Updates

Eh, the Catholic church isn't going great....nothing there for kids at our parish. Having them with me at a traditional service each week with nothing at all for the kids is just not going to work out for us. While I feel the faith is beautiful on paper, I am not sure I love the way it actually gets executed in service. There is just literally nothing for my kids. I am just not sure where to go from here. UPDATE: I called our parish and asked about kid's programs and the educational lady told me that there is lots for the kids, including a 30 min block during the homily where they are taken out for kid level Bible study as well as catechism classes on week nights and even a family catechism class on Friday nights. She said that all the ministries take a break during summer so that is why it has seemed pretty dead lately for kids. She assured me all the programs start back in early Sept so I am thinking about sticking it out. We have a nice, local Southern Baptist church here as well that seems great, but after calling, they seem VERY anti baby in service and I wont tolerate church's with that attitude any longer. We have always felt welcome each week in the Catholic church, noise and all!

As for Abeka, we are in our 4th or 5th week(sorry my mommy brain lost track) and there are many positives as well as some negatives with the curriculum:

Positives first:

• God centered
• self directed
• advanced
• the kids are enjoying the workbooks for grammar
• the health text booklet is cute and fun for the kids

Negatives:

• tooooo advanced esp for Wyatt
• moves way too fast
• everyone works individually, which means I am trying to divide myself 4 ways and I feel like I am ready to collapse from brain work by the end lol
• Bible stories are written in a very unengaging way
• takes too long to finish school

the really bad:

• The spelling program is by far the worst I have ever used. It is really way too advanced, moves too fast, is poorly designed and laid out and the execution is even worse. Kayla is spelling things like Connecticut, Massachusetts, leisure, restaurant, hyphen and cyclone, but 28 words total. They are just too hard for any 4th grader that I know. Its producing tears and I don't do tears. School is supposed to be fun and engaging
• The history and science are dry and boring beyond boring. They are also extremely repetitive. Wyatt's history is literally word for word, page for page, almost identical to Everett's, with very little extra elaboration.

I wont do this curriculum again, but we will try and finish it up by Jan at which time we will go back to Weaver curriculum.http://www.aophomeschooling.com/weaver/ Its an amazing curriculum which is more hands on and real life style learning with Bible as front and center.