Year End Wrap-Up

"The Plan" was a success in many ways, though things didn't quite work out exactly as planned.

Here's what we planned:

• In the Beginning
• "The Plan" - Part 1:  History and American History Reading List
• "The Plan" - Part 2: Math
• "The Plan" - Part 3: Science and Must Have Books
• "The Plan" - Part 4: U.S. Geography

When summer was over, we had achieved our goal of finishing our Anatomy Study and made it through quite a bit of our History, but reality was already starting to rear its ugly head and we had our first "Change of Plans".  We scaled back a little and started to move more toward a Charlotte Mason approach to homeschooling.

After our new baby girl Amber arrived in October and we proceeded, as anticipated, to a "Homeschool Lite" schedule.  What I didn't anticipate was that my adorable three year old would be more of a challenge to our homeschooling schedule than my new baby.  So we tried to adapt and get "Back in the Saddle Again" around December.  

In December, we also realized that we would not be continuing CC in the Spring.  Chris had taken the boys to CC finish up the Fall Semester after Amber was born. For various reasons, we could not continue that in the Spring and decided it was best for our family to take a break from CC Classes.  We continued to do the weekly studies on our own for a while, but that too stopped around Week 16.

The new year started out rough, but I leaned into "Their ideas" instead of just my ideas, we made some changes and we started to make progress again.  We continued our progress to a more Charlote Mason approach to homeschooling i.e. more living books, less textbooks and worksheets.  We added Xtra Math and I accepted that for the first time we would not be completing all our curricula and I was okay with that.

We have spent more time this spring reading quality literature.  We also instituted a new privilege for Lance and Jared.  After we put Titus to sleep at night, they are allowed to read quietly in their rooms till "the sun goes down", which is a little longer every night.  They have blossomed with this new privilege.  I think Lance actually sleeps better when he calms down reading a good book first, which makes his days go better.  

Also we have spent a lot more time enjoying "Fine Art Fridays" by ourselves and with our friends.  Jared really enjoys these lessons, as does Lance and even Titus.  Doing them on Fridays has allowed us to include not only our homeschool friends but also our public school friends on their days off.

Here are the end results:

• We didn't make it all the way through American History, instead we went deeply till just after the American Revolution.  We used our curricula as a back bone and added many living books and DVDs.  I am pleased with this change of plans because I think my boys will retain what we learned better than had we glossed over the entire period of American History.  The next time we study American History we will be able to quickly review up to this point and then go deep again into all that follows.
• Math went pretty much as planned we just fell a little behind in our studies.  It was partially my fault, as it was an area of conflict so I avoided assigning it during the Fall with the new baby.  Thankfully, we've worked out the emotional blockages and will finish CLE Math by the end of summer(still three Light Units left).  Even so, this is not a great concern since both boys are a year ahead of their grade level in math.  I think changing from  "Calculadder" to Xtra Math has helped a lot, as mastery of math facts makes higher math much easier.  Plus the carrot of  "Life of Fred" living books as a treat each time Lance has a quiz or test has been a great motivator.
• Anatomy was a complete success this summer as summarized above.  Though we had great plans to finish a Chemistry curricula as well, it just never happened.  We will try again this summer.
• U.S. Geography started out strong but I must admit I puttered out after a while.  Nonetheless the boys can locate all 50 states on a map and name most of the capitals.
• Language Arts is an evolving subject but I think we have a plan for how to approach it this coming year.  Two changes that have taken off are the "All About Spelling" curricula and daily "Journal Writing"; reading we have covered.

I am confident we have "shown progress" to appease the state this year. In fact I think we've made some very important changes in how we do things that I too am pleased with.  I've already started on my plan for next year and there will be some big changes I'm excited about.  Our new year starts June 1st and I'll finish up my plan in May.  In the mean time, we will work on finishing our CLE Math, CLE Bible curricula and enjoying the fine arts.


Note: for anyone who is starting to plan for CC Cycle One in the fall I highly suggest reading these two posts by my friend Brandy:
Classical Conversations Cycle 1 Planner
Preparing for Essentials

**The garden flag pictures have nothing to do with this post. I just loved the fact the boys spontaneously made them on their own one day while I was upstairs with Amber so I wanted to include them :-)