Waiting, Watching, Listening

I haven't been keeping up with my blog like I should, but I have a sort of good reason for not doing so:  Nothing Much has been going on.  The past month has been more floating through life than participating in it.  I don't think this is something bad, however, it doesn't make for exciting or interesting blog posts. 

The summer is rapidly approaching and I've done about all I can do to prepare for beginning homeschool.  My final curriculum choices have been set:

Saxon Math Grade 1
First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind
Spelling, Vocabulary and Sight Words Workbooks (If, and Evan-Moor)
Geography Workbooks (Evan-Moor)
R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey
Daily Art Projects ranging from painting, drawing, sculpting (I'm doing an unschooling approach with this)
Instant Immersion Spanish for the computer
Piano Wizard for the computer supplemented with weekly piano lessons from a good friend
P.E. will be daily workouts along with logging our progress on Lance Armstrong's website, The Daily Plate, with the eventual inclusion of some local sport or activity like karate.

I'm going to be tracking his progress (and mine) on Homeschool Tracker basic along with some written stuff.  I hope to see which one suits me best as we go along.  The homeschool Tracker basic is free and they have an advanced version that I may end up getting if I find that it would be useful but good to start off with the stripped down model.

I have 'finished' the cleanup in the office/guest room/homeschool room.  What an ordeal that was!  The yarn alone was a monumental feat all by itself!  Needless to say, I have enough yarn to last my knitting pleasures for at least 3 lifetimes.  I will do a separate post on that one once we get the final touches done on the room.

School has been thankfully and disappointingly a non-issue.  Thankful in the fact that we seem to be quieting down from trouble, but disappointed because we are going tediously slow through school work projects.  I praise Logan for having the patience because I surely wouldn't.  And as glad as I am that we are rapidly approaching the last day of school (Exactly 5 weeks to go!), I'm not looking forward to the room mother duties that I signed myself up for long ago.  We have a party and a field day.  Is it wrong to want fain illness on those days or just go ahead and pull him out?  I won't, but begrudged I will be.

So we wait and we watch.  Everyday Logan is asking when can we get started and I point to the big 4 on the June calender.  I stress the importance of finishing what we start and that he is (barely) learning something in school right now and it is important.  As each days goes on for me, I listen for clues to help us on this new journey as we close in on it:  How he learns, where his interests are focused and what his setbacks might possibly be.  So far, I see someone who is a 'connected learner', in that he learns through connections of things, his most recent was the connection of the directions North and West and wondering if the Worth in Forth Worth was a combination of North and West.  He wants to explore and is finally becoming okay with getting his hands dirty so I hope to have many hands on science activities and reintroduce him to the fine art of finger painting.  We're going to work on slowing down and listening to the world around us, contemplating how we can achieve what it is we want to.  We're going to remove the overriding stress of 'get it done' so that we can really look at the why of what we're doing -not just keeping up with the class for the sake of moving on to another subject.  In other words, "Yes, you can add and subtract, but why is that important, where do we use this, how does this apply to science, art, history?"

Until around June 4th, it's very likely posts will be sporadic, but I will be around!  Once our adventure really begins -things will be fun to report!

Loganism for the day -Daddy, "If you have a good week next week, you can get a new Wii game."
Logan, "How about two games?"
Daddy, "One good week equals one Wii game."
Logan, "So if I have another good week I can have another Wii game?"
Daddy, "Uhhhh....."
Good one, Daddy! :)