We are now about 2 months into our new homeschool year, and I am already needing to re-evaluate our plan!

By and large, I think our overall schedule was a good idea. The curriculum choices we made were good ones, but I think I grossly under-estimated how much time things would take. Also, my work hours have picked up quite a bit, and that has cut into my time to participate in some of the hands-on work I wanted to do with the girls.

We also started going to a weekly homeschool program – which works like a Co-Op but brings in professionals from the area to be the teachers of the classes (meaning I don’t have to volunteer!). So far, the girls have enjoyed the first session, so we are going to continue with it this fall. I’ve been making my girls do the optional “homework” sent home by these teachers, so that takes up time as well.

And then you add in OT appointments, AHG, AWANA, and the general laundry and occasional grocery shopping, and well, there just aren’t enough hours in a day! (Not to mention all of the prep for our recent travel as well!)

So, my plan for today is to rearrange our “planner spreadsheet” and stretching out our assignments into hopefully a more manageable schedule.

How are you doing? Have you re-evaluated your homeschool plan already? What are you changing or not?

 

 

Yes, the school year has finally arrived! Where did our summer go?

Well, I’m not sure about you, but our summer was decimated by our move. Starting early June, we dealt with combining two houses into one (turning our furnished rental property into an unfurnished rental property) and then purging, unpacking and then purging more. And then more. And even more. Truly. After all I purged before our move, we still looked like hoarders when trying to squeeze everything into this 1200 square feet townhouse. We must be ruthlessly organized to survive in this space. It’s honestly been pretty painful dealing with all that. I can say now that there is not one area of our lives and not one box that we did not cut in at least half. I still really like the place we are renting though. Great landlord, with a good, functional layout, AND he completely renovated it before we moved in.

In the midst of dealing with all of that, I began to organize for this homeschool year. Thankfully I had purchased most of it before our move, but I did have to pick up some odds and ends that were forgotten.

Today, I thought I’d share with you our curriculum plan. Our girls are now 11 and 9, entering “6th” and “4th.”

Because I am continuing to work and homeschool, we have to rely on independent-type homeschool work, so they can complete the bulk of their work while I’m on the phone with clients.

Math– We are sticking with Teaching Textbooks. Our oldest is in the middle of Level 6, our youngest will start Level 5.

Spelling– I’ve let my oldest out of doing formal Spelling now, though I did tell her I would start marking all spelling mistakes in her work as wrong. My youngest will continue with SpellingCity.com, using Abeka spelling lists.

Writing, Reading/Literature– Our girls are voracious readers now, so that’s not a problem for us. However, we’ve never done a formal reading comprehension program. I found the Apologia Readers in Residence program that we are going to try this year. We are also trying their Writers in Residence program this year as well. We will do this four days a week.

I got these great books from Amazon, for my oldest. I want to work on her reasoning and logic skills, since she’s entering middle school age. We will do one short lesson a day, four days a week.

I thought it important to move to a more formal science program this year. Neither of my girls could agree on what to study, so we’re letting them each study what they want. So my oldest will be doing Apologia’s Zoology 3 (land animals), and my youngest will be doing Apologia’s elementary Chemistry. We purchased the books and workbooks from Apologia during a big sale. Even better, I found kits with everything you need for the experiments of each. Everything is in in a box, organized in bags by lesson, and labeled. It feels completely magical. Do you know how much I love having things done for me????

Anyway, I will be helping them get through the book work portion, and Hubby will help them with the experiments twice a week.

The books list this as two times a week, but as much as is listed, the work might have to stretch over four days.

I found these cute devotional books for the girls to use for their devotional time this year. I saw the “Big Book of Animal Devotions” at a used curriculum sale, and thought it it would be perfect for my oldest who is studying zoology this year. While unpacking, I found the second devotional (which we have never used) and my youngest decided to use this year.

Our main focus/theme for this year will be going back to history. While I personally LOVE My Father’s World and their program, my daughters don’t. I’ve been informed that it’s “babyish.” I don’t agree, by the way, but we used it for K-2nd, so maybe that’s why they think that.

Last year, we used a lapbook from Home School in the Woods elections, which my girls loved. I think it spoke to their crafty side. They wanted to do that again. So, I have cobbled together several products from Home School in the Woods, to replicate MFW’s Creation to the Greeks program.

This year, we will be using their Timeline, the Old Testament Activity Pack, and their Project Passports for Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece.

So, to go along with that, I have started collecting books to go along with these themes. I purchased a few at a used curriculum sale, and many if not most of the resources we need will be coming from local libraries. I’ve also been using Paperbackswap.com to fill in books I couldn’t find in the libraries.

Our “Egypt” theme books:

Our main history overview books:

Just beginning our Greek theme books:

So, that is our “school plan” for the year! This does not include all of our other activities, which I will cover in another post!

This post is part of the Back to Homeschool linkup from iHomeschool Network! Click over to read more curriculum choices from our fellow bloggers!