Week 2: Ch-Ch-Changes

Slowly, slowly.  That's how we're getting our start. 

Although I felt like I had things pulled together and ready for the start of the school year, as the day approached, doubts set in.  I wasn't feeling comfortable with many of the choices I had made, and became paralyzed with indecision about what to do.  Not good.  Clearly I needed to make some changes here in the 11th hour, and I figured it was better to do it now, rather than in the middle of the school year. 

But, we also needed to get the ball rolling, that much I knew.  Question was, just how fast did it need to roll right away?  I decided we would start out with a couple subjects, and slowly add things in as I figured it all out (again).  Two weeks later...So far, so good.

So what are we doing?  

The choices I made for Charlie will remain mostly unchanged.  I guess because I've been through 2nd grade a couple times I have a more solid idea of how I'd like to proceed.  Daily lessons from Horizons Math, First Language Lessons, my home-made cursive notebook, read-alouds, and R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey are keeping Charlie happy and engaged.  Thumbs up, by the way, on the science curriculum.  It has been enjoyable, easy to implement, and has led us a little deeper into some investigations than we normally would have gone.   Couldn't ask for more.  We'll add in history, spelling and some fine arts in the coming weeks.  We will most likely not use Writing With Ease and instead rely on history narrations to serve the same purpose.

William has been doing daily lessons with Teaching textbooks, Junior Analytical Grammar, copywork, and reading Tom Sawyer.  Next week we'll get into Excavating English, and after that we'll add science and history.  I decided I couldn't wait for the February release of the R.E.A.L Science Odyssey-Biology, so chose to go with Elemental Science instead.  We're waiting for that to arrive.  I have history figured out for Will too, but that's a whole nother post!

Ben. High School. Ugh.  First of all, he is greatly enjoying his engineering class at the local B&M school.  The teacher is nice, and the material is interesting.  Aside from that, he is using Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1 with great success, and learning to write a literary essay with Teaching the Essay from Analytical Grammar. Oh, and he's also programing an Arduino to be an oscilloscope.

I've decided to drop spelling and grammar review for Ben this year as he honestly doesn't need it.  I'm also working on revamping science and history for him, and within a hair's breadth of deciding on a German foreign language curriculum.  

There's a lot up in the air right now, but I'm feeling surprisingly calm about it all.  Stay tuned for some fine-tuning, and the big "what I decided on for history" reveal.

Slowly, slowly.