Sometimes life gets a bit overwhelming and you just need to change things up a bit! We have decided that due to the craziness around here lately, we are going to cut back to 3 full days, 2 light days of lessons and NO work on the weekends! This is our first week of trying this routine and so far it is already feeling like what we needed. It basically works out that the days that we have the Littles will be our light days and the days that we don't have them are the full days.

I have changed up some of her workload as well to accommodate this schedule. One of the new things that she has been enjoying is Brain Pop! She really likes the movie clips and activities. I really like that she can email me the quizzes and it is one less thing that I have to really think about. She is using with the Physics kit and has been searching the site for the key words in her manual to correlate with the program - LOVE IT!!! She is taking her own initiative to expand on the subjects - HOW GREAT IS THAT!

She completed the Writing Strands 3 & 4 and did a really fantastic job on them so we have also decided to take a break on formal writing and focus more on prompt writing. We will be using 350 Fabulous Writing Prompts and 100 Quickwrites both by Scholastic. They are great prompts and readings that you go over and then allow a set amount of time to write without stopping or correcting. This gives very little time for editing in the head before getting it down on the paper and allows for more of a flow of writing. You can go back later and edit or redo something if you want to, but right now it is more about just getting her to write and not feeling pressure about it.

KM has also decided that she really doesn't like the Ancient Greece thematic unit from Teacher Created Resources. We have tried few different ones with varied success and I thought that she would like this one because it was a more challenging level, but there were some errors in the mapping section - like it tells you to locate Egypt on the map, but Egypt was not shown on the map - and therefore she has no faith in the content. I am also wondering if she is just getting sick of the Ancients, so we are going to stick with the lapbook, more of the multimedia things, - another reason why we splurged for the BrainPOP subscription - and of course the myths, because she loves EVERYTHING about them!

She has also begun to use the Tell Me More Spanish - which we got during the Homeschool Buyers' Co-op group buy last summer - and she REALLY is enjoying it. I think that the voice recognition is such an incredible key to her confidence in it! This program really seems to cover all aspects of recognition, memorization and understanding. She has been doing it daily without any qualms or complaints.

As always we will be constantly evaluating and reorganizing our path, but hey isn't that one of the many reasons why we homeschool - to give our kids exactly what they NEED WHEN they need it!