A New School Year

Well, it is that time of year once more. And here we are some of us homeschoolers scurrying and trying to get everything put together and others all done and ready to go. So I thought after talking with a  few friends and they were asking me how I do my year, that I would share it with my readers too.

I am one of those that is done and all scheduled out. I love organization. I can not work well if things are sloppy, messy and not all planned out. Sometimes I wish I could fly by the seat of my pants, but that is not how God made me. I take a week out of my summer and read through all my curriculum, plan out the assignments, plan out all the projects to go with those assignments as well as craft projects, buythe materials I need and then sit back in relief!

You know, my style is very eclectic. I use anything out there that I think will be great for my kids. So I use a bit of classical, a bit Charlotte Mason, a bit of traditional school room, a bit of unit studies. It is funny, because I was talking today with a friend about being in a box. I don’t mind the box as long as it is mad of rubber and I can shape it into a triangle one day, then a octagon another. And there must be a many ways out if I need that. I think that is why I am all over the board for curriculum.

So how is it that I am able to do all of this with my homeschooling all over the map. Two things I do each summer….

1. I use a computer based assignment tracker. Homeschool tracker. I love it. This way if one day I do not get all my assignments completed for that day, then I can just reschedule just that one assignment for the next day I decide to do that. It really has been a blessing for me…the overly organized one. I think it would work well even for those who are not overly organized or for those who do the un-schooling approach too.

2. Prayer. I pray before my purchases that God will let me know if these things will be the thing for us this year. I pray before I schedule assignments for each subject that He will guide me to know exactly what to do and how much is just right. And lastly I pray and say thanks after I am all done for His guidance through all of this and for the ability to homeschool.

My schedule is pretty simple. Monday – Friday we do a Bible reading along with a story reading by me on a specific character trait for the week, pledge of allegiance and a hymn for the week and my children reading for 20 minutes or a certain amount of pages. I have given up on a reading program. There really is no need for it. If my kids read 20 minutes or so a day and parrot back to me what they read…were good! As they get older and write better I will have them do book reports but oral right now is fine!

*For my Math I use Abkea Math and I usually only do math 4 days a week. *Our English is Rod and Staff, but I do not use all the lessons. In a homeschool we really do not needed that much workbook work, and we usually have 3 lessons a week. *Spelling we enjoy All About Spelling and I actually take 1 lesson and stretch it over a 2 week period with teaching only 2 days a week. *Now History is lots of fun. A lot of reading from literature books and lots of hands on projects. I use Veritas Press and I only do it 2 days a week along with the Veritas Press Bible History 2 days a week. *I LOVE our science program. We use Apologia and we usually have science 2 days a week. I love the hands on projects in there and the simplified reading. We have learned o much this past year about birds. *My son is an artist. But I want it to come from a Biblical point of view along with all my other subjects. So we use How Great Thou Art. We only actually have a lesson 1 time a week, but he draws daily or paints or some sort of art on his own and I tell him to always use what he has learned from the lesson that week. *Lastly there is Latin. Last year I was able to get Memoria Press Latin to do a review on and we really enjoyed it. However, this year we were trying to do a lesson 1 time a week over a 2 week period. Last year we did 1 time a week and it was a bit much for him.

So there it is, my year. Now I am not going to give you all my assignments etc, but this how you would begin scheduling out your year. It all breaks down to the Who, What Where, When and How. What subjects are you going to teach for who, What curriculum are you going to use, when during the week are you going to teach each subject and how are you going to divide each lesson up over the year.

Start off small with just one subject and take your time. For goodness sake you are a homeschooler. No one says you have to start school on the7th of September. Start with the easy subject and schedule it out. Usually math because it is just lesson 1, lesson 2 etc. Then try maybe your science and so on. Let me know how your schedule looks too. Good luck to you all, God bless and have a great start to your 2009-2010 school year!

If your interested in reading about other homeschoolers schedules or maybe you would like to write about your scheduling and post it . Then go to Homeschool Open House. Great site that is having all homeschoolers write out their schedule and you might even win a prize. A couple of my favorite prizes are Rainbow Resource gift Certificate, Homeschool Boutique gift certificate, and a Curr Click gift certificate. Anyway, click on the link below and you can either enter you blog post or read other people post. Once again, have a great school year!

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