Category: thoughts

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Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

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Making a "Box Day" for Gilbert. When you've homeschooled as long as I have with so many kids you can shop your shelves. We're doing Bookshark 8 this year and I already owned well over half of these books. (However, if I hadn't, the package deal with Bookshark *is* a pretty good price.) There are two on Kindle not pictured here: Bomb and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We start next week!..#bookshark #homeschooling #boxday
Posted by Intagrate Lite

minor accomplishments

Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

Today I moved some furniture around to get kids bedrooms sorted out. We folded some people into different rooms when Mom moved in, and now I’m sorting that back out. The happiest person about it is Gilbert, who has been sleeping in the living room for the summer. He gets a Room with a Door again, and will no longer go to sleep when the last kid goes to bed and awaken when the first one gets up.

I’m still pumped about homeschool this year. Most of the stuff I ordered to fill in the few books we don’t already have will be here this week. I’m going to start next Monday, which is the Feast of the Transfiguration, and also when we’ll note Lammas Day – a bit late, but still in Lammastide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lammas

Bookshark for us!

Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

I’m not really an unschooler, you know. I’m too mother-directed. But I’m not formal enough for the other types. I guess I’m eclectic, which is not much of a label, so. But, after that caveat which I say every single time the subject of our homeschool comes up because I am a flake, with considerable back and forth we have decided we are going with Bookshark this year!

Last year we used Oak Meadow. My kids liked it okay, and retained quite a bit but it’s kinda dry. And it was difficult to keep up with because the lessons are weekly, not daily, so that meant I had to do three kids’ dailies every week. I have too many other responsibilities to make that a priority, so that meant every week was a bit of a slog as each child brought me their book (or didn’t) and asked me what they were supposed to do. Every day. And then my mom got sick and everything but math stopped completely.

Bookshark, like Sonlight, is literature based. Gilbert, a rising 8th grader, will be in Level 8, History of Science. (It looks so. cool. I mean, I would have loved this at his age. And now, which is great, because I’ll be reading all the books so he has a discussion partner.) Trixie, rising 7th grade, is doing Level 6, World History 1. And finally, Gloria, rising 5th, is doing Level 3, American History 1. Bookshark levels cover a wide age range. Level 8 is for 13-15, Level 6 for 11-13, and Level 3 for 8-11. They aren’t really like grades in a brick and mortar school. And everyone has math appropriate to their ability. This year we’re going with Teaching Textbooks, the streaming option. I kind of go back and forth between TT and Saxon every year, but since Sean gets an employee discount the choice was easier.

One of the things I really like about Bookshark is the four-day week. I hope that mostly that means we’ll have one day free and clear, but I know that a lot of the time the kids will want to spread out into that day. Now we’ll have a good buffer zone, no rush to get things done or fall behind where we want to go.

So I’m going all in until about the middle of October when I’ll be in babyland until the new year. Then back to it!

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Posted on by Phoebe Gleeson

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I'm leaving you, Facebook! I'll still be on Instagram, and blogging at feebeeglee.com a few times a week. But I have a wonderful fall planned for homeschool and I'm afraid Zuckerland and its timesucking abilities are not included I'll post if anything big happens, like, oh, I have a baby. Until then, adieu!
Posted by Intagrate Lite