Food

I've been cooking a lot recently. We buy 1/4 cow's worth of meat every year and I'm trying to use it all up before it's time to order more. I'm down to cuts that I've never actually cooked before, so lots of new recipes to try. So far I haven't had any bad meals, at least half the family has loved each new thing. Nikoli has decided that he's an herbivore, so he just eats all the veggie sides that I make and of course salad.
Tonight was swiss steak in my brand new cast iron dutch oven. I think it's going to be getting a lot of use in the future.
Tasha had a lot of fun helping out. She loves to cook with me and is getting really good at reading recipes and following directions. She knows where most of the ingredients are and is a great little sous chef. I have a feeling that in the next year or two she'll be able to make simple meals on her own. We've started menu planning together, the kids all get to say something that they want to eat during the week, a meal or snack or desert. Then we pick one or two cuts of meat that we are trying to use up and find recipes that sound good. Then we see what is in our weekly farmer's market basket (10-12 different fruits and veggies each week, some common, some unusual). That's usually our sides and fruit snacks, but sometimes it goes in our main meal too. Then we make our week's menu and write out a shopping list.
One of our goals with the kids, in general, not just related to homeschooling, has been to raise self sufficient adults. All of my children will be able to cook/clean/take care of a house etc. by the time they leave home. I don't know how many kids I went to college with couldn't do the most basic life skills, like laundry. My kids actually like to help out around the house. I tell them it's time for cooking lessons and they'll pay attention all day. I've even used the kitchen as bribery - finish your other lessons and we'll cook!

Curriculum

I've slowly been going through all of the various homeschool books I have floating around. Now that I have a much better plan for where we are headed, it's time to get rid of a bunch of stuff. When I first started out, I'd go to homeschool curriculum sales and pick up all sorts of things that looked interesting. It led to a crazy eclectic mish-mash of subjects and approaches to schooling. I'll probably keep some things, as they look interesting for one or more of the kids to try out when they are older, mostly things like arts and crafts or science.
Now that I've had a couple of years to see how things go, I've got it pretty much set.
Math - RightStart, at least until we outgrow the series. At which point I'll see where the kids are headed. I'm sure that Nikoli is going to want to do higher level math so we'll see what's out there then.
LA - Right now it's First Language Lessons, probably all 4 years for each of the older kids (at which point Mikhail will be starting!!) After that we'll look at Michael Clay's series. The writing portion will go along with history.
History - Story of the World through year 4. After that we may switch over to History Odyssey
Science - Right now we are starting R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey. I'm really liking the format and they will have level 2 out before we get to it.
Foreign Language - Spanish though LiveMocha for the time being. As they get a bit better we'll look for some other good programs. We also do a lot of signing with the youngest. We'll also start Latin around 3-4th grade with each.
Music - Classics for Kids on a weeklyish basis. I'll probably start piano back up for Natasha soon, and start Nikoli on it as well. I can teach the basics and how to read music and if they really like it we'll try lessons again. We also love to go see live performances of just about every genre of music.
Art - My Mom has agreed to take Natasha a couple of times a month to do art with her. Since both my parents are artists this will work out well. We'll do the same with the other kids as they get older and can focus a bit more, until then lots of coloring/painting/cutting type stuff.
Other stuff - Co-op classes for things they are interested in trying. Gymnastics for now, though it way switch to some type of martial arts eventually. I'd like to get them in swimming, we'll see how that goes. Natasha (and maybe the others as well)wants to run a 5K with me, so we'll be training for that. Lots and lots of outdoor time. I'm debating starting up a "101 Things To Do Before You're 12" group to do some fun field trips and events. A friend was talking to me about a girlscout type group to go camping, I think Natasha would love that. Nikoli will be starting speech therapy soon so that will be in there as well.


The best part of doing a classical approach for our family is the age differences. The oldest 2 are very close in age/ability so I can do a lot of their lessons together (math, science, history, music) with a bit more independent work for Natasha. Then Mikhail is 3.5 years younger then Nikoli. Since Nikoli is "ahead" on some things, it'll work out then when I'm starting out Mikhail and to some extent Ana, they'll be covering the same history and science, just at different levels. That will hopefully work out well for all of us.
I'm sure that things will change a bit as we keep going, maybe one of them will turn out to be musical or into a particular sport. Curriculum wise though, I doubt that I'm going to go too far off what we already have, unless it just isn't working for one of them.