Two weeks in

So we are now officially two weeks into our school year. I have been primarily working with Owen and feel like we are both getting a good grasp of what are day is going to be like. I have been so pleased with the changes in him, although I don't know exactly what has caused it. We did take some time off that I believe did both of us a lot of good. We both are really enjoying our new curriculum and reading stories about Abigail Adams, and Sarah Noble. I love that when I get done reading our section for the day he says is that all? It makes it so much more interesting than reading a dry textbook. He has done so well with his copywork and dictation the last few weeks, where last year it was a total fight. Towards the end of the week he had an assignment to free write a journal entry. Last year he would have fought me every step and then we would have both ended up in tears. I debated  to even put it in front of him, but was totally shocked when he said ok how many sentences? I replied five and he started writing, it was hard to contain my excitement.  Most of our reading I am doing right now and I pick and choose what we do orally and what we do writing wise to not overwhelm him. I am totally encourage thought and pray that we continue to move forward.

I am working with Wyatt teaching him how to write his numbers and some basic math, pasting and cutting. Next week I hope to start the five in a row with both Pixie and him. I plan on taking this weekend to gather what I need to be a little more prepared. I am not sure when I will start the MFW Kindergarten with him, just playing it by ear and trying to make it fun.

Wednesday night we decide to join a local homeschool group outing to Ghost Crab on Topsail Beach. We have been trying to do some of the events the group organizes but they never seem to work out with Pixie's nap schedule or our school. This was a late night event and I though the boys would enjoy. It was put on by Ecological Marine Adventures and they did a fantastic job. Owen was the oldest out of the group, most of the kids were around Wyatt's age. The boys did a great job and I was very proud of Owen helping Wyatt. It was interesting meeting some of the people from the group. Everyone was very nice and I think we will definitely try to fit in a few more of these activities.

New things

Sadly, I have been neglecting updating things here. Life has been going quickly and we have just been trying to do our best to keep up. In December we will be adding another little one to our crew. The boys are so excited to have a new baby boy to the family. In the mist of this we have been working on planning an addition on our house. It has always been a plan, although we have dragged our feet due to all the other things we need to do. The first being putting in a new septic/drain field. We suspected ours was failing, but did not know how bad it was. So for the last 2 months we have been trying to get the new site for the septic prepared. Partly due to incompetence (hired work) and partly due to the weather, it has been severely delayed. We are anxious to get that part done so we can begin construction and hopefully have a good bit done before the baby arrives in December. It is not looking to good right now so we will see.

We have enjoyed about 6 weeks off of school. Owen and I went to Winston-Salem for the NCHE Conference and love it. It was so inspiring and fun, we met lots of fun people. I am now racking my brain trying to figure out how I will swing going with a 5 month old next year. I love checking out the curriculum first hand and attending workshops. Think I need to hire a Nannie for the weekend to come with! We also went to Boone for a week and enjoyed beautiful weather and relaxing time as a family.

This week we started back to school for Owen. I changed a few things with his curriculum and am excited to see how things progress. We chose a different core curriculum called Trail Guide to Learning Paths of Settlement. It is a US History based curriculum based on living books. I can say two days in Owen is already doing fantastic. He has written more for me than I ever got out of him last year. We are also changing math and using Teaching Textbooks it is an computer based program which I started back in May. He does well with it and enjoys it so for now we will stick with that. I am continuing on with All About Spelling, Handwriting without tears and Easy Grammar also. I found a new writing program called Bravewriter and plan on incorporating these ideas in with our work this year as well. My plan is to hopefully have quite a bit completed by the time the baby arrives to take the month of December off to get situated.

Wyatt will also begin more formal school this year as a Kindergartner. I love the excitement he has right now when I work with him and my main goal is to keep that with him. I have My Fathers World Kindergarten for him, as well as Singapore Early Bird Math, Handwriting without tears,  and Five in a Row.  This week we are just doing pasting, some math and stories. As we go on I will add more as I see how he does.

Pixie is doing good, we are currently working on potty training and she is a breeze right now. She enjoys painting while the boys work on their school and always wants to draw and color. Pixie loves dressing up and playing ballerina or Fairy and is even quite good at convincing the boys to play along with her. She totally rules the boys here it's quite funny. Can't imagine how it will be with a new little brother to boss around!