Changing course

We've been "schooling" for almost 2 months now.... and what a crazy two months it's been.  During the month of September Ken & I were out of town together for 10 days & the kids were out of town for 4 days.  We also had 2 birthday parties to plan & gather all the supplies.  We have done school but not at the level that I had intended initially.  One of the areas that I was unsure about when I started planning for our year was reading.  It's her least favorite subject (we can add spelling to that list, too) and I feel the least prepared for teaching it.  I looked at curriculum over the summer and never found anything that made me happy.  I'm hoping that maybe I've found something I like.... and here we are in October figuring this out.  Math has been very easy but she doesn't have her math facts down as well as I'd like her to have them.  We're about half way through the math book because we skipped so much of the review.  I'm all for drilling stuff you know well but the beauty of Saxon is that you continue reviewing.  We're going to try an oldie but a goodie, Ray's New Primary Arithmetic which I believe was originally published in 1907.  I'm not 100% unhappy with Saxon so I think we'll continue plodding through it but will add Ray's to the mix.  The same friend that told me about Ray's also told me about Memoria Press.  I've looked at their reading program and really like books used for the 1st grade curriculum.  How can you go wrong with "Make Way for the Ducklings" and "Blueberries for Sal" ?  I like that they've done the hard work of picking vocabulary words & comprehension questions for me.  2nd grade has her reading "Little House on the Prairie" & "Mr. Popper's Penguins".  I'm already looking forward to that.

I haven't pressed Lincoln nearly enough this year.  The stinker has been reluctant to do work and I've let it slide since he just turned 4 and he's a boy.  It's not worth a fight.  Then he started reading words.  At Sea World, he looked at the map and said, "Daddy, it says 'sea lion' right there."  And, he was right.  It did.  There was no sea lion in the picture.  Tonight he said, "That says, 'Go team, Go!'"  Clearly I need to take advantage of that.  Like Coralee, he wasn't fond of Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading.  I'm thinking that we need to back up and start over again and do the kinds of activities I did with my 4 year olds at OLC..... gluing things on the letters, etc.  I can do all the things from OPGTR without having the book in front of him.  My goal is to pick our 4 activities for the week and do pretty much the same thing every week.  I plan on doing that while Coralee's working on things that don't require Momma's attention; handwriting, Latin & spelling.  I really liked Memoria Press's reading curriculum but he doesn't have the fine motor skills to trace letters.  Clearly another thing we need to work on before next year.  I'm thinking of using at the McGuffey Reader Primer for him.    For Math, we're going to look at what is further on in the book and attempt to teach him something he doesn't know.  You can only count 5 counting bears for so long. 

Since we've been back from France, all this has been bothering me so I feel very relieved to have something new to try.  After all, that's the beauty of homeschooling, right?  If it doesn't work, try something else!  Poor Coralee, she's my guinea pig!