I did it!

Last night I ordered a real, full curriculum for the 2010/2011 school year.

We'll be starting My Father's World this fall. Punky will be doing the Adventures in My Father's World program (designed for your eldest when he or she is in 2/3 grade) and Finny will follow along with the science, history, art and music - I'll just expect a little less of him when it comes to writing or retaining anything (he's only in 1st grade, but I didn't think I could swing two full curricula in my first attempt to go for it so we'll just adjust and make one work for them both).

I plan to use Singapore for both boys in math. Punky will be finishing 3A this summer and will start 3B sometime late summer or early fall. Finny just finished Math U See Alpha and will move into Singapore 1A as soon as I order it (we take summers mostly off, but we still read and do math).

I'm currently not planning on doing a specific LA program for the boys - they don't love sitting to do much of anything and my main goal this year is to get them learning about something (anything!) that excites them and hoping to hit a point where we all enjoy school again. We definitely got bogged down this last year and just got the basics done - which was good to hit those basics but in the end there was no love of learning ignited in any of us. So knowing how little they enjoy the language arts portions of schooling, I have no trouble leaving out the formal LA teaching for a year or two. I know they'll be doing enough with notebooking and the like with the MFW program - and I'm really OK with them lagging behind in language for a couple of years and then hitting them hard with a great self directed program in the middle school years and trusting that the holes will all be filled in at that point.

And I think that's it. The only other thing I am trying to figure out is how to get Goose some fun and educational Pre-K time. He'll be 4 in a few weeks, but his late birthday, shy personality and younger tendencies all made for the decision to hold him back and not consider him a kindergartner until he's newly 6. So technically he'd only be a "three year old preschooler" this year, so I'm not too worried. He won't start K stuff with Awana, church or anything else for two more years. I waffled for a while, but looking at how he's now maturing I'm so pleased we made the call that we made. He'll be so much happier as the oldest rather than the youngest child in any grade-related peer group he enters into, and I think he'll do much better at home when my expectations of him are a year lower. If I thought of him as that older year, I think we'd both get frustrated with the higher expectations that go along with that. I'd worry he wasn't doing enough and then I'd start to push him, he'd dig in his heels, and it wouldn't be pretty. ;o) So thinking of him as slightly younger, I think he'll just fly and do great and I'll be more at ease following his cues and readiness.

As for Girly Pie and Bug, well I'm just hoping I can put together a daily schedule/plan/routine that utilizes naps and quiet times enough to make for some focused school hours each morning with the bigger boys. I figure if I can get all the big guy school stuff done each morning that will leave my afternoons free to enjoy the smaller guys and the bigger two can then enjoy a bit of free time as well. We'll see though. Oh and we are doing a family Bible time each morning, too. So they'll be a part of that.

If there's one thing I've learned over the past few years as a homeschooling mother it's that no year goes the way I intend it to. We rarely accomplish what I plan to accomplish, but we always come away having learned something worth learning. So though I hope that this year we will finally find a groove that works for us all, I do not believe it will go the way I see it going in my mind's eye. But I'm OK with that.

The key thing for me is that I prayed over this coming year like crazy. And the peace and clarity I feel about the things we chose for the year are enough to make me feel quite good that we are on the right path and doing what we're supposed to be doing.

So let the fun begin. I can't WAIT to get that box on the front porch and see all the fun in store for us this year!