Time4Learning review in a month

• Over the next 30 days, I will be reviewing Time4Learning. They offer anelementary school curriculum, middle school curriculum, high school curriculum, and tools like the Getting Started Homeschooling Guide. Be sure to come back and read about my experience!

I will have my kids log on daily as time allows and I will be posting a detailed review in a month. Stay tuned!

Refining

I will still be using my book lists I posted. My new plans should give us more time for good literature, not less. This was a driving factor in the switch, other then the cost issue.

We've been so bogged down by historical fiction we've been losing the joy and flow of history, itself.

This also reminds me of something important. There is no perfect curricula. There are things perfect or close for individuals in seasons, but no one program that meets all needs at all times. So when something isn't right, and you can't make it feel right, it's ok to let it go and search out a better fit.

I have loved programs in the past and been devoted. Now, we don't use those things. And that ok.

It's about the journey as much as the ending.

Shopping the shelves

I know I posted plans for the upcoming year that were different. I reserve the right to tweak until I start buying.

Inspired by the CiRCE info and some thrifty threads I have been trolling through my shelves.

I have enough stuff already purchased to do Middle Ages history next year. Usually history is a big chunk of my budget since we do a lot of books along with it, so this is great.

My oldest was hitting a wall of sorts with Saxon math. It wasn't too hard but it was becoming too time consuming. I switched her to CLE which is cheap, seems sound, and much less time intensive. If it keeps going well I will switch Little Bird once she finished Saxon 1.

Sweet Pea is still using Writing Tales 1 and while I love the idea it's so unequal in work load. Some days it takes ten minutes and some days it's over an hour. This makes planning hard and frustrates her. I believe we may try CLE language arts, as well.

Little Bird is working rapidly through Hooked on Phonics 2nd grade! She's making great progress and once she's done I will finish phonics out with the Ordinary Parent's Guide, which I already own. Handwriting is going great as well and she's almost ready to transition from handwriting to copy work.

Once I comb my shelves more I hope to post with more updated plans!

Lent and children

Lent begins February 13 this year. Less then two weeks! If you follow or want to follow the Liturgical calendar this means it's time to start getting ready.

I have past posts on Lent here and here.

Lent begins yearly with Ash Wednesday. Our church marks Ash Wednesday with a service and imposition of ashes- or placing ashes made from the Palm Sunday palms the year before on the forehead in the sign of the cross.

Lent is not Pre-Easter. It is “a holy season of prayerful and penitential reflection". It also has many opportunities to deeply teach our children the faith. 

I plan to use many of the past activities our family enjoys for Lent. I also will be using Lutherans for Lent- a free daily devotional. 

Our church does midweek services through Lent and we will attend as many as possible. 

I hope keeping time through Lent is a blessing to your family this year!

Fourth grade plans

Wildly, wildly open to change at current date!

Math: Saxon 7/6
Life of Fred
Time estimate: hour daily

Reading: book list to be separate post
Time estimate: hour to two hours daily

Writing: Writing Tales 2
Or
Classical Writing
Or??
Time estimate: hour daily

Science: Chemistry. I think.
Time estimate: an hour twice a week

History: Roughly thinking 1900- present. Focus on or tie in C.S. Lewis and Tolkien.
Time estimate: an hour three times a week

Foreign language: Latin and Spanish. Latina Christiana?
Time estimate: half hour daily

Art: art work of time period for history?
Time estimate: half hour once a week

Music: piano.  Composer studies.
Time estimate: half hour daily

PE: daily workout with mom.
Time estimate: half hour daily

Religion: Bible, catechism, Lutheranism 101 for kids.
Time estimate: half hour daily

The "Gravy": mythology - Norse and Greek. Poetry. Shakespeare.
Time estimate: an hour a week

Weekly time total: 23 hours for the week or 5.3 hours a day. Yikes!

First grade book list

I reserve the right to revise and alter thioos as needed. I'm pulling from many sites and lists.

Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater
Peter Pan (or, Peter Pan and Wendy) by James M. Barrie 
Harp and Laurel Wreath by Laura Berquist
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

Benjamin Franklin by Ingri D'Aulairie 

George Washington by Ingri D'Aulaire 

Buffalo Bill by Ingri D'Aulaire

Pocahontas by Ingri D'Aulaire

The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes

Language of Flowers by Kate Greenaway 

Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty
St. George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang 

Red Fairy Book by Andrew Lang 

Yellow Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel
Now We Are Six/When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit
Complete Tales of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
Margaret and Margarita: Margarita y Margaret by Lynn Reiser
King of the Golden River by John Ruskin
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst

Charlotte's Web by E.B. White 
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter
 

 Anyone have any must have reads for first grade I'm missing?

First grade, second run through

I'm a planner. This lets me change my mind and tweak at will. It also means I start early.

In the fall Little Bird will be in first grade. I'm looking at what I already have and what I want to try.

Math: Saxon 1-2, depending on where she is
Life of Fred
Manipulatives to cement concepts
The only thing I need to buy here are new workbooks for the Saxon.

Reading: We are making great progress through my Hooked on Phonics set. She has nine pages remaining in the 1st grade kit, and then we start the 2nd grade kit. After that I will switch to the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, with supplements from McGuffey's readers. All of this I already have.

Writing: We are currently using Cursive First. I had this already, as well. After she finishes that we will start copy work, but I'm not quite sure what to use yet.

Science- Sweet Pea wants to do chemistry next. Little Bird won't be ready for that, so we will probably do plants or something. I don't know. I have all the books I need here, though.

History: I think I'm doing European next year with my biggest. I will probably let her follow along.

Art: I already have everything I need for art appreciation.

Music: I'd really like her to try piano again. We will see if her fine motor is up to it.

PE: Comtinue Irish dance. Easy!

Foreign Language: switching to Spanish. Probably need to post about that.

Religion: The Story Bible, catechism, Lutheranism 101 for kids. I already have all of this.

I'm compiling a book list, but that will be a stand alone post.

Deafening Echoes and thoughts on planning

I promise I am still around. I am! My newest baby is now an ancient two months old and sanity is beginning to reign here once more.

I have been reading and digesting a lot of material from CiRCE. Good stuff. It's altering what I thought we were doing here and why.

And the number of students in my little homeschool! Moose is turning three in a matter of weeks. Three! How did we get here, so fast? This fall I will have Sweet Pea in fourth grade, Little Bird in first grade, and Moose in preschool, with my sweet baby boy along for the ride. Yikes!

I'm reading books for the hundredth time and scouring web sites and discussions. I'm trying to take an honest look at each child where they are right now and where I want them by the end of the year..l and where we want to go next year.

Anyone else having similar thoughts?