Birthday Party, Cub Scouts, & Curriculum Stress

Saturday is CG's birthday party.  We are having a WALL E theme and I am going to bake and decorate his cake myself this year.  Well, try to decorate it at least!  I'm actually baking a cake from scratch!  Oh my goodness....

And yes, for the record, his actual birthday was last month, but when you procrastinate (which is my way) you kind of have to take what you can get!  Thankfully he doesn't care too much.

With the whole birthday party thing I've discovered another reason I love homeschooling so much - you get to invite only the people you really like!  THAT my friends is awesome!  A handpicked group of friends makes the party that much nicer.  CG and I sat down and made a list of the kids he really wanted to have there and surprisingly the group is quite varied.  Kids from ages 3 to 11 were on his list.  Very cool.

Last Saturday was his pack's Blue and Gold Banquet.  I ended up making cupcakes.  Yes, from scratch.  It was the recipe I wanted to make for CG's birthday party and I decided I'd rather guinea pig a big group of people I barely know instead of the small group of people I know really well!  They were the first desert to disappear!  So, the recipe is solid - it's just the decorating part that may end up being lame.

I'm totally stressed about not finishing our Core by the end of the school year.  I'm not sure why....

I'm trying not to let it bother me.  Really, really trying.  I know until he gets to high school (when you have to start keeping transcripts and credits) starting cores a little off is no big deal.  Honestly, I know that.  But I still can't help thinking that somehow I should try and make it right.  It makes me so annoyed with myself.  I've even tried to sit down and figure out how many weeks we will have left in Core 1 when we finish our 180 days and how far off that will put us into 3rd grade and blah blah blah.  Seriously, I think I need help.

Then there's math...

We have been through a plethora of math curricula this year.  OK - perhaps not a plethora but I LOVE that word and don't get to use it all that much!  Here's how our math year went...

MCP B (not complete) - he hated it

Saxon 1 & 2 (not complete) - he was ok with this, but the spiral was so s l o w

Singapore 1A & 1B (not complete) - this was a decent program, but he never quite got the hang of 'number bonds' rather than 'number families'

We are back to using MCP B - and this time he likes it.  I have cut down a lot of problems per page and that may be helping.  But I also think it's because he's doing stuff he knows, so he doesn't have to work too hard at it.  I gave him the chapter check ups and kept moving forward until we got to something he had problems with or hadn't learned yet, and when we reached that point I started having him do the whole chapter.  Long story to say - what curricula do I use next year?  I wanted to try Horizons or Teaching Textbooks (if he can test into TT 4).  He's good with MCP now, but how will he be when he's struggling and learning new things again?  Oh the quandary of it all....   One thing I do know - whichever I pick is the only program we will be using next year.  None of this skipping around and junk.  I need to stop second guessing myself.....