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JSchaaf
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| Posted: Sept 04 2008 at 9:38am | IP Logged
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we've already simplified our plans.
I've dumped Memoria Press' Christian Studies I(we may try again next year) and our spelling workbook. I think we'll just work through the spelling lists in Natural Speller. Has anyone else made changes this early in the year??
Jennifer
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nissag
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| Posted: Sept 04 2008 at 10:26am | IP Logged
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Not yet, but we don't actually start until Monday. I think it is very wise of you to see that simplifying your curriculum is preferable to a need to "do everything". The latter is, IMO, what causes so many new homeschoolers to quit. They feel like they have no right to cut things out for the sake of simplicity and sanity.
Blessings,
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Nissa
Deacon's wife, mother of eleven, farmer, teacher, creator, cook.
At Home With the Gadbois Family
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Molly Smith
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| Posted: Sept 04 2008 at 10:38am | IP Logged
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Yep, I'm dumping Seton English 5 and 3. Tedious and boring. I will keep it on hand for supplementation, but I'm going back to my original plan of copywork and dictation. I got nervous over the summer and bought the workbooks, but began hating them before the year even started  . Two days of trying to make them work was enough.
Glad I'm not the only one to ditch something in the first week!
In the category of "definitely NOT ditching", that would be Serendipity's History Trail, Poetry and Lively Language Lessons. Love, love, love...
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Molly Smith in VA
Mom to seven beautiful children, ages 1-14
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Sarah M
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| Posted: Sept 04 2008 at 10:50am | IP Logged
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We ditched form drawing already. Blah. I'm not sure who loathed it more- me or my daughter. We are loving our Oak Meadow lessons, though- we've had the most peaceful start to our school year!
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TracyQ
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| Posted: Sept 04 2008 at 11:03am | IP Logged
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Well, we haven't had a chance to start with everything yet. I'm a more gradual start person, where we begin gradually, to get us into *full learning shape*, and then we add things a bit at a time over a couple of weeks, and then adjust as we go along. So Math will begin Monday, along with more of our full out weeks. I'll know better then, how we'll need to adjust. There's always SOME adjusting though. 
We've been assessing our *extras* too, and trying to determine what is feasible, and what isn't. I hate giving things up that we just love, but that logistics just do not permit.  But that's how we need to create our balance.
OH! I forgot! I DID adjust one thing! I was going to have our daughter narrate a nonfiction book to me for our Iroquois Indian study, but it wasn't working well, so we switched to just reading that book, and having her narrate to me her historical fiction book, *The Treasure in the Little Trunk* book instead, and it's going MUCH better! 
One thing I've learned while planning is that not everything has to be done every day, OR even every semester or quarter. Some things can be done for PART of the year, and not the entire year. Some things that may take a year can be split over two years, and done for less time to fit it in better into our program, or even more years if we have them to spare.
I'm learning that *traditional planning* isn't always necessary in order to do everything we have a desire to do, or feel is necessary or important to do. AND sometimes, less is more.
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Blessings and Peace,
Tracy Q.
wife of Marty for 20 years, mom of 3 wonderful children (1 homeschool graduate, 1 12th grader, and a 9th grader),
 homeschooling in 15th year in Buffalo, NY
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teachingmyown
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| Posted: Sept 04 2008 at 11:46am | IP Logged
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Sarah M wrote:
| We ditched form drawing already. Blah. I'm not sure who loathed it more- me or my daughter. We are loving our Oak Meadow lessons, though- we've had the most peaceful start to our school year! |
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Oh, Sarah, you are giving me curriculum envy!! I have spent much time at the Oak Meadow site, debating with myself.
For now, I need to make a go of what I have and save the dreaming for later.
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In Christ,
Molly
wife to Court & mom to ds '91, dd '96, ds '97, dds '99, '01, '03, '06, and dss '07 and 01/20/11
Remembering Today
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KackyK
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| Posted: Sept 04 2008 at 1:29pm | IP Logged
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Yep, but only for one kiddo. I had three boys, 3rd, 4th and 6th graders, all doing science together. The first day of school dh was home, he is a scientist by trade. Well during science time, he looked at me like I was crazy because, he later told me, what we were doing was way too abstract for the 3rd grader, and I was lucky the 4th grader was getting it, but that it was just right for the 6th. I thought I had done well in getting it together and that they could all do it. SO...3rd grader will now do science with the 1st grader, which is really just the Serendipity themes with narration. He is SO much happier already!
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KackyK
Mom to 8 - 3 dd, 5ds & 4 babes in heaven
Beginning With the Assumption
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ahappyheart
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| Posted: Sept 04 2008 at 6:32pm | IP Logged
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I did, we started school back on August 4th and though I planned to use the History Pockets for our history this year after the first pocket, which took us three weeks, I realized that they were just not meaty enough for my 6th, 5th and 3rd grader. I didn't buy more. I ditched our spelling and grammar workbooks early on too, they are included in our unit study, A New World of Adventure, which is what I decided on after I realized the history pockets were too little. Oh and early on I pitched the religion workbooks too and opted for St. Patrick's Summer. We are all so much happier. I say get rid of what isn't working and forget it. Don't feel remorse just move ahead.
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JuliaT
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| Posted: Sept 04 2008 at 9:53pm | IP Logged
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I made changes even before we started school last week. I was planning on using Classical Writing with my oldest but after buying Writing With Ease for my ds (7), I decided that it would be less stressful to use this with my oldest as well. We are in the second week of school and I am loving WWE so far.
Julia
mom of 3 (9,7,5)
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rivendellmom
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| Posted: Sept 05 2008 at 6:20am | IP Logged
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We dumped LOG, and are going back to copywork,dictation. We also dumped the CHC spellers. I got tired of hearing- How many pages? And then seeing zero retention.
They do like WWE which I'm using to guide my copywork and narration. From Sea to Shining Sea is fairing all right as a spine for history, and the big surprise is Zoology 1. My 12 year old son is reading ahead he likes it so much.
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Jen in suburban Chicagoland Mom to Connor(91), Garrett(93), Reilly (95), Mary Katherine (98), Declan (05), Ronan in ^i^ 6/28/08
visit our new blog: http://recreationalscholar.blogspot.com/
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mariB
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Only started Latin...because it's an online class..oh...and french because there is a tutor. We are starting Sept. 8th...BUT... I am famous for dumping so we'll see how soon!
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marib-Mother to 22ds,21ds,18ds,15dd,11dd and wife to an amazing man for 23 years
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Willa
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We are like Tracy -- we are in our 3rd week and still haven't gotten up to the full schedule. However, I HAVE already made some changes.
I decided to review in MATH with my 7th grader instead of just starting the program. I may use a different program than the one I had planned, too.
I switched from Latina Christiana II to Latin is Fun, which is review too, but much more interesting to us than LC.
He is studying some subjects (like Latin and Logic) every day instead of once or twice a week as we had planned.
We haven't started grammar yet and I'm not sure if we will, or will just work it into the writing and languages.
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Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read
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Mackfam
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| Posted: Sept 05 2008 at 9:45am | IP Logged
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I'm close to Willa and Tracy - I have 4 weeks behind me now. I always start the year knowing that it takes me a month to transition gently into the year and I give myself permission to spend that month assessing and reviewing everything I had planned and am now implementing. Sometimes I've planned too much, sometimes too little, there are always little things about the learning environment that can be tweaked to make the days more manageable and rhythmical - placement of desks, location of supplies, the realization that I had spread out geography materials but they really belong more in a centered location.
I always find things that don't work. Starting the year knowing that allows me to use a realistic eye once we start and the rubber meets the road. If something is causing tears, I might consider pulling it - I didn't make the right choice for that child in that subject. If there is boredom, I might re-consider my reading list and start a revised library list or add to the hands-on work. I've already re-assessed 2 subjects for my children and transitioned them into alternative books. It's about setting them up for success and providing them with the right book or method of learning so that it speaks to them and reaches them.
I always set aside the first day of each month as a teacher day for myself. There are no lessons on this day. It is a day set aside for me because even though I spend the first month of the school year pruning, I find I need to tweak throughout the schoolyear to accomodate the various seasons and crises that arise. On this day I tidy the shelves, arrange the books nicely again, refresh seasonal displays and Feast table displays, review my plans with an eye to any changes needed, refresh supplies set out for the children. Things move along much smoother if I allow for maintenance throughout the year rather than thinking that I can accomplish all the planning and account for every variable over the summer.
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19, ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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Sarah M
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| Posted: Sept 05 2008 at 10:42am | IP Logged
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TracyQ wrote:
One thing I've learned while planning is that not everything has to be done every day, OR even every semester or quarter. Some things can be done for PART of the year, and not the entire year. Some things that may take a year can be split over two years, and done for less time to fit it in better into our program, or even more years if we have them to spare.
I'm learning that *traditional planning* isn't always necessary in order to do everything we have a desire to do, or feel is necessary or important to do. AND sometimes, less is more.
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Very insightful, Tracy. Thanks.
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LLR4
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No dithcing or adjusting yet, but I am trying to figure out how to tweak one thing:
I'm determined to follow the Liturgical Year better this year. This plan included each day's feast/saint.
I have found a couple of great online kid's places for saints info that I use, as well as Catholic Culture. I just print out and read it or tell them all about that particular saint.
The issue, in our first and only 3 school days, has been that my 3 'brand new 6 year olds', lol, are not really seeming interested in hearing about these saints so far. (My oldest, 11, is eating it up -- she's always been deeply into learning all about any saint.)
Any thoughts on how to make it more interesting for 6 year olds?
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~ Laura
Blessed: Mama to dd{A}13 y.o., and 7 y.o. triplets ds{J}, dd{O}, ds{S} and wife to Michael
Our House of Joyful Noise
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LookaBook
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| Posted: Sept 06 2008 at 9:12am | IP Logged
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It's only been 2 days for my dd8, and ds6- and I am going back to Math U See. I had all my ducks in a row for these two working off of the MODG 3rd grade- but instead I switched completely to Ambelside Online Yr 1 for both. I just needed to give them more stories.
For Ds 10 he is enrolled in Seton 4th grade. We started in Feb. but due to family issues we are only just now going into our 3rd term. It has been good for us both- more structure, some outside accountability, and more independence (that last one is huge- as I am teaching dd8 and ds6 to read).
All that being said I chucked his Saxon math for MUS, dropped his spelling and have tweaked his schedule so he can get through the next two terms in a shorter amount of time- baby's coming in Dec
Oh, my list could go on I can be so schizophrenic when it comes to curriculum 
Alison
Mommy to ds10, dd8, ds6, dd4, dd22mos, and ds due on Christmas day!!!
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: It's only the 3rd day of school and
