May 31

Time got away from me again and it has been a while since I blogged. Just not enough time in the day. Zach is asleep so I have a few brief minutes ... hopefully!

Books lately:

I just finished "Homescholing: Take a Deep Breath --- You Can Do This!" by Terrie Lynn Bittner. I really enjoyed this one as it was written at not such as a dumbed down or simplistic level as some I have seen. It is still a good intro but goes into more detail while still providing a good breadth of topics. She has resources (books and websites) listed at the end of most chapters which were nice. Since it was a current publication date, the websites were also pretty much current too. That is always a plus. ;-) Anyway, it actually was quite a balanced viewpoint (she is a homeschooler), encouraging homeschooling but preparing the reader realistically rather than simply being a cheerleader style that everything will be wonderful. I highly recommend this one.

I also read "A Girl Named Zippy" by Haven Kimmel. This was a simple biography about the author's young childhood. I zipped (haha) through this one. It was interesting and enjoyable but not on one of my greastest books of all times list. I'm trying to encourage myself to read more biographies, typically not my favorites, and started with this lighter one to ease into it. It had some book club discussion questions in the back that I enjoyed reading and pondering. It probably would have been interesting to actually do this one as a book club honestly, a decent conversation starter without too much controversy.

I have probably read at least one more since my last update but I can't recall it. I read a couple parenting books, continually trying to improve on techniques to use for Zach that are effective yet gentle to his strong personality. I continue on my nonfiction trend and am enjoying learning and reading, typical of when my stress levels are lower.

We continue to accumulate all our Sonlight Pre-K curriculum books. The actual instructor's guide and some of the books arrived last week from Sonlight. Rather expensive for what they were I felt honestly. The rest of the selections I have been buying slowly used and have a few more left to hunt down. I still plan to start probably once I have the full set. I'm too much of a perfectionist to start prior to having all the books. Because of that I will likely do Sonlight as per the IG the first year and Janet's expanded schedule (with workbooks for math and handwriting plus extra read-alouds) in a second pre-K year prior to moving Zach on to kindergarten, again likely with Sonlight provided it goes well. Tommorow there is a local used curriculum sale of homeschools that I am going to and am hopeful for getting a few books maybe or just getting to see some of the other curriculum books "in person" since I haven't gotten to go to a convention or see displays from the vendors. It is sponsered through the SD Home Education group.

One thing the homeschool book I last read encouraged was that children dictate stories and notes prior to being able to write. It was not geared to someone as young as Zach but I'm going to hopefully try it this afternoon and start to make his blog his very own thoughts (written by me). If I can successfully keep up with this and he is cooperative (two big ifs) I think it would be wonderful to see his words and thoughts continue as he grows and develops. I loved the idea of getting his words and thoughts down more objectively. The author's suggestion was paper or journal, but online is honestly quite a bit easier for me.

Zach is still asleep so I'm going to sneak off for a little of my own reading. I'm starting "A Simple Path" by Mother Teresa today for my own reading, probably intermixed with a book called "Ready Start School: Nurturing and Guiding Your Child Through Preschool and Kindergarten" by Sandra F. Rief, M.A. That one doesn't look as good but is worth a glance before I return it to the library.