Twenty-Three Days Into Our School Year

We have completed twenty-three days of school.  So far, this year has flowed rather smoothly.  At first, it was taking a LONG time to get through the school days.  But, in the last couple of weeks, a rhythm developed, and my girl is finishing her work for the day in 3-4 hours.

We have been reading aloud regularly, which is often the first thing to go when life gets busy.  I have had a much easier time blending homeschooling with college classes. And with my new grandson due in the next month, helping my daughter with my first grandson has been a treat!

I have a strong literary focus this year in our homeschool.  Perhaps it was the inspiration of Sarah Mackenzie and her book, The Read-Aloud Family.  Perhaps it was reviewing Sally and Clay Clarkson's book, Educating the Whole-Hearted Child.  Either way, I dropped our Heart of Dakota to half-time so I could add more literature and some extra math.

My girl is working diligently, and she is loving the extra literature.  We are both such bookworms that extra reading is a delight.  Yes, Heart of Dakota is a literature-based curriculum, but I have found that sometimes the emphasis on history can feel like overload after awhile, taking away the joy of reading other things.  I am using a lot of Heart of Dakota's Drawn Into The Heart of Reading (DITHOR) this year.  I love that I can choose the literature.  Over the next couple of years I will mix DITHOR and Ace's Literature and Creative Writing. 

I plan to begin weekly updates.  I don't always, with college classes and busy lives, get to post as often as I used to when the older girls were home.  I was looking at some of my older posts, and I loved the times I posted weekly updates.  It was so awesome to look back at the things we worked on and the lessons learned. 

When I kept the weekly updates, I more diligently recorded the art work, what we were learning, the adventures, the ups as well as the downs.  I was more diligent about taking pictures of what we did.  It was such a great record of our homeschool, and a glimpse into our lives.  I loved looking back!  It even helped me with planning what I wanted to do for my youngest girl when I see what I loved and what I hated in the past.

Here's to the more recording of the adventure of Sixth Grade!