I love this time of year.

Things are going so well on the school front. Oldest is taking 'art' class again w/ a friend of ours that teaches @ Biola, only this time, it is more like an internship, which is even better, I think.

He is learning to stretch canvases, prepare them, make frames ect. This new school program we are using is wonderful. I wish I would have found it years ago. More samples are required (monthly) but I don't mind. I love how they respect your individual family style of teaching/learning. I think we are having a wonderful year specifically because of that. Much more relaxing than in years past.

For the youngers, we are working on books, nature specifically & also historical. I found a great history curriculum. It seems to go along w/ what I normally try to do, following the calender & teaching along the holidays. It's got a topic for each month, activities & crafts & coloring pages.

We do alot of writing activities. Copywork from Draw, Write, Now, going along w/ the topics we are covering, daily journal entries w/ no regard to spelling, emphasis simply on creative writing & then poetry & nice writing, about topics we have covered. On the latter, we focus on grammar, punctuation & spelling.

I like to over-lap subjects as well. Science, we planted sunflower seeds & have been keeping track on if they have grown ect. The over-lapping comes from sketching & writing out our observations. History over-laps w/ the Draw, Write, Now exercises.

I accidentally ordered 2 history curriculums, so i will just make them 'consumable' & give each not-so-little their own notebook to color/write in.

Oldest is doing very well w/ his Algebra this year too. He's taken it quite a few times, but this year is so NOT stressful he is really able to think clearly & remember what he had learned in the past. I see no reason to repeat what he already knows, so I am allowing him to 'test' out. He takes the unit tests until he gets below an %80. If he scores below an %80 on a unit test, then he is required to do the unit lessons & retest. This allows him to avoid wasting time on the units he has already covered/knows from last year. We are using Math You See for Algebra. It even came w/ math manipulatives.

I forgot to order a science & spanish curriculum. DUH! I need to get on that. I ordered his history curriculum from the same company as my youngers. I was disappointed. I did not realize it was only a book w/o any questions or study guide. We're both excited about Literature I think. I ordered him a Latin curriculum for literature. He learns of the latin culture and latin vocabulary, which I believe is a vital need for reading comprehension & word analysis. I also got some literary guides. It includes a list of highschool recommended reading selections w/ specific questions to go along w/ the readings. Also a generic one, that is not novel specific but offers lots of literary activities to go w/ any novel.

I'm looking forward to a fabulous year. The weather helps. It finally cooled off a bit & it encourages coziness, doesn't it? ;-) Not to mention all the inspiring colors of Fall.