I’m supposed to be setting up my curriculum for next school year, within the next few weeks. Since Tim will be official, I’m going to use my church as an umbrella, at least for the first year. They require me to turn in a lesson plan, I believe for a year, just a basic idea of what I’m going to teach.

I sat down to start this yesterday, not too concerned about it. I did this all on my own last year and had no clue what I was doing, but it worked, and it worked well! So, no worries, right?! I couldn’t figure out where to start! I clammed up, just like I did last year! He’s already doing 1st grade for language arts and math, so I’m having a hard time figuring out where to start, based on the skills they want him to be learning. He HATES repetition, so I don’t really want to start at the beginning of 1st grade. I’m really confused, and I hate that! I like knowing exactly what I’m going to be doing, it just makes everything run together more smoothly.

So, I’m going to pick a couple of online curriculums, T4L being one, and look at what is there in terms of grade level, then use that as a jumping point to write the rest. I don’t know any other way to do this and have it somewhat organized! I know I’m not the only one here that writes my own curriculum, so how do the rest of you figure out where to start for a new year?

I thought I’d blog a few of my random thoughts this morning!

As we’re winding down the school year, I’m having a hard time concentrating.  I keep planning next year in my head!

I have to decide who will use T4L.  You know, it would be great if you could do T4L ala carte….   My older son does great on his own, actually he does better on his own,  in everything but Math.  I have yet to hit the right combination for him for Math.   Since our budget is so very limited, it would be great if I could have two kids in the full program and just have Math for one….

Going dormant…..anyone?  We decided to go dormant for June and July and start back with T4L in August.  It looks like our 2 year old may be headed for open heart surgery this summer… (A personal note and prayer request here!)

I’m planning on some nature study, art classes (putting it together myself) and some light phonics and math drills using flashcards and fun workbooks.  It’ll be fun for a while, then we’ll be back on T4L!

We’ve been doing yard work and gardening.  I hope to plant a couple of tomato plants, some green beans, jalapeno peppers, etc. this week.  My boys love to see things growing.

Oh, and I know it’s late but…. HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!  I hope you all were treated like queens!

I am here with Cade, a local first grader.  He has agreed to answer a few questions about Time4Learning.

Lisa:  Hi, Cade.  Did you have a happy birthday yesterday?

Cade:  Of course!

L: Great! I have some questions to ask you about T4L.  First question…. What do you like most about T4L?

C: That writing corner thing.  You know, where you put the stickers in the story and where you get to write you own stories in the different rooms?  I like making my own stories.

L:  Yes, that’s a great feature.  It actually gives you one more chance to see pieces of the lesson and recreate a story on your own.  Very nice….  Question #2….  What do you like the least on T4L?

C: I don’t like it when I click and click on something again and again and it doesn’t work.  That makes me mad!

L: Yes, that is frustrating.  We’ve had problems with the story-links and all of the extra links in the Science lessons.  Maybe we can get that fixed.  Okay, Question #3…. Who is your favorite character and why?

C:  My favorite character was the cook guy.  I liked it when he made all the food.  I love that guy!!!

L:  Yes, I remember him.  He was in the Kindergarten math section.  Okay, and the last question…. What is your favorite subject on T4L?

C:  SCIENCE!!!  This is awesome!!  I like everything I learned about in Science.  It’s very fun.

L:  Thank you very much for telling me about your T4L experience, Cade.

C:  You’re welcome.

I have to admit that I struggled a bit with T4L at first.  Getting started was very easy.  Signing up….a breeze.  Teaching each child to log-on gave them a true feeling of independence.

Choosing the levels for each child was easy, yet a tad weird since I have a child in need of access to both the lower and upper levels.

My boys automatically wanted to follow the guiding arrow.  Such a great idea!  I was disappointed that I could not move the arrow when skipping or rearranging the activities to fit our other studies.  It would be great to have more control of this handy tool.  The boys could be truly self-starting if they could just follow that arrow.

Setting up a schedule was a struggle.  I really needed more guidance with the lesson plans.  Wondering if my daily plan was lacking or too much, I searched the parent forum for advice.  That left me just as confused.  No one seemed to know what equaled one lesson: a bubble, an icon,  __ number of activities??  

The new, improved lesson plans are very nice!  However, I still believe a sample lesson plan each for full homeschooling, supplementing, and after-schooling would be really helpful for the beginning user.

After a very short time with the program, we have totally embraced T4L, making all of these issues seem pretty trivial in light of what we’ve gained.

We all have some sort of bump, don’t we?

We have to deal with a lot of medical-type interruptions in our house.

Our youngest is a CHD Warrior!  Eli was born with complex congenital heart disease.  He has a very rare defect, along with three very common heart defects.  We found out during the pregnancy and were encouraged to terminate the pregnancy-that week!    

We immediately chose life and had to re-plan our delivery hospital, OB, and even the pediatrician we planned to use.  We expected Eli to have surgery a couple of days after birth, then another at about 6 months, another possibly at a year or so.

Eli is 2 years, 4 months old and has not had any surgeries yet!   However, we are looking at a possible surgery later this spring/summer.  He is truly a miracle…..

He has many, many doctor appointments….in two other cities.  So, we attempt to work around them.  

I was sincerely concerned about my first grader’s schooling.  I felt he was getting lost in the shuffle.  Not anymore, thanks to T4L.

By the way, Eli is our second heart kid.  We lost our oldest son after heart surgery in 1993.