CM Organizer

Today went well. We finished up the day with the kids having their swim classes and the Transformer having soccer practice.

I'm using a trial of CM Organizer from the SimplyCharlotteMason.com site. I had tried it last year or so, and it wasn't right for me at that time. However, I decided to give it another shot and have really been enjoying using it. I started using it last week to keep track of what my children had covered but really didn't have it set up with enough resources to fully rely on it until today. I'm still referring to my Excel printout but should be able to wean myself onto completely relying on the online organizer soon.

As for what we did today, we started our last worksheet for the Bible Study Guide for All Ages (Unit 2). After we complete it this week, we will move onto reading from Bible story books from the unofficial Ambleside Online Year 0.5 booklist. It will be a nice change of pace, I think. I had thought we would try to follow the KidStuff curriculum that the kids do on Sundays, and we will try that too, I think.

The Transformer is doing great with his reading! He is on the next to last lesson in The Reading Lesson, so I imagine he will be done with the whole book in two weeks or so. He's doing some remedial work in a language arts workbook just to review some things and to give him some easy work. We'll move onto some other stuff as we continue to finish up some other items in this year's curriculum plan.

He is continuing to work on Miquon's Orange Book (Level 1). He was starting to get a bit lazy and lost in his work (high percentage of wrong answers), so I am having him use the Cuisenaire rods for each problem he does. He will actually use them, kind of, guessing at what other rod should be making up the answer; I am therefore having him actually pick out the missing rod so that he has physical evidence of the correct answer.

The Kitty Cat has been working on blend ladder activities from My Father's World. She is doing really well! Each set of blend ladder activities ends in writing out 3-4 words. I have her build those words on the blend ladder with her crepe letters and printed ladder. Then I have her copy them, making sure to form her letters correctly. At this stage, she writes on unlined paper because she becomes overwhelmed with lined paper.

I am hoping that I can get more structured and intentional about the subjects that we cover, incorporating more subjects regularly, such as handicrafts, foreign language, and artist and composer study.

I still have a lot to learn about CM methods, that's for sure.

I have to admit, Sonlight's new catalogue arrived, and I couldn't help myself. I just started dreaming about using one of their IGs and their booklists, etc. I felt so committed this time to stop flirting with using it and finally just do it. But in about a day's time, I had come back full circle to embracing CM philosophy. That doesn't mean that I won't use Sonlight's booklist. I am probably going to use their science curriculum since I really need some structure and guidance in that area.

Well, we'll see how things shape up for next school year soon...