Home from the Tetons, starting a new school year

We just got back from our family trip to Grand Tetons National Park.

Our reward for driving off at 8 am: a stunning Tetons view.

I've seen a lot of parks, but this was my first time there. We had a home base at Jackson Lake Lodge due to Dan's work but the kids and I were able to play everyday while Dan was at his conference. My favorite part of the week was seeing a moose for the first time in my life. We prayed to see one and were given one eating right next to the street! We started keeping Nature Journals during our trip and tried to draw bisons. Apparently, a "still" bison actually moves a lot, so we resorted to drawing flowers and grasses.

Now that we're back, and learning isn't getting in the way of homeschooling, we're getting back into gear with respect to homeschooling. We're going to give KONOS a month's trial since I really want to use a curriculum that facilitates my children learning together. We'll also read through the Mr. Q Science book as a science spine. Otherwise, our curriculum isn't much changed from last year, with The Writing Road to Reading replacing it's knock-off, Spell to Write and Read and Anna doing her own math this year. 

The trouble with message boards

I used to love message boards, but I promised my hubby I'd go message board free for six months if we bought a certain curriculum. I made the promise for a few reasons. First, the point of a curriculum, for me, is to save time, so if I spend hours figuring out ways to tweak it, I shouldn't be paying lots of money for it. Second, I knew that I'd quickly become dissatisfied with any curriculum if I saw all the opinions people gave about it on a message board.

So, as with some time removed from message boards, I can see how discontent I become when I read them. The board is gossip central, with everyone talking about their new and exciting curriculum. Everyone has a brilliant child (or, at least, the outspoken people are ones with brilliant children, or, minimally, children who happened to have a brilliant five minutes that morning) and is eager to share how this that or the other curriculum was too simple/boring/slow for their child. Well, I want my children to show signs of brilliance and then start looking for that same curriculum to fail for my child, or I may just pine for that new, more perfect curriculum that will effortlessly teach my child how to spell/write/speak Spanish/train elephants/etc.

Our math curriculum is a victim of the message boards. I loved Right Start A. It was perfect. Everyday was exhilarating. Even though we haven't consistently RSed since October, I can see my son's ability to understand the math I teach him stemming directly from the great RS foundation he has.

However, comments on the boards talked about how "slow" RS is (another word for slow could be "thorough" or "careful")  and about how their children were "bored" (it is somewhat scripted, but one doesn't have to spend a lot of time on each section). Then, I, wanting to turn against it, started agreeing.

We're going back to RS tomorrow. It deserves a chance. It is exceptionally thorough and teaches concepts from multiple viewpoints. It will help prevent "holes" - which really can exist! My son is dangerous because he can figure things out, which I could do, too. The danger is that you figure out the motions to go through without actually understanding. I don't think RS will allow that!

Here's my commitment:
- four weeks
- four days per week
- 20-25 minutes per day
- do all sections
- continue to next section without extra review if seems appropriate

I'll update with my new opinion of RS in mid-February.