Homeschool Mania! Week 1

This week was our first week of school.  I originally was going to begin last week, but decided to hold off for another week to see how the first day of co-op was going to go.  This semester I decided to go for extra craziness and teach two classes.  Here's a breakdown of how it goes.  There are 3 hours of co-op.  The rule is you have to either teach or assist.  You can teach one and assist one, teach two, or assist two.  Theoretically, you get one of the three hours off.  Many times there is a need to fill in for someone who can't be there.  Okay, so there was a need and I decided to go for it.  Yeah.  I'm enjoying the teaching part, but the prep part is challenging.  I got one of my classes' itinerary finished completely, while the other one is still in rough draft form and I'm finishing up the guts of it each week.  On the plus side, I've started going to the library lots!  I haven't been to the library for about 5 or 6 years.  I never really needed to...the internet is so stinkin' handy at times.  Anyway, I'm enjoying using the library resources and hopefully, the kiddos will get to where they enjoy going, too.

We went with Sonlight for Braden and Cait's Curriculum for Zekes and possibly Ailey....  I am waiting to start Zekey's next week because I ordered his curriculum late and I am grateful for the reprieve to get Braden in a groove first.  Its been a crazy week, but its been good.  Braden stays busy almost the whole day.  I've got to figure out how to plan play/down time into our day, but we'll get it.  The Sonlight curriculum is VERY structured and I'm going to have to tweak it a bit to fit us a bit better, but so far, I really like it lots.  I like how it is set up and the kinds of info that is integrated all together.  I love how I didn't have to put any of it together, though I must say it would have behooved me to study the instructor's guide quite a bit more before the first day instead of just diving in.  You kind of have to figure it out.

The reason for getting Zekey started later is I really thought that the My Father's World curriculum that I have was pre-k.  Its Kindergarten.  So I got online and did a thorough search for Chrisitan pre-k curriculum and came across Cait's Curriculum.  It is a cd-rom that has all the stuff on it.  You can print out however many you need.  No limit.  You can use it with as many children as you want, which was a plus for us!  It is comprehensive and all set up as far as structure and scheduling.  All I have to do is print the stuff out.  It was also not much more than I paid for the MFW, which is good, but not the way I wanted to go this time around.  I want something that I don't have to keep purchasing the consumables with and that is a much more put together for me.  I intend to have the littles go through this curriculum and then Zekes will start on Sonlight next year, too.  By the time Zekey hits second grade, we'll only have to buy the full curriculum for Braden each year and only the consumables for the other kiddos as we go along in each grade.  LOVE that!!!