Homeschooling is a monumental task. It takes so many things that I am not. Do you wish to see your weaknesses displayed before you on a daily basis? Then homeschooling is right for you! I am not by nature an organized person. Nor am I very patient. Growing up I hated to babysit and yet here I am interacting with my seven (soon to be eight) children day in, day out, teaching them, learning with them..and loving every minute of it. Every. Single. Minute.
It is hard work, especially on those days when I doubt myself. Without the dedication and commitment I feel towards the beliefs I have regarding my children’s education, homeschooling for us would be a complete and utter failure. Yet, I am committed. I love these children more than anything so I will not fail them. That explains the sparse posting here on the blog the last week or so. I have much more important things to do!
The past couple of weeks while the kids have enjoyed time off from school work I’ve had great fun putting curriculum and resources together for our next school year. We begin in two weeks.
This is not our regular schedule. Typically we do three months on, one month off with a week off in the middle of the three months. We do school January, February, March with a week off in February. April is off. School again in May, June, July with a week of in June. August is off. Then more school in September, October, November with a week off in October. December is off. With the new baby due the middle of October we are having to adjust so their education doesn’t suffer. We’ll be doing school July, August and September and have October off. November will be a lighter work load. December will be off then our regular schedule will resume come January.
Researching, planning, dreaming, scheduling – all of it is extremely satisfying for me. Rewarding too when I look back at what they’ve learned the past year and see how they’ve progressed. Goals have been set for the coming year. I still have a bit of fine-tuning planning school at least through the end of November. It takes great discipline on my part to get and stay organized. Sometimes I fail miserably, but I do try! When time allows I’ll share what we do to help keep track of everyone’s school work.
The big news this year is Bon Bon starts high school! She’ll be doing BYU Independent Study and we’re also looking into the possibility of her taking some courses from the local community college but that might be a year or two away. The great thing about the BYU program is being able to earn college credit along with high school credit for the higher courses.
Semisweet is in middle school. Most of her courses will be from Alpha Omega Publishing. She’ll be taking 10th grade World History, but it’s for anyone 7th-12th grade and 8th grade Speaking and Writing, General Science II, Spanish I, and World Geography. Math will be Saxon with D.I.V.E CD’s.
The rest of the girls will be combined most of the time for history and science with me requiring different things from them depending on their grade level. We’ll be covering US History using the Sonlight Instructor’s Guide for The History of US books by Joy Hakim. We’ll be using Sonlight’s Reading Lists for their literature and rounding off their Language Arts with Easy Grammar. Math will be Abeka with Math Mammoth supplementing the concepts they have difficulty with. Our science studies will be focused on Astronomy.
Cookie is learning to read right now using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. She sure loves to pick out the words she knows while reading scriptures.
Along with the academics there will be also be scripture study, home making including sewing and cooking, and art.
Whew! Looks much better when everything is written out like this. We’ve recieved a few boxes this past week and are looking forward to more packages this week. As much as the kids groan when the UPS man shows up they fight over who gets to open the school books and pour over the ones that are for them.
Here’s to another school year!
I love that you use a curriculum that is nearly identical to mine! ;o) Your a great mom!!
5 stars!
And we love the UPS man too. 😉
Hey, you don’t really know me but I was wondering- are your kids’ legal named those names you have by their pictures or are they just nicknames? Just curious.
Good for you! I loveed homeschooling my children and wish I still had a few left to lead through it.
BTW-we have done the community college route with our high school youth as well as BYU Independent Study University courses. I highly recommend staying away from the community college and using BYU. If you want to know more, email me.
Thank you SO much for this post!!! I think I’ve mentioned before that we’re just started out – my oldest will be in “kindergarten” next year. So all of these resources, and your schedule, are really really helpful!!! Thank you SO much!
You are WAY more organized than I am. I never planned to be an unschooler but I think that is what I have become.
Maybe once we are more settled I can come up with a more comprehensive plan. Maybe we’ll just copy the one you posted here.
I can’t wait to see the peasant tops!
I do have to say that education is one of the most important things in life.
Wow, that really is alot of work with so many kids in the house. I just have a 2 year old right now, but we are looking at all our options coming up way too soon. Haven’t decided yet, but this is an inspiration!! My brother and I were homeschooled for most of our schooling and I recognize so much of that curriculum!!
🙂
~Tabitha
I would love to hear what classes your dd is going to take from BYU- It is interesting what Kathryn Louis said about her CC experience, I would be interested in hearing the pros and cons since she has done both. We have had several friends here do BYU and I used to write and managed a course for BYU Ind Study, I have also taught CC, so I have mixed feelings on both.
I scoured some of the courses my friends kids were taking here through BYU . Some courses they loved, some they hated. Please post your thought process for us soon to be High School parents 🙂 Are you doing the entire transcript program ? We are never to late to be swayed…….:)
I always hated to babysit too! But I absolutely love homeschooling. 🙂
You are so on top of things!! I love seeing what others are using. I also keep thinking that we need to get going again soon because we’ll have to take time off for a baby too. I’m still pretty sick though and just trying to get through each day. At least I have purchased everything I need. I kind of wondered what possessed me to go on a curriculum research and spending spree back in April, but now I’m so glad I did and we sure love the UPS guy too! Now I just sit and stare at that pile of books and wonder what we’re going to do with all of them. 🙂
Good luck with all of your plans!
ummm, I don’t know you, but I wish I did because you seem like a truly amazing person! How do you manage to seem so accomplished in so many different areas, especially with so many little ones running around??? I too am interested in homeschooling and really don’t even know where to start.
I’ve stumbled onto your blog but I really like it! I’m starting the homeschool journey this year with my 5 year old. {I’m so scared that I’m going to screw it up!} But I love being the one there when he started to read. And I got to see the light come onwhen he realized that he knew the words in the books that he was reading.
reading your blog also makes me giggle… My 4 year old asked for a “chocolate birthday party”