What a Week!

HAVE YOU EVER just had one of those weeks where there just wasn't enough time. Maybe that's every week for you. I've definitely gone through my fits and spurts of the that for sure!! This week we just had so many appointments and outings that I'm kind of looking forward to a slower Saturday.

This was the week to prepare for the Washington Homeschoolers Conference. I especially love attending because it's such a fun time and so encouraging. Going to the conference I get so inspired by new things and seeing faces I've not seen for a while. I hoped to have lots of photos to share, but my phone died. Sorry about that! I need a new battery!!

My hubby and my oldest are coordinating a booth for the FRC Robot they had for this year's competitions. Great fun for them and a wonderful way to spread the word about FRC.

There were lots of fabulous vendors and I saw some new curriculum out there I need to pick up. Starting over with my little ones will be a new adventure. I am really looking forward to it. I think I'm going to go with The Elegant Essay Writing Lessons: Building Blocks for Analytical Writing for my oldest. I have to say I LOVE Institute for Excellence in Writing! Their programs are wonderful and have worked WONDERS for my son!!! Then for my younger guys I think I'm going to try PAL Writing Package from IEW. Maybe if I get these guys on the right track from the start we can get writing in hand before high school!! I have my reading stuff for my younger ones that I purchased through Learning Technologies. I am excited to get going on that. Then I'll have to dig out some old stuff to do again with little guys. Love recycling that curriculum! I have almost everything we need for our next school year, so then we can just enjoy our summer!! Over all it was a wonderful conference. Another boost to get me through until next year!! Enjoy your weekend.

Curriculum Choices...

NOW THAT THE SCHOOL year is coming to a close, I'm hitting the web and talking with other mom's about curriculum. What worked? What didn't and why? Since I have one student that is getting close to end of his homeschooling career and students just beginning, I'm spending time focusing on what worked and what's a good match for my current students learning styles. What I want to do again and what I want to ditch.

Over the years I've used lots of Sonlight curriculum and have been satisfied with the history and literature portion of their curriculum. I have not however, been as pleased with the Language Arts portion. I LOVE Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW). I've spoke about them before in a previous post. They have such a wonderful concrete approach to the mechanics of an essay and later papers.

I will probably stay with some IEW for all my kids at some point. I just can't say enough about how great their program works. As for history however, a dear friend of mine and fellow blogger just reviewed Heritage History and it sounds absolutely wonderful!! You can read her review at Circling Through This Life. I for one will be checking this out at the Washington Homeschool Conference coming up Father's Day weekend (June 15-16).

For my little guys, we are just focusing on the 3R's at the moment. I find it challenging to much with out reading and writing. At this stage of the game we do lots of "read-a-louds" and mom taking dictation, so at least they can learn the process. But a wonderful FREE resource I've found (I LOVE FREE, don't you?) are the activity boxes at the library. As homeschoolers we all value the abundance of material the library offers, but the activity boxes are kind of a fun "unit study" if you will. Since I've got this younger age group to cater to these are perfect and quite frankly, I tend to forget about them.

They come with different themes and everything is in this tidy little box. All the activities are included and everything is one box! Genius!
So what curriculum are you in love with? Give a shout out for your favorite subject, curriculum, or resource. I'd love to hear about your successes!!

Just as an FYI to those Washington State readers, Did you know that our Governor, Christine Gregoire has proclaimed June 10-16 Washington Homeschool Week? I thought it was kinda cool! Go Washington!!

It's coming...

It's May and most folks are starting to think about wrapping up the school year and most kids are starting to get the itch of "spring fever". I however, am looking forward to the Washington Homeschool Organizations (WHO) Annual Convention!! It's such a wonderful event to re-charge your batteries and find some new and exciting curriculum or at least ideas for the upcoming school year. There are so many speakers and there is so much encouragement, I just love getting to attend. Even if I'm not looking for anything in particular.

This year however, I am in search of some new things for my little guys. While I am not unhappy with the tools I used with my older child, it's just different to teach multiple children at the same time rather than one on one. Also, I know so much more about what I'm looking for this time around it's fun to just look! I'd like to find some thing new in terms of math and math games. With my oldest we started with MCP workbooks, then moved on to Singapore Math, then Saxon and now have settled on Math-U-See. While all had strengths and weaknesses, I just am still not completely satisfied with the approaches. My oldest seems to really LOVE Math-U-See, but for me to use it for my little guys I'd have to relearn math in some ways. Their approach, while effective, just isn't the way I think about math and when I have to 'help' I some times confuse the situation and quite frankly don't want to have to read or watch the DVD to get them through it. At least for the K-2nd grade math that we are doing. So we shall see what's out there this year. RightStart Math  is intriguing to me. It is extremely hands on and visual, which seems like a good fit for my kids and my teaching style.

So what do you think? Do any of you have a math curriculum that you're just wild about? If so I'd love to hear from you. Please leave me a comment!! Happy learning!