Bags Are Nearly Packed

This will be our view very soon...

Well, folks, at long last we are finally sorted (mostly) with our immigration paperwork. Our house has been sold (as I think I noted in previous posts I think?) and we're just getting the house ready for the closing date in a few weeks. Everyone has their appropriate passports (that was a small nightmare, but we got it sorted on time), and I *finally* have a long-ish term visa to cover me (the kids are dual citizens, so they're all set and won't need visas). 

Now comes the long flight with two small children...and, of course, the emotional bits. It's sooo hard leaving my oldest behind, and sometimes I awaken in the morning with this deep sense of panic that I'm going against the natural order of things. I know that intellectually I've given her the option to come, and she made the choice to go off to college and live with her father. I feel badly, because they don't always get along spectacularly, and I know it's going to be a challenge for them both (he's a rather moody and insensitive fellow, and she's independent and fiesty...yeah, you can feel that mismatch from there, can't you?).  

I'm hoping this will give them a chance to bond in ways they haven't before (because she lived with me full time and only saw him one or two nights a week all these many years). Being a full-time dad to this wonderful young woman will be interesting, to say the least, and perhaps she'll learn some patience. I guess we'll see. I'll be flying her down for the holidays (xmas and summer), but I'm really going to miss my girl. It's so hard to leave her behind, but I'm consoling myself with the idea that we'll have skype, Facebook, email, phones, and visits. It's hard for me to talk about it for too long, as it is upsetting no matter what positive spin I put on it. Hard. Hard. Hard.

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Let's talk about something a little more cheerful....we started our homeschool "year" already, albiet slowly. I'm planning to take some pics, but to be honest with you, they may have to wait until we've made our move, as things are really busy around here right now. 

I came up with a different way to do our Main Lesson Book for this year, one that I'm hoping will mean we'll use it more often than we did last year due to it being a bit easier and a little more user-friendly for my son. Basically, I took an elementary journal book (the kind with a space at the top of each page to draw a picture, and then about 8 or so lines below (the kind with the 3 writing lines, you know, with the dotted red line in the middle to help them center their letters?).  This will mean my son doesn't have to draw such a large picture, and it helps give him parameters in which to create his picture while leaving enough space for words below. 

It is a 100 sheet journal, with 200 pages if you consider he can draw on the front and back of each sheet.  I divided the journal into 4 sections (separated with a little post-it note labeled with the subject) for Language Arts, Social Studies, Science, and Misc.  (Math is separate, I'll explain below).  I then went though the Waldorf curriculum that I purchased and pulled out the important themes from it. I also used some online sources that have some scope-and-sequence for 3rd grade (some of them Waldof inspired, others were not).

Then, I created a document. I typed each subject, and then under each subject I created 20 sections, in long strips, where I typed what I would like him to write about. If there was a corresponding picture online (or in the Waldorf curriculum, which is digital pdf format, so I could cut/paste from that as well), I'd include that. For example, if we're working on Farming (one of the Waldorf themes for grade 3), I might include a tiny picture from online that some other child did for that particular lesson (ie. a picture of a farm with rows of veggies and animals grazing), then next to the tiny pic I would type some copy work (Farmers first add compost to the soil, which might be chicken or cow manure). Then I might also type myself a quick note, saying "read book on farming, watch video at XYZ link".  

I went through and did strips like this for Language Arts and Science, but I haven't finished Social Studies yet.  We won't start a block of Social Studies until after we move, so I'm not going to use valuable time right now getting that ready until we're closer to being ready to actually work on the subject. The Misc. section will be for any art, foreign language, and maybe even some math. It will just be a hodge podge section, that may or may not get filled up.

The purpose of the strips is basically to use them as a sort of lesson plan for that day/week. One strip will be for 1 page in 1 subject, and as I said I'll include pics, links, any copywork I want him to write, and any notes to myself about the lesson. I'll then cut the strips out and clip them together by subject. On the day of the lesson, I'll simply unclip the pack, take one off the top, and then read it to remind myself what we're doing, and of course then follow what it suggests. 

My thinking is that with 20 lessons for each section, and about 35 weeks of school for the year, that will allow us to do about 1 formal page in his journal per subject each week (so 1 *formal* subject a day for 4 days, if we so chose, or all in one day, or however we decide to break it down that week) for 20 weeks, with 15 "spare" weeks to do as we please with them.

We still may work on other subjects that day (if we don't use a strip for more than 1 subject that day), but it just probably wouldn't be done in this journal....

 Then, the rest of the week we'll do other types of activities for those subjects. We might do some turtlediary games, make a lapbook or other comprehensive project, we'll still work with The Story of The World (book 2) on audiobook, and any related activities for each chapter of that audiobook, watch youtube videos, read library books, do a worksheet page here and there, do child-led activities, etc.  For me, this feels a nice balance between structured activities and plenty of time for child-led and/or alternative activities that we'll figure out as we go along.

We started slowly with Math U See already, and we've finished Lesson 1 (of 30 for the year) already, including all lessons A-G as well as the Lesson Test.  We'll start on Lesson 2 once the house sale is finalized in two weeks, since we'll have another week or so before we fly out.  I am really *LOVING* Math U See!!!  It's very, very user-friendly for my son, and he loves the manipulative blocks that go with the lessons. *knock on wood* I think this will be a bit more fun than last year's math curriculum. So far he's enjoying it, so that right there is huge. I think he just kinda "went along" with math last year, but I never saw the enjoyment he's having with MUS. I'll have to do a more detailed review of it after we've been using it for a few months!

So, that's roughly our plan for this year. We'll likely work on another song on the recorder again, but my son has also shown some interest in drums, so we might work a bit on that. We have a good friend of the family (who lives in our upcoming new locale) who plays the drums, so hopefully we can get some free drum lessons out of the deal.  

Also, there is a lively and active homeschooling group in our new locale, so I want to leave plenty of room in our lives for that. They seem to do a lot together as a group, on top of their weekly get togethers, so I am sure that the additional 15 weeks (since, as mentioned, the journal will only cover 20 weeks for each subject and there are 35 weeks in the average school year) will be filled with homeschool group activities, field trips, etc.

I feel really good about our plan for the year. It's great that we can re-evaluate what worked well and what could use a little tweaking each year, not to mention that as the kids grow, their interests, style, and abilities change and so each year necessarily should be taken on its own merits. I think it's a mistake to think you'll use the exact same curriculum, simply advancing each year from one level to the next, for the entirety of your children's schooling years. It also means that you can observe your children as you go along, and address any gaps in their learning that you feel could be worked on, or at least introduced. 

It's interesting and fun to be an eclectic homeschooling family. For us, the mixture of some structure (to ensure we keep some eye on the general scope-and-sequence that will give the basics needed if the children want to go on to further education) along with child-led and interest-led activities, really does help to keep everyone happy. Having said that, I think it is important to note that our son *does* get a say, in his way, in the "structured" materials used and experiences planned, because if he's not really "feeling it", he gets less out of it. He does have to "buy in" to a certain extent with the materials, themes, etc. For example, he didn't really *love* his previous math curriculum. Sure, he did learn from it, but it was much more of a chore to get through it, whereas he's actually excited to get to work with MUS...that means we can move at a good pace and have more fun with it.

I don't however, agree that I should just let him go without a formal math curriculum. I've spoken about this before (probably to the point of annoyance to the reader by now). I simply feel too strongly about keeping his math going at a pace that will help him be at a certain level of proficiency by the time he is, say, 16 years old. We'll be encouraging the children to take college classes at around that age, or choose an apprenticeship (in Australia, there are wonderful opportunities for apprenticeship that can start a young person on the path to a wonderful career, or at the very least help give them training in a skill, and often pay for college classes as well).

I don't want my kids to think of schooling *only* as a job ticket, of course, but also as preparation for all of life's complexities, responsibilities, challenges, and opportunities. A base-line of knowledge and skills will allow our kids to step into any field or face any challenge with a well-rounded background to start off on a good footing. From there, they can choose what next step to take with that foundation we've helped them to build.

I hope your August is going as well as ours is. We may be (extremely) busy as we prepare for this next journey, but we're also very excited. I'm very optimistic about our future. I can't wait to see what our new locale has to offer!!