So, its been a while since I posted and I blame intense busyness involving weekend trips and our last camping trip of the year. We are still enjoying the luxury of our new schoolroom and have made some improvements since the last post. Next week, we have a contractor coming out to finish our stairwell so that I can put up the safety gate at the bottom of the stairs. Seems the baby of the family enjoys testing out his climbing skills during our lessons and this has made it very difficult with us having to retrieve him  every 10 minutes or so. Meanwhile, I have been having to keep him in a large “play-yard” which he protests about loudly. Our downstairs area is quite large and open, so I really will be glad to have that stairwell fixed up so that we can allow him all the freedom he needs while we have our school day. Much of our school day has to be completed after the our 2 year old daughter and our baby is napping. Because of having to start later, we didn’t finish our lessons until after 5 yesterday. Makes for a very long day!  I will resume early starting days when the contractor gets our stair rails finished.

Sofie and Devin are doing quite well in their studies and hopefully getting into the groove of learning new things. They both can tell you about Pablo Picasso (the artist we have been studying) and can name the seven continents (thanks to our World Geography studies.) Their reading is improving daily. Devin is catching on and can read some simple 3 letter words – he’s only 4! At te beginning of the year, I was feeling slightly hesitant about putting him into Kindergarten so early, but I know now he was more than ready academically. Sofie is moving along nicely with her reading also. I’m pleasantly pleased with the program we’re using this year. You can check it out on our curriculum page.

Zane has been up to his eyeballs in reading with this year’s curriculum  – Sonlight. Sonlight is a reading intense program and requires a lot of devotion. I’m sad that this will be his last year of homeschooling. His goal is to join the Marines next year. I’ve actually tried to steer him toward college, but it has never been his dream. “College is not for everyone”, he’s told me. I agree and have to admit that I’m the one that told him that in the first place. Although, I believe he’s intelligent enough to pursue a college degree if he wanted, I just don’t think he’d be happy taking that route. He has a desire to serve his country, see and experience more of the world, and add some dangerous adventure to his life. He’s always dreamed of joining the military. I’ve asked him to pray about this decision and to not take it lightly. He agrees and assures me that he has. So, what choice do I have but to support him? We have a recruiter from the Marine Core coming to our house next week to talk with us. Oh, Boy, do I have some questions!

I’ve been doing some reading on scheduling in Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education. The book can be purchased online, downloaded and printed. I’m considering doing an alternate school year schedule – instead of doing the traditional 180 day school year, I’m seriously considering doing a 3-week-on-and-1-week-off-all-year-round schedule. I would be able to use the 1 week off for catching up on housework, taking field trips or just to some some creative learning with play or free exploration. Anyway I look at it, it just seems as if it would be a better fit for our busy family at least until the baby  is much older.