2016-2017 Homeschool Curriculum {1st grade}

Here's a little peek into the curriculum we'll be using this school year! So far, each year I've done exactly what I HAVEN'T wanted to do...switch curriculum. When we first started, I promised to myself that I would never do such a thing. Each year, I SWORE that I had found THE perfect curriculum. But, the more I learn about my kids and their learning styles and the more we find our homeschool groove, it just happens. That's the beauty of homeschooling for us so far. I have the liberty to change things up. BUT, I'm hoping that what we're using this year will stick! ;)

So, here's what we have planned for the upcoming school year!

Mason :: Age 6 :: 1st grade

{DISCLAIMER}
I am not affiliated with any of the following companies. The views and opinions expressed are my own. 

Reading/Phonics - All About Reading level 1 and 2

We started level 1 last year and are just about to finish up. However, reading has been very challenging for us this year. Mason has worked so hard, but he's really struggled through this subject. He's definitely not ready to move onto level 2 yet so we're going to go back through the lessons at a faster pace. I recently bought the games with Ziggy Zebra so we'll play those too! Our goal for this year is to gain confidence in reading and have lots of opportunities for practice. We'll move on to level 2 when he's ready!

Math - RightStart Math level A

We're still working through this level since we started mid-year last year. We made the switch from Horizons K math and never looked back. RightStart has been a perfect fit so far!I love how RightStart engages the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic senses. Yes, this program is expensive, but so far it has been worth every single penny. The bulk of the cost involved all the manipulatives, which will be used year after year.

Handwriting - Handwriting Without Tears K

We're still working through the K level. With math and reading struggles last year, handwriting got put on the back-burner. Such is life. We'll start 1st grade once we're done. He'll also be working on Tapestry of Grace copywork using memory words.

Science - Elemental Science (Intro to Science)

I needed a science curriculum that was full of fun science experiments that I could easily have younger kiddos sit in on, but still be engaging enough for a 1st grader. The experiments look fun and cover basic chemistry, physics, geology, meteorology, botany, and zoology.

Bible/History/Literature/ - Tapestry of Grace Primer

I am SO excited for Tapestry. I'm slightly overwhelmed with how to plan out our year, but mostly excited! This curriculum uses great books, interactive hands on projects, games, and a conversational approach. We'll be taking a broad sweep through history from creation through modern times through various unit studies.

Devotional- Adventures in Obedience

We saw this program at our local homeschool convention and are planning on doing this 3 evenings a week as a family! We'll go through character development cartoons using the Cat and Dog Theology books along with reading missionary stories from the I Heard the Good News Today! book. We read a few missionary stories with Sonlight last year and the boys really enjoyed them!

Two years.

Two years ago we sent the initial application to our adoption agency. Some days, it seems as if that was forever ago yet, other days I wonder where the last two years went.

Part of me expected the process to take this long. Part of me was hopeful that's we'd already be a family of five by now...

Regardless, I'm thankful for this journey so far. Literal blood, sweat, and tears (LOTS of tears) have been poured into this fight for our precious daughter. I can't fully express how thankful I am to have connected with SO many amazing people who have adopted/or are in the process of adopting from Ind!a. This journey has taught me more about faith, trust, patience, obedience, and the gospel than any other experience I've gone through in my life. And for that, I'm extremely thankful.

I thought June would come with a court date, or at least notice of a court date. Instead, June threw us for a loop. We found out we don't have to travel for court, needed to send a new power of attorney, and send new passport sized photos. Just when we thought all the paper work was done.

So now we hope and pray that July is the month we will have our first (and hopefully only) court date. We're praying like crazy to have our sweet girl home for her 4th birthday. Each day that passes this seems more and more impossible, but I know God is working together all things for good (even if it's not the "good" that I'm envisioning).

Unexpected answers in the wilderness

The past couple weeks, our process has been heavy on my heart. The pain of the wait and silence were really getting to me.

The Lord was really speaking to me through His word, sermons at church, and through song. Everything that I was reading or hearing seemed to have a common theme.

Wilderness.

In Numbers I'm reading about the Israelites and how they were so hopeful to move to a land full of God's goodness. Their travels and wanderings had lasted years, but God knew what he was doing. In his sovereignty, He allowed the Israelites to take this "scenic" desert route not only for their protection, but to learn from their experiences.

In church we're going through a series called Broken People, Big God where we spend time studying how God used broken people like Abraham, Samson, and this past week, Elijah. Elijah also had to pass through a painful season in the wilderness. Literally, God sent Elijah to the wilderness where he has to rely on the Lord to be fed by ravens, drink from a brook in a land during a drought, all while being alone. He literally had nothing to do but wait on God. And trust me (and Elijah), waiting is HARD. Eventually the brook dries up and God sends Elijah elsewhere. He ends up with a widow and her son and is put in yet another situation where he must  put his trust in what little resources the Lord provides. A small amount of flour and a little jar of oil. He has to have faith in God that they won't run out. God used Elijah's wilderness waiting to protect him, provide for him and sustain him, and prepare him for the next chapter (literally, 1 Kings chapter 18) in his life when he would need to stand up against the false prophets of Baal. 

A blog I had read about Elijah said, "Wilderness seasons are brutal. But God is powerfully at work in the 1 Kings 17 season of our lives."

God uses these wilderness situations. In the wilderness we can feel His presence, worship Him in a more authentic way, and have a clearer picture of what obedience looks like. Our faith is strengthened and our relationship with Him deepens.

My wilderness looks a bit different from the Isrealites or Elijah. I'm not part of a nomadic tribe wandering around in the desert, and I'm not relying on God for food and water via ravens and brooks. However, I can relate. We've been waiting for over a year with very little updates or answers about our girl. There really is no other way to describe this wait other than brutal. It just flat out stinks. We were matched with a 2.5 year old and she's about to turn 4 in a few months.

This Monday I posted a prayer request asking for BIG MOVEMENT on my Facebook page. So here's the update you've all been waiting for, though it's a bit unexpected.

Today our family coordinator called and let us know that we do NOT need to be present for our court date. Basically, our case will continue like a "typical" Ind!an adoption. So we don't have to take two trips anymore! We do have to send yet another power of attorney document (yes, another) tomorrow to our agency and once that arrives back in Ind!a, we should be able to be registered for court and find out when our first hearing will be. We are now praying for an early July court date. We really don't have any details on how long the court process will take. We were given estimates of anywhere from 2-6 hearings over a course of 2-4 months. Hopefully we'll get more details in the next few weeks.

So there it is. Our unexpected answer. Just a reminder that God is always in control. Even when we think things are going to happen in a specific way, he allows us to see his sovereign hand in every situation. I'm at peace because I know that this was not unexpected to God. It's already passed through His hand.

Please continue the prayers. We felt them and appreciate them so much! 

May 4th

Today is the day one year ago that we were officially matched in the system with our little sweet P.

We knew the moment we saw her face on a Friday morning, that she was ours. Despite the unknowns, (and there were A LOT) we made the decision to email our family coordinator Saturday night and request to be matched with her. By 6am Monday, May 4th, 2015 my phone was ringing. Our family coordinator was calling to let us know that we were officially matched with P.

What a year it's been. I feel like we're on this crazy rollercoaster and we have NO idea when the ride will end. But it's also an amazing rollercoaster, and I feel blessed to be on this ride called adoption. The highs and lows have taught me so much about Jesus. His longsuffering patience. His unwavering love. His pure goodness.

We stepped out in blind faith this day one year ago. We felt a peace that only God could bring to our hearts in this situation. A peace that allowed us to move forward without any real information other than 4 pictures.

Today, one year after our match, we are waiting for a court date to attend. This is where a judge in Ind*a will legally make her what we've known her to be for a year now. Our precious, chosen, daughter. A Salonga.


Here is how you can be praying for us:

• We ask that you pray for our attorney. We won't share her name with you, but God knows who she is. Please pray that she will receive our affidavit and register our case in court so we can have a date set. 

• Please be in prayer for our court date. We are boldly praying for a June date. 

• Pray that our judge would be for adoption and would grant us verbal and written orders in record time. 

• Pray for our last moments of a family of four. That all of our hearts would be prepared for this new transition to a daughter and a little sister. 

• Please continue to pray for P. Pray for her little heart. What she has known for 3.5 years is about the come to an end. The loss and pain that she will experience is so huge. Pray that we would be able to be a source of comfort for her and we could help her to handle her grief. 

I'll leave you all with this picture of her. I could stare that those adorable little feet and that cute denim skirt all day! 

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

Waiting and Praying.

It's so crazy to think how much can happen in a year...yet, so much can be very similar.

February 21, 2014: I went in for surgery to remove my molar pregnancy and began what I thought was the most trying times in my life. The weekly blood tests and doctor appointments all began. We waited and we prayed.

February 21,2015: Our home study was registered on the database and we began to wait for Ind*a's approval. Again, we waited and prayed.

Today: Here we are yet again, in a time of waiting and praying. This time, we're closer than we have ever been in 3 years to a child! Our daughter is so close to coming home. It's crazy to think we're in the home stretch, but it still feels like we have so many mountains to climb.

Please pray with us that we will receive our court affidavit soon so we can finally get a court date. We're praying bold prayers for a summer court date...which means we need that affidavit SOON. We would love to celebrate P's 4th birthday in September with her HOME.

Remembering :: The days leading up to our referral

I'm notorious for using this blog like a diary. I'll write and write posts because I don't want to forget how I felt at certain points in the process, but often they get left as drafts because I either never finished my thought, or because I'm waiting for the right approval before I share more details about our process. Of course, there are quite a few details that I won't be able to share until we have our girl in our arms, so you'll have to wait to hear about those!

But, I want to begin sharing some of these stories because they are such wonderful reminders of how faithful God is and how much He has sustained us through this journey.

I can't believe that I wrote these posts so long ago!

::April 30, 2015:: 

After 12 weeks of waiting, our home study was approved by Ind*a! This meant that we were finally ale to be matched with a child!

Thursday night at my women's Bible study, as I was sharing the excitement of our approval with my sweet sisters in Christ, I also asked them to pray for a few specific things:

• That we would be matched quickly.
• That we would be open to the daughter God has for us, even if her special needs were different than we expected.
• And of course, my constant prayer to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus and for patience. 

On the way home from Bible study, Stephen Curtis Chapman's song, Something Beautiful was playing on the radio and though I've heard that song so many times, the chorus stuck with me and was playing on repeat in my head. Seriously. All. Night. Long.

"And God says,
I'm gonna turn it into something different,
I'm gonna turn it into something good.
I'm gonna take all the broken pieces
And make something beautiful like only I could.
So put it all in the hands of the Father
Give it up, give it all over to
The only one who can turn it into
Something beautiful,
Something really beautiful."

At that point, I was thinking, "Yes, God really does have a reason as to why everything took SO long in the beginning of our process. There is a reason our approval took over 2 months. He's got this. We WILL get our daughter, maybe not on our own timeline, but when has His timeline failed us? Never!"

::May 1, 2015::

Friday morning our family coordinator sent an email just checking to see how close we are to finishing up our dossier. (Which by the way, TWO of the three documents we needed came in the mail the day before, so YAY for answered prayers!) I let her know that we were pretty close to being done with it.

A little less than an hour later, around 9:00 AM my phone rings and I notice it's our agency. I picked it up assuming our caseworker wanted to discuss what to do once we're ready to send our dossier to her.

Instead, this regular phone call, turned in the THE phone call!!!! Just ONE day after we had finally been approved to receive a referral! 

I'll never forget the words she said:

"I have a little girl that I'd like you to consider. I think she'd be a perfect match for your family."

She began to describe the little girl known as "P", who was two and a half years old . After describing some delays we might encounter due to the particular state she's in, the need for two trips (one for court, and another for pick up), and some serious unknowns about her special need, she asked if we would like to see some pictures of her. 

Of course?! Why wouldn't we? What an answered prayer! A potential referral after only a day of being approved in the system?! Pinch me!!

What a blessing to finally open that email and see not one, but FOUR amazing pictures of this precious girl...one even being a picture of her as a newborn baby!  Let me tell you, she is SO beautiful. We were pretty much in love with this girl from the start. When Mark saw her picture for the first time he immediately said "that's our girl!" My emotions went from extreme giddiness to fear. You see, we were given no information about this sweet girl's special need other than a brief, obvious description. No why, no diagnosis, no medical report, no child study, nothing. It was slightly terrifying...but at the same time, we knew in our hearts she is the daughter God had for us.

We decided to take the weekend to really pray about her. To be honest, for a short time I struggled with the known delays we would face due to the fact that she's in a state that's known to be much slower. All I wanted was to bring home our daughter as quickly as possible. The Lord really revealed my own selfishness in that. This whole journey to a third child has NOT been on my own timeline, but I can say with complete confidence that God has worked everything out for HIS good in HIS own time. The other immediate hesitation was her special need and the lack of medical information pertaining to it. Seriously, we had four pictures, and a name. That was it.

::May 2, 2015::

I got to spend the morning at Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market with my best friend, who also happens to be a nurse. We spent the morning talking about little P and her special need. She helped me so much that day. So much back and fourth, so many whatifs, still so many unknowns. But as we talked, I began to feel at peace. I really just felt that the Lord was calling us to step out in faith and say "yes" to this little girl. To trust that He would work out all the unknowns. After talking and praying, Mark and I decided to email our family coordinator  and asked her to match us with P. She was ours and we would fight for her no matter what.

::May 4, 2015::

My phone rang at 6:05am and I used my best "I've been awake for an hour already voice" to answer when I saw that it was our family coordinator. She informed us that we were officially matched to P! She reminded us of the long wait that was ahead of us due to the region she lives in. So, here we go! We're buckling up for what I'm sure will be a huge rollercoaster of emotions and some serious practice in patience as we wait for our P to come home.

"Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!"
Psalms 27:14

Let there be...PINK!

Yep, there is finally a room in our home that is PINK!!

As I was prepping P's room to be painted today, it was such a surreal feeling. I've dreamed about the day that I would finally get to have a little girl's room to decorate (although decorating the boys' Avengers room has been pretty fun too)!

We've been slowly working on her room and collecting random things here and there, but since getting NOC, we decided to celebrate the occasion by working on her room a little more!

A while back, I found EXACTLY the bed I was looking for on Craigslist...and it was a great deal! Mark re-painted it white and it's absolutely beautiful!

Over the weekend, my mom and I went shopping and found the prettiest quilt for her bed! The $19 price tag made it even prettier! ;)

We painted her room today and it's such a sweet shade of super light pink. I can't wait to share the finished room with you all!