We have been busy. Life has been busy. School has been a work in progress at best. Some days are great and run smoothly but other days.....let's not even discuss them. It seems we are having more of the 'let's not discuss them' days than we are the wonderfully smooth days. Part of it is because winter is NOT ending in these parts. We had several inches of snow yesterday morning. It was melted before dinner but still. It was tough to wake up to that again. It is almost May and I am craving warm sunny days of spring and summer. My patience has been sorely lacking with the kids and myself. But let's move on to other things than my complaining, shall we?
Eoin- this little man turned seven in October. I am starting to see the compassion for people that he has most days and he is working at being a very obedient young man. He is growing up and it is getting hard for this momma to see at times. I wish he was still a little tiny baby at times but I know that this is good. He started playing baseball this spring and boy has that been a learning experience for this momma. The equipment that is required ........ uh, we won't talk about it. Let's just say that his daddy had to take him shopping for a very important piece of equipment he needed if I ever want to have grand kids, and I do. I was so not ready for that one though. It really threw me for a loop.
Emmalee - she is now nine and growing up. I am seeing so many changes in her personality. They are good though. She is patient, kind, compassionate and helpful. This girl is beyond helpful. I love it. She has a real passion for creative writing and dancing. She has begun writing a book about a princess and a lost horse. She is very obedient and loves to read her bible daily.
This year for school we used My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures. It has been a good year but we are starting to get tired. We have been traveling the world and it has been fun. It is a very good curriculum and there are a lot of fun things to do with it. However, I have found that for my kids, some of the concepts are wee bit above their levels so far. I believe that it is good to know where many of the countries are or at least what continent they are on. But, I know we got tired of the same routine with each country. Color this picture, color this flag, etc. I understand the concept of teaching children where the countries are before studying about the ancient civilizations. Anyway, after discussing with Mike continuing with MFW next year or switching to another curriculum we have decided to make the switch. I have purchased Tapestry of Grace Year One. I spent a lot of time praying and agonizing and getting other mom's opinions. Mike and I looked over the scope and sequences that MFW Creation to the Greeks and Tapestry Year one had on their websites. Mike preferred what was on Tapestry of Grace. He also liked that we buy the base curriculum over the next four years and just change the books the kids read until they graduate. I like that too.
Another subject that we had to change curriculum for this year was math. Emmalee was struggling so much with Horizons 3 math. Mike and I discussed this and decided to switch her to Saxon 3 math. My thought was that Saxon would at least help to build up her confidence with math before going back to Horizons. She finished Saxon a couple of weeks ago and is back to working through Horizons. We are going to have her finish Horizons 3 and then move her into Saxon 5/4.
There were so many times I thought over the last few months that I would love to do a blog post but just haven't gotten here. I promise that I will try to be more purposeful about getting here over the next few months. We are just busy and missing the warm weather.
