Big Changes Coming

It’s been a really long time since I posted but I have a good reason.  :-)

I recently returned to work.  Full time, out of the house, Monday through Friday work.  A too good to turn down job basically fell into my lap when I wasn’t even looking.   It all happened very quickly – a phone call on Tuesday, an interview on Wednesday and starting work on Thursday.  

We will continue to homeschool but we are taking some time to work out routines and plans and catch our breath.

The plan so far:

Grammy Kaye is watching the kids during the day.  I wouldn’t be able to work and homeschool without her help.

The kids are doing Time4Learning while they are at Grammy’s house during the day.  Vicki is doing 1st grade, while Georgie is doing 3rd grade.   Time4Learning is nice because they can work at their own pace, and even work in different grade levels for each subject (one up and one down from their core grade).  We initially started Georgie in 4th grade math since that’s where he’s working in Math Mammoth, but the difference in format along with the different scope and sequence were giving him a lot of trouble.  He is now moving fast through the 3rd grade math.

They will also do independent reading while at Grammy’s house.  George has been doing great with his reading lately.  He finished Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, 3 Diary of a Wimpy Kids books (he read them more than once, really likes these), a couple Pokemon books, and he is currently working on The Wind in the Willows.

In the evenings we will do “homework”, which will consist of handwriting, educational games, some activities from The Wand and possibly some AAR for Vicki, since she tends to give Grammy the most trouble with these subjects.  Georgie is very good at doing his work independently so his homework will consist of logic puzzles (which he needs help with), writing activities (The Arrow and I’m thinking of getting WWE), and maybe we’ll continue with Math Mammoth and let T4L be mainly a supplement/review.

We will do Science, History, and Geography on Saturdays.  

I’m hoping to sign them up for classes for Phys Ed (martial arts, swimming lessons), Art and Music.

It may be a few more weeks before I’m back to regularly posting (and probably that long before we actually start those Saturday topics).  I’m still adjusting to working, and working on getting the house reorganized for our new plans.