Can you lick your elbow?

So I have been MIA in blog land but things have been moving right along here at home. Like this.....

 a typical day of homeschooling. I don't even remember what lesson we were doing when this topic came up and we had to take a "contest" break.

 We started back to school about a month ago. I still have a list of curriculum I need to buy for this year so we started by finishing up the things we did not finish last year. We had a few weeks of lessons left on the My Father's World-Rome to the Reformation. We have been working on finishing that before we start Exploration to 1850. Hopefully by the time we finish that I will have the funds to get the rest of what we need for this year which is mostly our read alouds, progeny press study guides, and some supplemental material for the girls.

Kenyon is doing a Baptist Heritage course this year that I am really pleased with. The author spoke at our church during our mission conference. We learned soooo much so I just had to buy the books. I did the course myself through the summer and Kenyon is doing it now. I now see why knowing where we come from is important for more than just cultural reasons. I may have more on this topic later if I can find the time and the words to write it out.

Keslee has still been having trouble with reading. She can read pretty good but not nearly as well as Kalysa or Kenyon when he was her age. Her writing/spelling is awful as well. She loves to write stories but I have a hard time reading them when she is finished. She has gotten into the habit of spelling words just the way they sound (which I know is allowed in many public schools now) and most of her words had no vowels. I have started Alphabet Island with her this year and I.AM.SO.IMPRESSED! We went ahead and started in level one, even though she knows all the sounds of the letters and can read and write 3 letter words with no problem and will be able to go through several of the lessons really quickly, but the beginning had a very detailed story about the vowels and how they "act". It has already opened up a whole new world for her. She has always been my child that need to experience things with ALL her senses in order to fully "get" it and Alphabet Island does that for her. Every letter is a different character (boy or girl) and they all have things they can or can not do. The story is phenomenal. The authors are obviously geniuses to come up with an on going story line detailing the way each "person" "acts". After just 10 lessons, I can read her stories. Her spelling has improved 100%! She is just as excited as I am because she doesn't have to struggle with it. It is finally making sense to her-YAY!!!!

We are still using Math U See and the girls are doing SRAs for reading comprehension. The girls are also starting to learn the recorder. That will help them get the basics down on reading music and then I hope to teach them both piano lessons. My mother said we can have her piano we just have not had a way to move it over here yet. I took piano lessons for about a year and I played the clarinet for 8 years so I should be able to get them started off with piano before we have to search out a "real" teacher.

Well, that is an overview of what is up here and I guess will work just fine as my introduction back into blogging.☺ Thanks for stopping by!