A lot of people who know me well know that Tyrell has been asking me to homeschool him since Kindergarten. That was a rough year for us. His teacher (for 8 of the 10 months) was NOT someone I respected and we had a few situations that made me extremely angry with her. We nearly pulled him halfway through the year after one particular incident. Ty loved doing school in the afternoons at home for a while. He never forgot how much he loved it and would regularly bring up wanting to do 'Mommy School' instead of going to school. Since Caleb has started schooling at home, Ty has become more insistent (understandably, since Caleb ended up getting something that Ty has been asking for the past couple of years). He has ended up in tears about it a few times. So John and I went back to praying. Clearly, I am capable of planning a comprehensive curriculum and following through on it. When life happens and we get off track, we get right back on track and don't end up behind. We weren't sure if I could do this, but we trusted the answer that we got about Caleb, and it turned out to be incredibly accurate. Caleb is thriving! His emotions have become significantly more stable. I am becoming more patient with each day, which is something I've struggled with my whole life.
Well, we got another answer. Come fall, all 3 of our boys will be home educated. We are fortunate that Brettley's birthday is just within the cutoff date, and we are able to register him for grade 1 to receive funding for him, which is awesome! So I have been busy planning curriculum for Tyrell and Brettley, as well as our plans to keep learning over the summer. It was obvious that schooling in my room in the fall wouldn't be an option anymore, which we had been doing for the past couple of weeks. So we made a trip to IKEA, Staples and Walmart and began my latest project, which is making a dedicated learning space in half of our living room. We still need to grab another desk tomorrow, but so far we have 2 desks, white boards for each of them above their desk (I write their daily plans on them), organizers for workbooks and an open storage bin system for their different learning items (such as geometry set pieces, math manipulatives, Boogie Boards, stickers, etc).
It's not quite ready yet, but when it's done, I will post pictures of the space on here. It also includes their bookshelf, which was already there and 2 other 'shelf' units, which are for media as well as school storage. We are very much looking forward to this next adventure in our lives. The staff at the school, while expressing how much they miss Caleb and will miss Tyrell, have been incredibly supportive and respectful of our decisions, which I am very grateful for. We are truly being blessed so much as we seek for Heavenly Father's guidance in the lives of our children and follow the answers that we have been given.
The goings on of our geeky little family and the musings and soapbox moments of the lone female in the group.
Friday, March 25, 2016
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Mostly a School Update
The past several weeks of doing home schooling with Caleb have been awesome. We get closer to finding our groove with each day. His behaviour has improved so much, it's awesome. Today we got his grade 4 and grade 5 novels in the mail, along with his grade 4 French book to do over the summer. He is reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for grade 4 and Underground to Canada for grade 5. Of course, the planner in me has his novels picked out all the way through to grade 12, ha ha.
Over the past couple of weeks, I finalized his lesson plan schedule for grade 5 and got his Education Program Plan ready, so when his facilitator comes soon, we can get his registration for next year done quickly. I had originally planned to go with a different board in the fall and register him as aligned to the Alberta Programs of Study, but changed my mind for a couple of reasons. The first is that our current board was willing to bail me out mid-year when we needed a fast solution, and I am extremely grateful for that. Also, I enjoy being able to use whatever curriculum I want to meet our goals for the year, and don't want to have to potentially give that up by switching to aligned (it's dependent on the facilitator how much flexibility we would have). Our biggest expense for grade 5 will be his karate class, so we don't require more than what traditional gets for funding. We will be able to do quite a bit with our $835, and have included 4 field trips in that plan. Almost everything he will be doing will actually meet the Programs of Study, but we decided to focus on different units in science instead. In grade 6 I am hoping to water down the Book of Mormon seminary program to his level, and add that into our day. We are also planning to get him doing a typing program so that he is comfortable typing by the time he gets to grade 7.
We picked up a new laptop with our tax return, as our old one was several years old and I'd rather buy one when I have a few extra dollars than have it crash 6 months from now and not have money to replace it without using the credit card. Funny enough, the only laptop that met all of my requirements (and there weren't a lot, either) was HP's Star Wars laptop. I am really enjoying it. Now the boys can have the old laptop, which will be great when Caleb starts learning to type and has computers a few times per week come the fall.
Not much else is new right now, I guess. My life is very home school-centric at the moment. I am loving it, though. I am so grateful that we were led to this choice for Caleb and that it is working so well for him!
Over the past couple of weeks, I finalized his lesson plan schedule for grade 5 and got his Education Program Plan ready, so when his facilitator comes soon, we can get his registration for next year done quickly. I had originally planned to go with a different board in the fall and register him as aligned to the Alberta Programs of Study, but changed my mind for a couple of reasons. The first is that our current board was willing to bail me out mid-year when we needed a fast solution, and I am extremely grateful for that. Also, I enjoy being able to use whatever curriculum I want to meet our goals for the year, and don't want to have to potentially give that up by switching to aligned (it's dependent on the facilitator how much flexibility we would have). Our biggest expense for grade 5 will be his karate class, so we don't require more than what traditional gets for funding. We will be able to do quite a bit with our $835, and have included 4 field trips in that plan. Almost everything he will be doing will actually meet the Programs of Study, but we decided to focus on different units in science instead. In grade 6 I am hoping to water down the Book of Mormon seminary program to his level, and add that into our day. We are also planning to get him doing a typing program so that he is comfortable typing by the time he gets to grade 7.
We picked up a new laptop with our tax return, as our old one was several years old and I'd rather buy one when I have a few extra dollars than have it crash 6 months from now and not have money to replace it without using the credit card. Funny enough, the only laptop that met all of my requirements (and there weren't a lot, either) was HP's Star Wars laptop. I am really enjoying it. Now the boys can have the old laptop, which will be great when Caleb starts learning to type and has computers a few times per week come the fall.
Not much else is new right now, I guess. My life is very home school-centric at the moment. I am loving it, though. I am so grateful that we were led to this choice for Caleb and that it is working so well for him!
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