So, tomorrow's our 1st day of school. Again. Seems like every year I'm so nervous and lose sleep and drive myself crazy before school starts. I'm thinking this year I might be a little less nervous....not sure. I think I just have a lot going on in my mind, being 34 weeks pregnant now, planning for the baby, checking things off the running to-do list in my head, and starting school w/ not one but TWO kids this year. WOW.
This upcoming baby has really thrown me for a loop. I tell you what! I can be such a control freak and like things structured and planned out. 170+ days of school, every lesson in the book done and checked off. Covering all the bases. So yeah, this year I'm having to adjust my thoughts and expectations with school, my kids, and life in general. I keep playing out scenarios in my head of how things will go. I've never handled big changes well, so am trying to mentally prepare myself so as to not go into shock. Overall, although a bit stressed and unsure, I feel pretty good. I've been being more consistent in my daily devotions and trying to pray and give these fears to God more. Trying to be more "real" and to stop giving myself such unattainable expectations. There's no one handing out stickers for "Mom of the Year" or "Homeschooler of the Year", so I need to just chill and enjoy life w/ my sweet family and make learning more fun and doable.
I decided after last year and the intensity of the curriculum we were using (Abeka), that we needed a big change. I completely changed all Evan's curriculum aside from his phonics/language and spelling. *gasp*. I'm an all or nothin' kinda gal, sometimes. HA! We went with a curriculum called "My Father's World", which uses more of the Charlotte Mason style of learning. It is very heavy on the literature and includes Bible, History, Science, Music Appreciation, A legit Art program, Writing, Geography.....??can't think of what else. All the "core" stuff you have to order seperately. They make recommendations for core stuff, but I did my own thing. I chose to stay with Abeka for phonics/language/spelling this year bc it is easy to teach and Evan learned SO much and enjoyed it. He loved the Spelling too, which was real simple. He is reading at a 3rd grade level, from what my Mom tested him at. CRAZY! I love Abeka for phonics. Everything else seemed so dry and Math was so hardcore, I felt he needed a breather this year. We went w/ what Timberdoodle.com recommended for his age--2 diff workbooks. One is Math Reasoning, which teaches critical thinking... *E struggles w/ that greatly, and then JUMP Math, which is more math/number minded. It teaches it in a diff way though. No big teacher manual.....He'll do 1-3 pages per day in each book and I can kinda sit and go over it w/ him and help him as needed ,but a lot is student led. I think it'll be a good switch. Keeping my fingers crossed. He loves bright colored workbooks, so I think he'll really like it. My Father's World is focusing this year on the names of God and US History. It has a much more spiritually minded way of teaching, which is really cool. Very real life and applicable. He even has his own NIV Bible, written in easier kid language that he'll read out of this year. Anywho, I'm excited about it and Miles will be included in much of this curriculum---art lessons, the reading, science experiments and the like. I think he'll have lots of fun!
Miles will be starting in Kindergarten and I'm gonna use the Abeka stuff w/ him like I did Evan. It's such a great year...I loved their Kindergarten materials/games. It'll be a good base for him, and hopefully he'll be reading sometime around Christmas time if he progresses as quickly as his brother did. I'm gonna pick/choose more w/ the material and not "beat a dead horse" as much as they like to in their curriculum. I don't see any point making a kid write 50+ numbers DAILY. That is just overkill. I plan on having more FUN this year. He got such a good start last year w/ preschool and his little books he accomplished and writing he did. I think he'll do fine.
Anywho....it's been a busy summer. We've packed a lot of fun into a couple months. Evan and Miles went to a 5 day camp at the 1st Baptist in Crystal River. They both loved it! They learned so much and Evan got to sing a lot, so that was cool! I was really impressed with it. Then they both spent 5 days at "Camp Grandma" w/ my Mom and Dad at their house. They played lots of board games, went on the boat, rode bikes and played in the hose, read lots of books and watched train videos, visited the library and went to story time. It rained a lot but they still had a blast. I think they got much closer to my folks during that time:) so cool. Then we went up to the cabin for a 9 day stint. We hiked a lot and swam a lot. It was so relaxing and beautiful up there. We didn't wanna come home. The boys did 2 weeks of swim lessons too. Both learned so much. I was impressed. Miles can now swim underwater to the edge of the pool, turn on his back to get a breath and dive down to get dive rings!!!! He is learning everything a year before his brother did...just wild. He had a really great teacher and only 2 other kids in his class, so he got a lot more time one-on-one. Evan did wonderful too. He quit holding his nose and had an 8 yr old in his class he liked to compete w/, so it pushed him to try harder, which was great. I was so proud of them both!
I had a busy summer growing this baby. I'm getting BIG and he is very active, this little guy. I spent a lot of time cleaning and organizing...playing catch up for the months where I could basically not function. We switched the furniture around in the boys' rooms and Mom and I just rearranged the baby room on Monday. It's starting to look really cute in there:) Making me more excited. I can't wait to meet him and see what he looks like. I think he'll be the wild card in the fam;) Isn't the 3rd child always the wild card?? Ha. I think it's gonna rock our world. The boys are SO excited to meet him. I think it'll be such a hoot to watch them be amazed by him. I can just hear the laughter now.
Well, it's after midnight so I need to shut this shop down. I'm praying for peace and that tomorrow goes awesome. I'll try to post some pics of the boys' 1st day:)
Deuces.
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