Yes, I know its ONLY March. However, it is that time that I like to look over where we are in each subject and start getting real solid ideas for next fall. We typically call our first day of school officially at the very start of August, and I would *like* to take July off most lessons if possible so that we can enjoy some street fairs and summer weather. July is the month that is usually slowest for Scott at work, so we get to spend more time together as a family before it picks up again in August with all the kids getting glasses for school to start (in case you don't know, Scott makes eyeglasses for a living, a lot of his work is actually for children on Medicaid in a few different states). So, during his hours off work we do field trips on weekends and go on picnics and stuff like that. It is something we always look forward to, even if the paychecks are barely enough to cover our bills during the slower season.
So, I'm looking now and figuring out fall, mainly to ease the amount of work I have to do when Scott is at work less. If I plan now, then it is ready to go before he's no longer working 70 hour weeks (that's the busier times, during summer he gets 45 hours a week if we're lucky). So here's what we have figured out so far.
This fall I will have an infant still, which I hear that the infant year is easiest to do this. I've never schooled kids with an infant, Missa didn't start K until Jojo was a year old, so this is a new experience for us. I'm learning as we go with it. Anyway, this fall I will also have all 4 girls going formally. Jojo will be of K age by cutoff date, so we will begin K with her and plan to stretch it out over 2 years on paper for maturity. So she will be a Junior K and then her sisters will be in grades 1, 3, and 4. Sounds fun, don't you think? Lots of juggling, and not a lot of independent work with a couple of them.
So, here's what IS working for us this year, which will follow us into next year:
Math-U-See (I will have to get only 2 workbooks, the middle girls went slower than expected this year)
All About Spelling (Missa is working her speed and Liddy will start level 1)
Real Science 4 Kids (not finished with the books we got for this year so we'll finish them up and go into some unit studies)
That right there takes care of half my requirements easily. Now for the fun part. What didn't work so well, or what we're changing out of necessity because it just is a bad fit for our situation with all the kids going at once.
The biggest change for us will be that we are taking a year off Sonlight. I'm feeling a need to spend a year doing geography and some US history and state studies, so I'm working out the kinks in this one now. I already have "Geography Songs" that we are going to do to cover the basic geography stuff, from our Sonlight core (one of the things we got then dropped early on because of the pregnancy when I started lightening my load in teaching back in I think October). I also have some free domain books on my Kindle that we will utilize, as well as 11th grade A Beka US History to refresh my own memory before I start working this out. I will need to use as many free resources as possible to cover this year's history, we just don't have the money to buy all the consumables I need for 4 kids AND the US history program I was originally wanting (I had originally decided on Winter Promise American Story 1 for this fall, then Scott had to get a car and we decided on one about $1500 more than we planned so my homeschool budget went down from $1200 to $300 and I spent part of that on a Kindle).
I also am dropping Handwriting Without Tears, and getting a couple of dry-erase handwriting practice books they have at a store here locally. This year, I simply cannot afford to buy handwriting workbooks for all 4 kids to go through as fast as they do, so they will use the dry-erase variety and take turns practicing. I also am going back to regular copywork instead of the copywork and journaling books we did this year, also because of cost. Thankfully, I only need to buy 2 math workbooks for Missa and Jojo to do this fall, and a friend blessed us with the teaching materials for all the Math-U-See levels we didn't have up to Algebra 1 so I am set there for several years.
And that's about all I figured out so far. I am hoping to make it to the CHEO convention in June this year, but I'm not sure I can do it with the cost for the person we have do our portfolio reviews for reporting.
1 comment:
Infant year is easier because they can't get in to as much...LOL. I like your plans, sounds like a good year.
Have you looked at Startwrite? It's a copywork software and I like it for a few reasons:
1. I can personalize copywork for each child. Ex. Last week Joseph was copying from a Star Wars book, Makayla had a poem from a Redwall book she's reading, and so on.
2. I can adjust the font style and size for each child with a click.
3. I can design each page. Emma likes copywork with the top of the page empty to draw (goes well with our Draw Write Now books). I can make it. Makayla is moving up and sometimes prefers her copywork passage at the top of the page in a paragraph and then lines at the bottom (instead of a line of copywork and a line directly beneath to write that).
4. I can make one or two really big letters for my preK crowd to trace inside of, add a picture, and so on.
I don't have the newest version (mine is the one previous to the current one).
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