Crash course in parenting - Life as a foster mom

Yeah, it's been a while. Right now it's 7:20 a.m. and all my children are still sleeping (!!!!) so I have some unscheduled time to myself. Yay!  I've been up since 6 planning the homeschool week, which didn't get done this weekend because we were just so busy! We have finished 5 weeks of homeschooling and it has been going relatively well.  I have had my first curriculum fail (Spelling Workout doesn't work, at least not for us!), now I'm trying to decide if we start with something else or wait until the boys are stronger readers to work on spelling. It seems like when I was in school we started in 3rd grade or so but that was a really long time ago and I might be wrong.  At this point I'm thinking it might be best to wait until after the baby is born regardless.  I did a survey on a popular homeschooling board and it was seriously a 3-way tie on whether people thought I should do spelling with C only, C and Y together, or wait to start spelling until later...

It's getting to be crunch time around here! I've scheduled our first day of school for July 7. Which still seems like a long way away, honestly, but it's close enough that I feel like I need to start getting my year planned out a little bit. I browsed online for what felt like FOREVER looking for a good way to organize things. I stumbled upon a website, which I can't find now of course because I didn't bookmark it, with all kinds of free forms. I browsed and settled on some that made the most sense for me. (edited to add: I found it!  http://www.tinasdynamichomeschoolplus.com/free-printables/7-step-curriculum-planner/ ) I am planning on schooling 4 days per week, with Friday (or whatever day) as a catch-up, field trip, library, whatever day. This may not work, but that's what I'm trying for now. We might need to do 5 just to fit it all in, we shall see. Regardless, it's nice to ease into the school year a little bit.  I also have read about some peop...