports.

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In Social Studies, we're focusing on Geography and Who Was/What Was/I am.  It's going really well.

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We're also playing a lot of games.  This is probably one of the key things we've added this year and it's working.  There have been some days where we played for more than 6 hours.  It is amazing!

Race Across the USA is Xander's favorite.  But, he's also my one that loves learning about the different states.

Cooking up Sentences is Sterling's favorite.  She's really good with knowing her parts of speech so whipping up a sentence is fun to her.

We're taking more field trips.  We have two more planned this week and they can't wait!

We're in the kitchen a lot.  They're pastries are getting better too!  They used to come out flat and rubbery.  Now they're coming out fluffy and tasty.  They create their recipe and their ingredient list they want to use and we get to work.  It's fun watching them get better each time they try again.

We're doing more arts and crafts

Reading is a big one for us this year.  We've added it more days than not.

Sterling came up with the idea that they get to be the teacher once a month and she loved every minute of it.  This month Xander will get a turn.

Now that we've taken out most of the complaints, November ended up being a really good month.  Don't get me wrong, we still have some really rough days, but it's mostly from being around each other too much.  Sometimes we just need our own space and that's okay.