9.13.2011

New ideas

On Tuesday, September 6th we officially began our 6th year as a homeschooling family!  This year I have 3 full time students (6th, 4th and 1st grades) and a toddler.  I knew some changes needed to be made to our curriculum and schedule.  My two older children needed to become more independent learners so that I could focus on my 6 year old and toddler.  Up until now, I have taught every subject.  This had to change because teaching 3 different grades with a quickly approaching 2 year old terror sweetheart was just not going to happen!  I did extensive research and solicited advice from other moms of many.  After much discussion with my wonderful husband we chose to go with CLE or Christian Light Education for Language Arts, Bible, and Reading.  We will continue using Math U See and Gods Design Science.  We also recently began Mystery of History and we are enjoying it.
CLE is a Mennonite based curriculum.  We scoured the website to make sure the Biblical teachings would not contradict our beliefs and we also consulted out Pastor.  Fortunately, Mennonites have many similar beliefs as we do and the areas that we differ in are not reflected in the curriculum.  This is an independent workbook type curriculum.  I was originally very against the idea of workbooks and more traditional "school" type teaching but have realized that in this season it is exactly what our family needs.  I wanted to be well established in this curriculum before bringing another child into our family sometime next year.
We also implemented another new idea this year.  Work boxes!  Just type that in to Google and you will be overwhelmed with different blogs and websites detailing this new homeschool system.  After much research we came up with our own, very modified version.  With multiple moves and a bigger than average family it was just not feasible to implement this system the way it was originally intended.  
(Note: I am still a bit blogging challenged so I have yet to figure out how to type "go here" and have it link directly to a page so I do recommend that you google work boxes and go the original site to see how this system is supposed to work.)  
Our first week using our modified system was a HUGE success!  Now, I am still working out some kinks but for the most part it was awesome.  My 2 favorite things:  I stayed consistent in getting everything done every day last week and my children wake up each morning begging to start their boxes!!!  So, stay tuned for a post detailing our version of this amazing system!
(Another side note:  I am a HUGE procrastinator so don't be surprised if it takes me another two weeks to get the work box post up!)

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