Life on Planet Caddick

Well things are clipping along at a pretty even pace here at All Saints.  I hoped that we would be able to start our Sonlight and Apologia Science next week - but we haven't quite finished up some of the things we are currently working on.  We have to finish reading Midnight on the Moon and studying Arctic Penguins - two things CG specifically asked to do - so we are now looking at starting our newest new curricula on the week of the 8th. We did get our Sonlight order this week and let me tell you - that was exciting!  They call it Box Day in the Sonlight realm - and it is super cool.  We did an easy day that day so I could go through all the books and set up the library shelves and stuff.  Let's face it - I was way more excited than CG - but his favorite time of the day is reading time (we are reading Midnight on the Moon out loud) so I think that this may really be a good fit for us.  Apologia is also read aloud - so I fear I may lose my voice until I'm used to reading al

Who would have thought that choosing the right curriculum would be so hard?  But alas, that is the way of homeschooling.  I have been congratulated on a couple of my online groups for being brave enough to change.  Apparently that's something that "newbies" don't do very often. This past week I ordered Apologia Science (Elementary Astronomy) and Sonlight Core 1+2.  The Sonlight is for reading, history, and geography.  Even though CG is not a huge fan of reading we are going to give it a whirl.  He likes to be read to and enjoys the days we curl up on the couch and read together - so this should make school a lot more fun for him.  I also ordered a kit to go with the science - it has all the things you need to do the hands on in the science book.  Science + hands on = extremely happy CG! I also ordered some grade one books on the Lutheran Faith.  I know, he's in second - but lets face it; our church ways have been pretty minimal.  So I figured we could do the grade

Well more changes arrived at All Saints Academy the past couple weeks.  The unit study went very well!  CG loved doing little projects and different things.  He didn't like putting the stuff into the lapbook when done though.  So - this past week we focused our science study on all (of all things) bubbles.  Of course CG LOVES bubbles so I figured we can't go wrong here.  We didn't, but this time instead of making a lapbook we made a notebook.  I still ended up glueing most of the stuff onto the pages though.  While it seems like it's working better as far as him retaining information he's not the 'put it together' kind of kid.  I think we are going to stick with this style of learning though - or maybe try some of the Charlotte Mason techniques.   Math - we have changed.  We now use Saxon Math.  You either love or hate this program and we love it.  A lot of hands on with a worksheet every day.  CG loves it and is doing very well so far at remembering stuff w

OK, so it may not be a big deal to all the 'seasoned' homeschoolers out there - but we did finish our second week of homeschool.  This week went much less smoothly than the first.  CG was wondering why he had to do "so many"  worksheets.  I didn't have a good answer.  So we are deviating from our "very much like school" approach next week. For one week we are trying a unit study.  I found an awesome site called home school share (I will add it to the links).  Anyway they have free unit studies that other people (who are way more experienced and creative than I) have put together.  We are trying a literature based unit on "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs".  The unit (for those of you who don't know) will include everything except math (unfortunately still worksheets) and spelling.  So, hopefully CG will like this approach and actually be able to tell people what he's learned over the week (because, yes, they do ask - which is rude I th