2011 School Planning

Hello hello!  Sorry it's been so long!  Our break is almost over and I just finished the main outline planning for the school year.  We start school on the 15th and I am so excited!  I need to hurry up and finish decorating my room!

I have the majority of my school plans outlined.  The rest I am going to do further into the year to see how we are progressing.  Since I love to plan, I leave the day to day planning for the week before.  But I'm too excited to start, so I will start planning for our first week probably tonight.

I have a fun and exciting year planned!  For Science I am going to use a book called Science in the Creation Week for grades 2-5.  This looks very interesting.  I am going to add my own stuff to it so they get the ideas in concrete because the book doesn't go in depth in teaching.  It's more for some science labs and activities.    After we are done w/that book, I will be using The Book of Virtues by William J. Bennett for some Social Studies I guess you'd call it.  After that, we will study missionaries. We'll also be reading Stories of the Pilgirims during Thanksgiving time.

For Phonics for Bubba, we'll keep using the Hooked on Phonics because it's working so well for us.  Stinky will finish her English book that we got her in the middle of last year by Rod & Staff and we'll get her going on a new book.

For Math I am going to use a website called Lesson Pathways.  I am basically going to follow their math program suggestions, use some of their info and add my own teaching to it. 

History we are going to finish Story of the World book 1 and start the 2nd book. 

During our Bible study we will finish reading the Bible that we're reading and then maybe move up to a higher level Bible for children.  I haven't decided yet.  Maybe just individual character profiles too.

For Language Arts so far I have planned to read: The BFG by Roald Dahl; The Boxcar Children #2 Surprise Island by Gertrude Chandler Warner; Grimm's Fairy Tales; Spy for the Night Riders by Dave & Neta Jackson; Superfudge by Judy Blume; The Queen's Smuggler by Dave & Neta Jackson, George's Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl and an abridge for children version of The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss.

I can't wait for school to start!!

Workboxes Week 1 & 2

Before I start my post I would like to say this:  I did not read the book about workboxes before I started, so I am not using the exact system that people use.  I have looked at blogs and made up my own system as it would work for me.

I decided to try these workboxes to see if they helped to simplify my life.  For school and home.  And it did!  I am so glad that I gave this a try.  I used cereal boxes for each box, instead of using the plastic shoe tubs.  My girlfriend and I decorated the boxes ourselves.

First I sat down and decided how many boxes I would need and how many I would use for both kids or individually.  After I had that figured out, I sat down to decorate.  I have a box for Math, Bible, Science, History, English and one for my daughter.  I still need to make more boxes.  I also took macaroni & cheese boxes and used those for each child to have their own chore box.  

Last week was the first week that we used them.  We started on Monday and finished Friday.  I told the kids how to use them.  They were to go through each box and do the work included by following the lists in each one.  I have made it simpler by using color-coded paper clips to hold their work together for boxes that they have to share.

For example, they share a math box.  So I write a list for each one with their assignments for the whole week on it.  Then I put the worksheets with the list and hold them together with a paper clip. Bubba gets orange and Stinky gets yellow.  Each day, after they do their work, they put those pages on the back of the pile.

Each day when I tell them it's time to get up, they have the option of starting with whatever box they want to.  If it's a box, like history, where they have to wait for me, then they do.  They have all day long to finish their work.  It must be done by 7pm.  They have to at least do that days work, but they can work ahead if they'd like to.  At the end of the week, (Friday night at 7pm) when I check the lists, whatever is not done will be noted and privileges for the weekend will be lessened. 

Last weekend, they had a birthday party to go to, and that worked well for motivation.  If their work wasn't done by Friday night, they couldn't go to the party on Saturday.  This week, there wasn't any plans for the weekend, but they know that TV and Wii privileges will be taken away for the weekend.

This saves me from having to yell and badger them all day long to get their work done. I give them reminders during the day and that is about it.  It also makes them responsible, not me.  I have enough responsibilities to worry about.

Week 2 was this week.  I was hoping that it would not be something that just lasted for a couple of days.  It is still working great.  I have collected 2 more cereal boxes that I need to wrap and decorate.  Tomorrow I will be sitting down and gathering all of the needed supplies and lists for the week and stuffing them into their boxes.

I did borrow the idea of decorating the cereal boxes from another blogger, A Mother's Journal.

Progress Is Being Made

Lately we have been quite slack over here in our homeschooling.  There is so much going on right now and I am almost feeling overwhelmed by it all.  It's not really BIG things, just little things that take a lot of my time or thoughts. 

I think for the rest of the year, I am going to concentrate on the math and english.  We do really well on the other subjects and those are easier to get done.  But we really need to do some work on the math, like memorizing the addition table for starters.  Then Bubba and I need to get going with his Hooked on Phonics and Stinky needs to scoot with her Rod and Staff English series. 

What I really need to do is get myself organized so that I can let them get their work done on their own while I'm dealing with some of the other messes going on around here.  Like I need to have their work all ready for them each morning.  Then they can do whatever they can on their own and I can help if they need help. 

I just really need to get on the ball!

We will definitely be working a little bit longer into June than I had planned.  But that's ok with me.  That's the beauty of homeschooling!

Homeschool Blogging Catch Up

The last week that we did in homeschool covered the water cycle in Science.  We read a couple of books on that along with some Bible verses that said a little about it also.  They totally understood this and even knew most of it before I started to teach them. 
I think the best things that happened while I wasn't able to blog about them was the week that the kids got to choose what they would study that week.  I gave each of them a list of 3 things that they could choose from to learn and do some sort of project on.  Bubba chose trapping and snaring and Stinky chose sewing. 
Stinky and I went to Michael's craft store and picked out a simple little unicorn picture that she could learn to sew with. 
Bubba got to do his with his dad.  They had built a fort in Greg's living room to hide under while they had rigged up a tub to show him how to trap animals.  They both had quite a bit of fun doing this project.  Bubba took what he learned and played with his dolls after that trying to trap them. 
Here are the books that we read for this school week:

Homeschool Week I Have No Idea

Since I lost my computer for about a month or so, I didn't get a chance to keep up with my homeschooling weeks.  But we really haven't done that much reading in that amount of time because we haven't been doing as much reading.  This is a list that I was able to make but I wasn't able to transfer the list to my blog.  I just love these Amazon widgets:



For this particular week in school, we were learning about air for science.  We read a few books that explained it quite well.  The kids understood what I expected of them.
We were studying the Phoenicians during this time in our history. 

Homeschool Week 8

This was a great week in homeschool.  It was fun!  Our topics this week were Judges/Ruth/Hannah in Bible; we finished our Egypt study in History; Science this week was all about weather; and Stinky had her first spelling test.
I have worksheets that I bought from Currclick.com that has Bio pages for almost every person in the Bible.  This week they did a bio page on Samson and Ruth & Naomi.  They also have different coloring pages that I print out for them if the Bible reading doesn't have something else for me to put with it.
I believe that we have finished all of the history of Egypt that we will be learning about.  We are sad to see them go.  This week we finished reading some books that we wanted to read from Hatshepsut and Tutankhamen last week and then we started Moses and the Israelites leaving Egypt during the Exodus.
For Science this week we learned about weather.  I gave the kids a weather chart to keep track of weather in different places for the week so that they could see the difference in temperatures at different places.  On Wednesday we did a rain experiment to make our own rain.  It was very simple and we all enjoyed it.  First you need a mason jar with a lid.  Boil some water and let it cool for just a bit.  Pour it into the jar.  I found it worked best at about 3/4-1/2 full.  Put the lid on the jar upside down and put ice cubes in the upside jar lid.  Then watch the rain inside the jar!  It was neat!
We finished reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume this week.  Somehow we missed one day of reading it this week.  I wanted to finish it this week and my plan was to read the last chapter on Saturday.  The chapters were sorta long, I thought.  Not really longer than Charlotte's Web though I guess.  But when I finished reading chapter 9 on Friday, both kids wanted me to finish the book by reading the next chapter!  So they sat through about 30-35 pages!  But they LOVED that story!
Math is the same every week.  They work on 2 pages in their workbooks.  They learn various skills in that book and I explain and teach as we go through it.
Bubba is just about ready to start learning the sounds of his letters.  There are just a handful of small letters that he doesn't quite have down yet.  But I'm thinking that he knows enough of them that we might just start this week!  And I read a story to Bubba for our reading time together each week along with practicing his AWANA verses for each week.  This week we practiced 2 because they were so short.  You really need to do more than one per week to finish the book in time.  And I want to be able to get him the other workbook after he finishes this one.
Stinky and I read a chapter in a chapter book together.  Right now we are reading Plum Fantastic by Whoopi Goldberg.  This is a book that Stinky picked out to buy quite a while ago because it was ballet.  I don't care for the book myself, but Stinky likes it.  We read alternating pages.  The page on my side is what I read and the page on her side is what she reads.  We enjoy this so much!  This was her first week doing spelling.  It was really my fault for waiting so long, but I didn't ever make a list!  lol  I need spelling curriculum I think.  She is supposed to do a Reading Power from our Hooked on Phonics box, read a chapter in her Bible (Read and Learn Bible) and work on her language arts worksheets by herself everyday.  And now that includes practicing her spelling words.  Then she either works on her AWANA alone or I help her.
And without further ado, here is the books that we read this week:








The only book that I could not get to show up on there was a book called My First Bible Stories by Creative Publishing that Bubba wanted me to read to him, since his big sister reads her Bible everyday.  And so does Mom.  So we read this over 3 days I think.  I better get him a new Bible for himself.  This one is a board book and for younger folks.  And pretty old and torn up!
This week on our learning list: Thanksgiving, Samuel and reading Mummies in the Morning by Mary Pope Osborne.  School is easy this week.  We are going to combine Social Studies and History this week with Thanksgiving.  I'll give a crash course on the Pilgrims since we aren't that far in History yet.  It is an easy school week. 
And next week we are on Thanksgiving Break! 

Homeschool Week 7

This week in school we studied life cycles, Middle and Late Kingdoms of Egypt, Judges in the Bible and we started reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume.  Both of the kids LOVE this book!  They don't care when the chapters are long.  They just want to hear what is going to happen next.  I also know that my hubby is listening in because he loves this book.
We all really enjoy learning about Egypt.  I think it seems so exotic and mysterious that it just draws us in.  This is just a fun time to learn about!
We covered life cycles in general, what it meant. Then I went into a frog's life cycle, a chicken's life cycle, a plant's life cycle and a bee's life cycle.  The kids liked learning this Science subject too.  I am saving a water cycle for another time in Science class. 
Some of our books that we read were left overs from past History because we had to wait to get them from the library. Here is what we read this week:

and these:
Rimonah of the Flashing Sword by Eric A. Kimmel











Callie Cat, Ice Skater by Eileen Spinelli

Homeschool Week 6

I took a blogging break so I need to catch up on the books that we read for last week.  Our subjects were Ancient Africa, Joshua in the Bible and finishing Charlotte's Web.  The kids are moving along smoothly in the workbooks that I bought them for math and I am glad for that.  I have them do 2 pages a day.
The kids really enjoyed reading books of Anansi the Spider from Africa.  I however, don't much care for his stories.  We read quite a few anyways.
Stinky has enjoyed Charlotte's Web more than Bubba, but he's only 5 so I expect that.  He sat through it really well.  And by doing that he will be able to understand more at a younger age when we read.
We took this week off from our Social Studies/Science class because we are ahead of my schedule.  That made this week a tad easier.
Below are the books that we read this week.  The only book that I couldn't get onto the list was The Ancient World of Great African Kingdoms by Sean Sheeham.  We did not read this book, but looked at the pictures to get more of a feel for what Africa looked like and how the people lived and dressed.

All in all, our weeks are going by smoothly and we are enjoying most of it!  I am loving our schedule this year and glad that I went with my own lessons and schedule.  Thank you Lord Jesus for allowing us this freedom!

It's been awhile since I've blogged.  I haven't been keeping up very well.  But below are the books that we read.  A few are left over from the week before. 
Last week we learned about Ancient China in History.  In the Bible we told Moses goodbye and read about Joshua.  We are still reading Charlotte's Web, but should be done with it this week.  In Social Studies they learned all about Manners.  They certainly enjoyed the videos and books that I found on that subject!  They had fun learning about manners.  Manners were actually 2 weeks ago.  Last week we learned about some basic geography such as oceans and continents.  They also learned about maps. 
Below are the books that we read from the last 2 weeks:







The atlas books at the end were mostly just looked at, we didn't read them cover to cover.  We also looked through a book about India and I forgot to write down the name before I turned it in to the library.  We used one more atlas called Amazing Pop-up Picture Atlas for their reports they did.  They each chose a continent and had to find 5 things from that continent and draw them onto a poster board.  They labeled them and then told us on Friday.

Books Read Thus Far...

Today ends our 3rd week of homeschooling.  So far, so good!  I really couldn't ask for it to be any better.  I have been reading books to the kids, besides our read aloud.  Either for certain subjects or with Kyle, just for fun.
I want to keep track this year of what books the kids read.  I printed out a list that I can keep for them just for that purpose.  But, since I am an Amazon Associate, I thought I would utilize their widgets and make a carousel widget of the books that we have read and finished so far in school.


Chipmunk at Hollow Tree Lane is a favorite of my kids.  We have had this book for about 5 or 6 years and they ask me to read it quite a bit.  There was also a few books that we have read but Amazon didn't have on their list for sale currently, so I can't post them with the pictures here.  The books are listed below:

• The Curious Cow by Esther K. Meeks
• Plate Full of Color by Georgia Perez

We only have one chapter left in our Magic Treehouse book that we are currently reading.  We will finish that either tonight or tomorrow.  Kyle and I only have 2 1/2 more chapters in The War of the Worlds for young readers left to read.  He is bummed that we are almost done.  I have lots of other books to engage him in though.
I have the outline for next weeks school plans done and now just have the final details to do.  We are going to start reading Charlotte's Web next week together.  This will be fun!  I think we will all enjoy reading this together.
The kids were learning about food in health and we discussed the different colors of veggies and fruits.  After we went over that, I gave them a pile of magazines and they had to cut out fruits or veggies.  One for each color, red, purple/blue, yellow, orange, green and white.  Then they had to make a collage with the pictures that they had cut out.  They had fun doing that and actually used great team work.  If one found something that the other also wanted to use, they split the picture in half!  They are not social retards, I don't care what anyone says!
Oh yea, that....I've been asked if I'm scared that my kids won't get social skills from not going to school.  No, actually, I'm afraid of the social skills they would get from going to school.  We are involved in extracurriculars enough that I am not worried they are social retards.

Week 2 is Underway

This is really our 3rd week, but we spent 2 weeks on the first week because we went camping.  So I am going with week #2.

I finished the whole week's schedule/plans just tonight.  Here is the plans:

BIBLE: We're still reading about Moses in the Bible.  So this week we will read stories from when Moses went to Pharoah and asked him to let God's people go to Moses getting water out of the rock.  I have a couple coloring sheets for them, but nothing big.

HISTORY: Story of the World doesn't talk about creation, which is one drawback of the book in my opinion.  So I am breaking from this book this week to cover creation.  For each day of creation I have a coloring sheet for them to reinforce the days. 

WRITING & JOURNAL: Each day the kids are given copywork from A-Z Kind Kids Care Copywork, which I bought from Currclick.com.  They will do letters E-G this week.  Amanda will write 3 sentences daily in her journal on each of these questions; 1. What is most important day of creation?, 2. What is your favorite food?, 3. Describe how it would be to be an Israelite., 4. Write a poem. 

LANGUAGE ARTS: This week we will be going over poetry.  I got a couple of Shel Silverstein books from the library.  He is such a fun kid poet.  I also checked out another poem book for kids called Here's a Little Poem to read a few poems out of this week.

HEALTH: This week we are talking about the food pyramid.  I use a different food pyramid than what the USDA puts out.  Mine is from HonestFoodGuide.org.  So we will be learning the benefits of each color of fruits and veggies.  Tomorrow though we are going to read from the Bible about foods.

PHONICS: Amanda will continue to read her Hooked On Phonics books.  Kyle is starting a lapbook for the letter "A".  I have decided that on Fridays I will allow them to play computer games for phonics, reading and math.

READING: Amanda reads Power Builders every day from Hooked On Phonics and answers the questions.  We are going to finish reading A Knight At Dawn this week.  Kyle and I are still reading War of the Worlds together and Amanda and I are still reading her Barbie book together.  We don't read them every day is why.  But I am also going to add in extra reading to read the Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends.



MATH:  Amanda is working out of a workbook I bought her for review and Kyle is going to be reviewing addition all week and learning thermometers and temperatures.  Which apparently, he already knows, so this will mostly be review I
guess. 

First Day of School: 2010-2011 Year

Today we had our first day of school.  It was such a successful day!  We were all 3 excited to start this morning!

I woke the kids up at 8am and they have 2 hours to wake up, eat breakfast and get ready for the day.  Then they usually have a little free time to just play before school.  We start our school day at 10.  This gives me plenty of time to get everyone ready, fed and prepared for school.

We started with our Bible story of Job this morning.  It is a short story with a few questions at the end.  History came next and I read the first story in our Story of the World book, then they answer a couple of questions and tell me in their own words something they learned.

Next they did some copywork.  I decided to start out easy with some review and we are using A-Z Kind Kid Care Copywork.  Each page of copywork is for a letter of the alphabet and it's print.  They did the page for "A" today.  Amanda started a journal for 2nd grade today and wrote 3 sentences about "Who I Am". 

We read 2 chapters from the book Knight at Dawn before we started some Language Arts.  I taught both of the kids how to use the Children's Dictionary today.  Obviously, since Kyle is in Kindergarten and still learning his letters, he didn't understand all of the way.  After I showed them both how to do it, I gave them each something to look up.  Amanda looked up "spider" and Kyle looked up "apple".

The last subject that we do all together is Health.  I had 2 activity/coloring books for handwashing and germs that we went through today.  


I gave Amanda some reading to do on her own.  Each day she will have a Power Builder to read from our Hooked on Phonics (HOP) program and answer the questions at the end.  She will also need to read one story out of her Bible for independent reading each day.  Then if she ever has free time while she's waiting for me or Kyle, she can read, do work to catch up, do some activities or coloring pages that I give them.  So she did a Power Builder and read the first story in her Bible.

While Amanda did that, Kyle and I were reading together.  We read 2 chapters from the condensed version of The War of the Worlds and we read a book called "The Puppy Who Wanted a Boy".  We also reviewed letters of the alphabet with some flashcards.  Then Kyle and I moved onto Math and he was done for the day.

Then it was my turn with Amanda to do her HOP lesson.  We skipped Math with her because I wanted to pick up a new math book this afternoon.  After we picked it up, she wanted to do some of it and completed 1 1/2 pages on her own.

It was a wonderful day!  I loved it and wished that we could have kept going!

Not Back to School Blog Hop: A Day in the Life!

Today the Not Back to School Blog Hop is A Day in the Life!  We are supposed to blog about how our day at school goes on an average day.  Since we haven't started school yet this year, we don't have a set schedule yet.  But here is how we did it last year:

Bible: We read a Bible story and if I have a project for it we do it then.  

We always started with our Bible reading.  Then the rest of the day was pretty much however I chose to do it.  I would have my older daughter to her independent reading, copywork and other independent work while I was teaching my son math or phonics for Kindergarten.  I would also read with him.  

After we were done, he would do his copywork while Amanda and I worked on the subjects that we did together.  Math, phonics and reading.  

Typically we do the classes that they have together before we split up also.  For example, Science.  

We start our morning at 10am and we work through until noon and we break for lunch.  I also wash the dishes at this time so they have a longer break.  Then we have about one more hour after lunch that we finish school.

That is a reason why homeschool works for me so well is I can choose what subject to do when and we don't get burned out!

Back to School Scavenger Hunt

I decided to do a scavenger hunt for the kids before we start school.  I went through all of the subjects that we are going to be learning about this year and wrote down stuff for them to find.  They each had 16 items to find and I made each of their lists different.  
Both of them had to find something solid, something liquid and show me a body part of their choice.  
Amanda's List:

• Teeth
• Sun
• Clouds
• Magnet
• Skin
• Rocks
• Book
• Solid
• Pig
• Egypt
• Dinosaur
• Moses
• Snow
• David & Goliath

Kyle's List:

• Map
• Moon
• Water
• Starts
• Bones
• Flag Spider
• Train
• Soap
• Jesus
• Daniel in the lions' den
• Hair
• Jonah

They enjoyed their hunt and got it done in record time.  Amanda's was done in 15 minutes and Kyle did his in 25.  He had a harder time finding a moon.  Amanda helped him find one in the childrens encyclopedia.  But now that we've done it, we can expand upon that idea.  I did it very simple for them this time.  Obviously!
This weekend is their last of their summer nights to stay up late.  The next 2 weeks we will start getting our bedtime routines and morning schedules under control.  I am excited to start school.  This should be a good year.  More relaxed and laid back than before.

Not Back To School Blog Hop - Student Photos

This week's theme on Not Back to School Blog Hop, hosted by Heart of the Matter is Student Photos.  If you'd like to join this blog hop or check out some other blogs and their photos, click on the link above and link up to it!
I take frequent photos because I love to play around with my camera.  So luckily I have recent photos of my kids.  

I have school planned to start Sept. 13, but my son wants to start now.  So we might start phonics and math with him tomorrow.  She might want to start after Kyle is doing some work.  

Not Back 2 School Blog Hop - Curriculum and School Room Week

I missed the first week of this blog hop, so I can't linky up a week one post either then.  So I decided to just go ahead and link my previous post about the curriculum and such that I am using this year for everyone to look at if they'd like.
I am not purchasing very much curriculum this year at all.  I already own books that show what the children should learn in each year of school and I also compare it to recent lists on line.  But here is what I have mapped out for the year.  The first post is called Sorry For The Delay... and this post covers the curriculum I will be using and the list of topics that we will study for the year.  My Homeschool Plans for 2010-2011 and this just maps out our schedule and how I am going to tackle the days.

I added a few new things to our school room this year.  If you'd like to see what my school room looked like last year, check out my post called Our School Room.  My supplies have been simplified this year by being able to add desks for the kids.  It works so much better than the bar.  I added some posters for English this year because Amanda is going to be learning English this year.  
Our school room is in my Living room.  My house has 2 Living rooms and my husband has taken over the other room and it is his "Man Room".  So I have my own Living room.  When I decided to homeschool the kids, I slowly got it more and more to appeal to the kids for school.  I am almost all of the way done with doing that I think.  It's not a huge Living room to begin with and there are a few things that I am not willing to give up in my room.  This room is also the room where the kids and I watch tv when we do.  Or if the kids get to play the wii it is in here.  Most of our activities are in here, unless they involve Greg and we go to "his" Living room.  
My School Nook is actually a bar that was built into our mobile home.  I bought a book shelf and stuck it in there.  We don't use that sink or the trash compactor in there, I think  they are both broken anyways.  So most of my stuff for school fits in there, except for the art supplies, which are stored in the closet in my laundry room.  I still have the crate on the floor next to my desk for ease of finding the right school books.  The only things in the crate are school books we are using right now.  The kids no longer use the cubbies that I bought for them because of their desks, so I have been able to use more of them for my shelves.  Amanda took one and put it under her desk, and Kyle's one that he kept won't fit under his desk, but his can stay on my shelves.  
I put up more of the wall stickers that are like chalkboard.  I haven't written anything on them yet, but I will write stuff pertaining to our topics that we are learning.  I let each of the kids pick out a caption bubble sticker to use to write the reference of their AWANA verse that they need to memorize for the week.  One is above Amanda's desk and Kyle's orange one is on the other because there isn't anywhere to put it above his desk.  I told them they could put the other ones I have on their desks to use, but they haven't decided yet.
*Please excuse my laundry baskets, I haven't put them away yet.

The bulletin board is ready for a couple of our subjects for the first week.

 The chalkboard wall stickers and Parts of Speech Poster.

 More of the chalkboard wall stickers up close.

 Amanda's desk.  She put it together herself.

 Above Amanda's desk.

 Kyle's desk.  He put most of his together himself also.

 My Living room/Schoolroom.  The kids are playing the wii.

 The chair that you see is to my desk. 

 The bar where the kids now eat.

 This is my School Nook.  That is my mug collection, well most of it.

 Top shelf has art supplies, blow-up globe, Hooked on Phonics kits and a tooth brushing kit and game.  2nd shelf has all of my teacher books and books that we will read this year in school.

 3rd shelf has these cubbies that have my school supplies in them (e.g. paper, file folders, peechees, flashcards, pencils, glue, chalk, etc.).  4th shelf has School books on them, mostly fiction, but I also have the Bibles on this shelf, with the school readers.

 5th shelf has nonfiction books and the reading comprehension books that Amanda is going to start.  The bottom shelf is Kyle's little cubby and the big empty one I am going to put the Leap Pad thingy in it.

   

My Homeschool Plans for 2010-2011

I just finished our schedule for school this coming year.  I feel very accomplished!

We aren't going to have a whole lot of days off this year, but we have to take an extra week off in December for my court case.  So here is the dates I have planned:

• September 13, 2010 - Start school
• November 22-26 - Thanksgiving Break
• December 6-10 - No school for court
• December 20-31 - Christmas Break
• April 18-22 - Spring Break
• June 10 - Last day of school

I have also split the year up into quarters because it made it easier for my to plan.  So here are the quarters, they are each 8.5 weeks, as we are in school 34 weeks.

• 1st Quarter September 13-November 10
• 2nd Quarter November 11-February 4
• 3rd Quarter February 7-April 5
• 4th Quarter April 6-June 10

And here is how I split each day up:

• Bible 10 min.
• History 20-30 min.
• Writing & Journal 10 min.
• Phonics 15 min.
• Independent Reading 15 min.
• Language Arts 30 min.
• Math 20 min.
• Classes that are split up during the year (Science, Music, Health, Social Studies, Arts) 30 min.

I also have written down what we will be studying each week for those classes that are split up and Language Arts.  So the only things that are left for me to do as each new subject comes up is choosing how we will study that subject.  

For example, when Personal and Dental Hygiene comes up in Health, I will have to choose what books to read, what activities to do and anything extra for that.  I don't want to do that much planning all now, because I enjoy the planning process of school.  I really want to make that last through the year!  

I feel like I am really set for school this year.  The kids want to start early, so we might just do that.  Who knows.  That's the beauty of home schooling!  If you'd like to read what subjects that we will be covering this year, read this post here.

  

Sorry for the delay....

We have been doing school very sporadically lately.  I haven't even done enough to blog about!  I have not been disciplined either.  But that's really ok, because I planned on doing school through most of the summer anyways.  We are almost done.  We will still be doing Kindergarten with Kyle, so his school years may be off for a bit.  But he wasn't supposed to start until this school year, so I'm not worried about it at all.  


Amanda will be done with her math soon.  Then we will just keep on working through the Hooked on Phonics and reading.  Kyle will do the same basically.  We'll start other subjects in September.  I am going to sit down here really soon and detail my plans.  But I do have tentative plans on what I want them to learn next year.  They will do all subjects together but math, phonics and reading.  Here is what I have so far:

Health & Safety

• Personal Cleanliness
• Dental Hygiene
• Basic Food Groups
• Neighborhood Safety
• Safety (Fire, Earthquake, etc)

Social Studies

• Holidays and Festivals
• Patriotic celebrations
• Basic Geography (Oceans, Continents, etc)
• Map skills and using a compass
• Manners

Visual Arts

• Lines
• Sculptures
• Landscapes
• Animals in art
• Abstract art
• Architecture
• Leonardo Da Vinci
• Van Gogh
• Michealangelo
• Picasso

Music

• Many Kinds
• Patriotic Music
• Folk Music
• Classical music Mozart
• Other great composers
• Families of instruments
• Writing music down
• Notes
• Pitch: High & Low
• Scales
• Hymns
• Beethoven   

History

• What is history?
• Creation
• Adam & Eve
• The Nomads
• Egyptians I
• Sumerians
• Jewish People
• The Assyrians I
• India I
• China I
• Africa
• Egypt I
• Phoenicians
• The Assyrians II
• Babylon
• Crete
• Greeks I
• Medes & Persians
• Sparta & Athens
• Greeks II
• Alexander the Great
• People of Americas
• Rome I
• India II
• Chine II
• Rome II
• Jesus' birth
• Jesus' miracles
• Jesus' parables
• Jesus' Crucifixion & Resurrection
• Rome & Christians
• Barbarians
• End of Rome

Science

• Life cycle
• Dinosaurs
• Weather
• Seasons
• Climate
• Water cycle
• Air & atmosphere
• Magnets, forces & simple machines
• Gravity
• Earth
• Sun. moon, planets
• Simple constellations
• Scientific method & scientific inquiry
• Human Body
• Scientists
• Anton van Lesuwenhock
• Florence Nightingale
• Daniel Hale Williams
• Elijah McCoy
• Liquids & Solids
• Rocks, clays & soils

 Language Arts (Kyle only will be doing the one with a star next to it)

• Poetry*
• Charlotte's Web*
• Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing*
• Sentences
• Nouns-Singular & Plural
• Verbs-Past and present
• Adjectives
• Antonyms & Synonyms
• Contractions
• Abbreviations
• Using Capital Letters
• Letter writing
• Silent reading
• Oral reading
• Quotation marks
• Punctuation
• Learn how to use a dictionary
• Spelling
• Writing
• Journal
• Mummies in the Morning*
• Learn about books and how to look them up in a library
• The Borrowers*
• The Boxcar Children*
• Pirates Past Noon*
• Beezus & Ramona*
• The Sign of the Beaver*
• Superfudge*
• The BFG*

Phonics for each child is Hooked on Phonics program

Math for Amanda-Using Math Mammoth book