Mid year examination

I know, I'm supposed to be on a blogging break, but I've been packing up the books and getting my lessons ready, so that I will be able to open and go when the time is right. I've been looking over what's working and what's not. I've also been able to see how far we have come. So I thought that I would post about what I have been learning so that I can look back at it once we get there!

What is staying the same:

• Singapore math-I love this program and it's an excellent fit for my dd, I wish I would have had that confidence from the beginning. I am using the instructor's guide more for the game suggestions which has also helped.
• Biology for the Grammar Stage-I wrote this program for my princess, so of course it works!
• Sonlight-although we have seriously modified the history plans, the rest is the same and we love it. Sonlight is a great fit for us. If I had it all to do over again, I would have left history as it was and just added hands on activities to fit, but since we started with SOTW, we will stick with it for this year. One day I will write more about that SOTW/Sonlight combo and my thoughts on it.
• Art Adventures at Home-This program is the reason art gets done at our house, so it stays!

What is going and what's coming (notice it's all Language Arts, will I ever be happy with this?):

• All About Spelling-This is a great program, just not a good fit for us, plus it's expensive(which is a real factor when living overseas), so we have replaced it with Explode the Code which is working much better
• First Language Lessons-Also a great program, just not a good fit for us. It was becoming busy work, princess didn't enjoy it and I wasn't seeing progress enough to warrent continuing it. It's being replaced with a book I got free from google book called With Pencil and Pen, which has picture study, copywork and poems-so far so good.

What we've added in:

• Nature Study-using Barb's plans as a guide, I have struck out on my own once and plan to do so again. I really love this part of our week and it's definately going to stay.
• Artist/Composer Study-we have tried using AO plans and Simply Charlotte Mason plans and have settled on blending the two to make it work for us. I'm glad that I have found a way that works for us and that princess enjoys. This is such a small part of our week, but I'm sure that over the years, it will make a big difference.
• Shakespeare/Fairy Tales at Tuesday Tea Time-This is very new to our day, we only done three tea times. So far, so good, but I will have to wait till the end of the year to know for sure.

What missing (things that I want to add it, but...)

• Music: I would like to add some sort of instrument study to our time, but so far it hasn't happened. My goal is to add this by next year.

I am so pleased with where we are right now. We've made tremendous progress in the basics and have had lots of fun with the extras. I'm looking forward to the second half of her first grade year, whenever it may begin (that's another story altogether!)