What a Summer!

It's been a summer I won't soon forget.  Can't believe it's over already,  (with a sigh of relief) I'm glad it is.  We as a family have finally hit a few "life goals."  My husband changed jobs and we've moved to another state.   We now live in the same state as most of my family resides in so the girls have had plenty of opportunities to see relatives.  I thought the girls might regress in their bravery after the move, but they haven't, which I'm so pleased to report.  We had a huge family reunion in August and there were so many cousins their age I couldn't count them all.  By the end of the day the girls were playing in different directions from one another and were answering yes and no questions and laughing out loud with those around them, which is so out of the box for them.   One step closer to our dream.  We found an old farm house with a little land out in the country and are striving to become more "self sustainable."   I've noticed the girls being just as comfortable in our new house as they were in our old and when asked, if they want to move back, I get a resounding "NO!"  They love being able to roam the backyard, hideout in their clubhouse and play under the pine trees.  We've collected shells at the beach, feathers wherever we can find them and are soon to start our leaf ID collection.  We've hiked my old stomping grounds, the woods,  I grew up in as a child and I'm also starting to introduce them to sewing.  We've watched a moth change from a fuzzy yellow caterpillar to a Virgina Tiger moth, I even have to admit that was a pretty cool!   We're planning for spring already,  with growing a garden and starting a 4-H compliant project raising chickens in our backyard. 
I have to report, we've switched curricula.  Another homeschool mom I love and respect, suggested Sonlight and so I looked into it and was impressed.   The girls and I Love LOVE Love books.  I lean toward a more eclectic/Charlotte Mason with a touch of unschooling thrown in kind of teaching style.   In my opinion, Sonight so far, is a much better fit for us.  
We've plugged into our local library and we started attending the same church my family goes to.  The church has been a tremendous resource for us and we're meeting other homeschool families around the area.  One family we've met lives right around the corner from us on 6 acres.  They also homeschool and are into homesteading.  My husband and our newly found friends are talking about joining forces to dive into aquaponics together in the neighbor's pole barn. I find it refreshing that there's an abundance of  people who share our values and ideas about how we think life should be lived close by.
I hope to impart upon my children a sense of community and being responsible for themselves as well as the Earth they've been blessed with.  My hope for them is that they grow braver everyday being surrounded by a close knit group of folks they can look up to and count on.  "It takes a village to raise a child."  I'm so happy to say after a long road around the world, we've finally found our very own village to plant some roots in.  Plants some roots and watch the children grow.   
 Praise be to Him , for God and Life IS so good! 

I hope you have had a splendid summer as well.  May your children be blessed and feel secure in the love and care you're giving to them.  Furthermore, if you're here seeking support or advice about your SM children, I hope they're blessed with a big brave bold voice, one small or gigantic step at a time.  Don't give up!  May God bless and keep you all.

  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.      Deuteronomy 6:5-7

Abdonded Ship

We did it.  We've got one year of homeschooling under our belts and I've already switched curricula.  I very much believe in Charlotte Mason's style of learning/teaching.  I quote ""In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mothers first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet and growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it for the most part spent out in the fresh air."  I agree with a gentle approach to my children's childhood, Affording them time to be a child and exploring their world.  I find it important to instill a love of the outdoors and nature for them.  I want them to be able to foster their own curiosity and seek out information on their own one day.   That's when we known we've succeeded as a teacher, when the student is capable of teaching themselves.
We used My Father's World for first grade and I really appreciated the approach in the way they lay out their lesson plans.  I do liked their planning and putting together a curriculum that teaches the Bible, but in my opinion they failed in a few key areas for 1st grade.  I didn't like their phonics program or their math.  Phonics really lacked any true rhyme or reason for the way they presented the sounds and there were no rules as to why.  As for their complete book of math, it's for grades 1-3 and also didn't seem to follow any sort of reason.  It had no real lessons, only work pages in the book to be completed.  Now in MFW defense, I have noticed they've upgraded their 1st grade phonics program, but not the math.  I have a friend that utilizes it for later grades and has nothing but good things to say so maybe I'll try it again some day.  Not sure.  I debated last year, when starting to homeschool,  using Sonlight but shied away from it due to the high price.  Little did I know they had a payment plan.  That's a really nice option.  I looked at it again for our second year and knew I was going to do something different no matter the cost.  Our first year wasn't a total waste, it was a great learning curve for them and for me.  We pounded out basics of learning to tell time, got the calendar down, we worked a lot of character building.  I also spent many days with them outside collecting leaves, bugs, feathers and pine cones.  We walked off Noah's Ark in the backyard, that was a pretty good sized boat and the science projects they suggested were easy and fun.  After pouring over many homeschool reviews I still kept coming back to Sonlight.  I caved and ordered Core B with the first grade readers on a 4 day lesson plan.  I also ordered All About Spelling because they needed a spelling program this year and also because I've heard so many good things about it abilities to teach phonics too.  A little tip, we took the back of a white board ( white board was purchased at Lowes for around $30) and I painted the back of the white board with magnetic paint.  It's perfect for what we need!
For math Sonlight suggests  Saxon Math, but I went with Math Mammoth.   It uses the heuristic approach,  which refers to experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery and it was very affordable.  Probably the cheapest part of our year so far!
The Sonlight box came the other day and the kids were so excited.  They pulled everything out, we put it all together and I got everything ready to go for our first day of school.  Our first day came and after we did our seat work part of the day,.......math, writing, spelling, we moved to the couch with a snack and read all the required reading for the day.  It was such a nice change of pace, being in our jammies on the couch reading about people of the world doing a few devotionals and reading aloud Charlotte's Web.  The kids also brought something out to play with on the living room floor when they couldn't sit still on the couch any longer and I actually think they participated more freely because they were not stuck to a chair behind the kitchen table.  There are questions Sonlight poses for thought after you've read  the stories and I've been amazed by my little ones answers.  They're intelligent thought out responses and sometimes very poignant.   My little girls!
As for them talking in public, we're still working very hard on being brave.  They're asking more often when we go out on errands if they can be brave.  They still are earning "be brave" cards during the week and once they've hit their quota for the week they're allowed to turn them in for a reward.  They do get instant gratification rewards too when we're out, the very first time we stop somewhere they need to 'be brave' and they'll get a Hershey's Kiss when we get back into the car.  Then the rest of the day is for working toward their cards.  I've been doing more of the hand over techniques that one person on here suggested, but still not getting any spontaneous speech on their own, however they aren't nearly as shy about handing over their gum, money or whatever I hand them to give to said person.  They have taken huge strides in the past year which I can not dismiss so easily.  They are much more apt to make eye contact.  They hardly ever hide behind me anymore and I don't have to coax them near as much as I used to to get them to speak.  They will readily answer forced choice questions without much difficulty and I can even get them to parrot back a whole sentence like "Have a good weekend" to complete strangers!  I'm really pleased and proud of their progress. 

Other than curriculum changes we have more on the horizon, but I'll post more on that later.
   Please know we're praying for your success with the little ones that you love who are affected by Selective Mustism too.
If you have any questions for me or comments then please leave them below.

God Bless.