Looking Forward to a New Year

So here is my school for next year all ready for us, on the shelf. We are going half speed through Heart of Dakota's Resurrection to Reformation. If I have done my math right that should place my youngest on track for High School without a gap year. It will also give my oldest more time to develop and hopefully we will hit a few jumps this year.

I really like it when she jumps. Jumping is when she appears stalled on a skill but in reality her brain is actually working away behind the scenes. One day she is unable and the next she is able, and she stays able 90% of the time. I have noticed she jumps instead of growing bit by bit.  She often appears to stall out completely but if we persist in our pursuit of her best, she will suddenly jump to the next level.  I'm hoping to see some jumping this year.

I thought I'd bring out some of the things we will be doing differently than just the "as written" curriculum.  One I'm enraptures over the Logic Of English and I confess I want to do it with my children to learn alongside them as we go.  I recall Mrs. Simmons she despaired of ever teaching me proper grammar and I couldn't tell a adverb from an adjective when I hit college. If it hadn't been for my so awesome roommate  I wonder if I would have ever made deans list that last year. So I bit the bullet and paid out the big bucks for the Logic Of English.  I went with the PDF version and discovered I need 2 sets of phonics cards... But I think I'll have my kids make their own as I'm out of money for school books atm.  I'm looking forward to learning all those rules I just read through by heart this year.

  We also will be adding in this Middle-school music history program  Discovering Music 300 Years of Interaction in Western Music, Arts, History and Culture on the side. It adds more writing but also covers much of the same time periods as Resurrection to Reformation I haven't lined the dates up all nicely but I have managed to schedule it almost daily. Some days all the kids do is listen to music, or do vocab work or research a variety of topics. Other days they watch a lecture by the author. My husband and I previewed these.  They were addictive! We kept looking at the clock and each other and saying ok just one more lecture then we will go to bed!  I love how she dissects history through music. I think it will be great for Daddy and the kids to have something near and dear to his heart to talk about together. I am also hoping it will reinforce the history they are learning. I Love it when I can find VISUAL things for Sweet Potato to watch. She keeps turning her visual activity of reading into an audio activity by reading it out loud. This also slows her school down tremendously.  So anyway we can use movies to get information into her brain! I'm all for it.

As I was unpacking I got so excited to see this book. It looks soooooo yummy! I have yet to sit down and devour it but I can't wait.  One of my favorite things to do is Really LOOK at pictures. I call it listening to pictures.

I remember about 4 years ago going to a museum with my sister and her family. My nephew was kind of bored. I could tell he was exercising his good behavior muscles. I drew him aside and made him "listen" to the painting I was standing in front of.  I can recall it vividly it was a painting of a tavern, there were card players, serving wenches, a baby in a basket crying, a troubadour playing, a spilled jug of beer. It was a loud painting. As I made him look really look and imagine the sounds, the place, the smells, he got so excited he dragged me from painting to painting to listen to them with me. We got so caught up in reading the paintings my sister had to backtrack to find us.  I hope to instill that kind of love of art in my children this next year.

On another note Little Miss Sunshine has started a blog. I found this Kidblog site (I can lock down real tight if I need to.)  I find it so funny if I asked her to write a paragraph a day she would be griping about all the work,  but she pestered me daily to blog. Ha ha ha ha Check it out. :-) and please forgive the spelling and grammar. 

http://kidblog.org/SluberskisHomeschool/baf4a895-1e23-4440-90fc-85cbd91113c9/scarves-of-scrapes/