We started school 4 weeks ago, in the middle of August. This is the first year since we moved to VA back in the summer of 2004, that we have not been involved in nay co-ops. Now the co-ops we were involved in in VA were amazing, and they benefited my kids so very much. But I was also so very tired and burned out, and this season of not being involved in any outside thing is actually very refreshing for me. Our time is our own! No one else is depending on us! This is definitely not sustainable long term (Anna especially is missing getting out of the house and doing things with other people), so we will be looking for a co-op or something for next year, but for right now? Just what I needed.
Not having to go out any morning (or having to teach classes for older kids) has meant that school is getting done more consistently every morning than it has for a long time with the younger kids. This is perfect timing for Micah, since as I mentioned in my last post, he has finally decided that reading is something he would actually like to do and would benefit from. I am astounded at the progress he has made since early July. Now he is reading books with no complaints! He even read our Bible story out loud for Drew and Verity a few nights ago! When I think about all the frustration and tears from working with him last year . . . ha, I could have just let him play all year long, and he would probably still be right where he is now! Ironically, I realized his nature when I was potty-training him, and I waited until he was 3, and he decided he wanted to be a "big boy" on his own. Then he was my easiest to train and had almost no accidents. I should have used the same gameplan for reading, but I didn't want to reward his bad attitude and lack of cooperation. It's a fine line, I guess. I really didn't need any more stress last year though, and I could have saved myself a boatload! Ah well, I'm just thankful for where he is now.
Verity has been wanting to do her own school for awhile now--all of last year, really--and she would sit with us and "write" in her coloring books. She has pretty good fine motor skills, so she drew lots of little lines and circles. It was so cute! But anyway, I figured she was the opposite of Micah, and she actually was interested (and she is a girl and much more motivated by workbooks, etc., lol), so I got her Saxon 1 math workbooks, and the (Veritas Press Phonics Museum) phonics workbook we have always used (since I started it with Nathan and bought the big kit--we've definitely gotten our money worth out of that investment, lol). She is happy as a clam! She loves doing school, and she's actually pretty good at writing "M", B", and "A", which are the letters she's covered so far. She's not as good at recognizing which of them starts a particular word. because she pretty much just happily answers, "Yes!" to any question you ask. Such a happy girl! If I didn't have all this morning time, I probably wouldn't have done anything official with her until next year.
I should mention that Drew is plugging along too with his reading. He is much more like all the rest of my kids have been with reading--slogging along, until it eventually really clicks and gets faster. But he's pretty cheerful and motivated, and like I said, that's how everyone else has been, and they are all quite good readers.
Anna would have been going to a junior high co-op if we had stayed in VA, but instead, she's doing everything here with me. I am teaching her life science, along with Grace, and that's been going really well. I don't have her in a writing class or a German class because I wasn't sure enough of what the year was going to look like to get her into those before they filled up. So she's taking a break from German, unfortunately. Hopefully next year . . .
I have started Latin with Grace on down (and Anna usually is around, listening in). I haven't done Latin with the kids since I was so frustrated with Caleb and Jonathan the year I had them take the Latin 1 National Latin Exam (2014 maybe?), and neither did as well as I thought they should have, given the amount of Latin we had done, if they had just devoted a tiny bit of their brains to studying. But I really love Latin, and so it's fun to get back to it. Plus, this is the easy stuff, lol.
I had mentioned that Caleb is taking his math and English classes over at the community college that is close by us, and those are going really well for him. I am teaching him and Jonathan AP biology and AP psychology. I've never taught AP psych before, but there is a lot of bio in there, and I have always really enjoyed reading books on neuroscience, so I'm finding it very interesting. Since it is just us, we can be completely flexible for class times! We're doing the classes in the afternoons, usually Wednesdays, but we can move it around as needed. SO nice! Jonathan is doing literature by himself after I worked up a nice reading list from the Tapestry of Grace Year 1 recommendations, plus some books Nathan and Luke had read that he hadn't. I'm looking for prompts on these books online for him to write essays with, so that is working out nicely. They are both doing American history on their own, since they already have had a lot of it through TOG, but not as a particular class. I had the bright idea of having them take the Am. history CLEP test (either 1 or 2, I haven't decided yet) at the end of the year, so they can have some validation of all they have learned over the past few years. I took a ton of CLEP tests to get out of pretty much all my gen ed. requirements many moons ago, but I haven't really looked into it recently because AP credits are so more readily accepted in places. But I don't want to prep APUSH or deal with the reworking of that test, so I think CLEP will be a fine way to go.
As a real answer to prayer, Caleb and Jonathan are taking Spanish 3 with a friend who goes to church with my parents! She and her husband are from Puerto Rico, so they are native Spanish speakers. She had been wanting to teach her 2 kids more formally, so the 4 kids are all together, and it's been so very nice. I think the boys will be a lot more comfortable actually speaking Spanish after this year. Caleb had said that at WSS, they had a "Spanish table", where everyone only spoke in Spanish, for international night, and he sat there. He could understand a lot of the conversation, but he never felt comfortable saying anything. Hopefully that won't be true next summer!
I had been thinking we would put Jonathan in a classical Christian school maybe 2 days a week for a few classes, but after looking into it, I just couldn't see how doing that made my life easier, and it certainly would have complicated things by having one of us drop him off and pick him up even twice a week half an hour away. He is taking an electronics class that I found out about from a facebook post someone here made. An older man who worked as an electrician for 44 years and is now retired teaches the class to only 4 boys, and he is so enthusiastic about the subject! Jonathan is REALLY enjoying this class, and he's learning a lot too. He's soldering circuits and stuff already, and working with the equations. It's a highlight of his week!
Hmmm, we're of course doing other subjects, but those are the main points I want to remember when I look back on this year. We're getting into a good routine, I think, and we're enjoying this break where we are a little more family-focused, instead of doing so much outside with other people. It's been a long time, and this break has been so needed by me!
