Thinking Ahead, About Building

 

I don’t know if you’ve ever watched Holmes on Homes or any of those shows, but we used to watch him a lot.  Or these other reno shows, where the owners just drive the general contractors crazy?  Know what I’m talking about?  Kinda like Bride-zilla, but it’s a house owner instead of a bride???

 

I DO NOT WANT TO BE THAT PERSON!  And then I think, I’m not really like that.  I’m pretty laid back and easy going.

 

I was thinking about flooring, as I watched Matty push the chairs across the floor for the umpteenth time, just because he can.  I want solid, mark-able floors that will take a beating and not get or look scratched.  I want something “finished,” that’s not going to give my children slivers every day.  I’m not picky about the color, but neutral would probably be best so that I can change the paint on the walls easily, not having to worry about a bright pink floor or something like that.

 

Or door knobs.  I don’t care.  I just want them to be there, and I want them to work.  I don’t want anything fancy.  I just want to be able to lock my bedroom door, or my bathroom door.

 

Think:

Source: retrorenovation.com via Danielle on Pinterest

 

 

Not:

Source: etsy.com via Sis on Pinterest

 

 

I’m a simple girl.  At least I think so.

 

I am getting excited about the new house, anxious for the snow to go, for the demolition crew to come take the burnt building and basement away.

 

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

Continuing My Homeschool Planning

So to begin with I planned and scheduled the days that we were actually going to “do school” and scheduled in our week long breaks and unit studies.  I posted that schedule here.

 

My next step was to schedule daily what pages we would do in each subject.  After searching for too long, I finally decided on Donna Young’s spreadsheet that you can find here.  Donna Young’s products are free for personal use on her website, or you can purchase a CD.  The Excel Weekly Planner is a 6 week planner which works perfect for me because I’ve divided our year into 6 week segments.  I saved the original download as a template.  Then whenever I start to schedule another six weeks, I save as the dates and child I am scheduling.  I hope that makes sense.  At first the planner was a little confusing, but if you actually read the instructions and follow them, it’s not so bad!  Below is a copy of the first week for one of the older two girls.  So far I’ve planned and printed to October 15, 2010.  On October 25, we will be adding another few subject headings as we will begin our Tapestry of Grace journey.  I will be moving on to this planning after I get more of the preschool program planned and created.

 

I’ve always found that my younger children want to do school too, so this year I am diving into the workbox idea.  I found Confessions of a Homeschooler and her Letter of the Week curriculum and I love love love it.  All the sheets are free on her website, or you can purchase them all together and well organized!  I purchased the file!  At this point in my life I need easy, organized, all in one place.  There has been very little that I’ve had to do to supplement her material.  I just have to look for books at the library and I’ve already started lists on my library system page to order them through interlibrary loan closer to the date.

 

I have spent a good part of my “free” time planning and printing and cutting and assembling for this system.  I can’t wait.  And I know M and W are going to love it.  I am really hoping they can be mostly self-directed with this system.  Whenever the children are around when I’m working on these projects I get tonnes of questions and begging to have the activities NOW.  I’m making them wait.  Because I am laminating a number of the sheets I am really hoping to avoid reprinting and redoing all this work for the future children (R and the new baby).  Now I just need to find a system of storing all this stuff!

 

So for the first six weeks of school, the preschoolers will be learning about the vowels – A, E, I, O, U – and the letter B.  The printing and planning is time consuming, but the more I do, the quicker the process is becoming.  By the time I get to Z I will be a pro!  My midwife has always told me to have a project to keep me busy in the last few weeks of a pregnancy.  The project needs to not be physically demanding but something that does not have to be finished should baby come early.  In other pregnancies I have worked on a blanket (crocheting).  I have no desire to crochet that heavy blanket in the summer heat.  I am so thankful for this project.  I really do need to get at least the first 6 weeks planned, but after that I think I’m good.  Worst comes to worst, we’ll review the first six weeks during the second six weeks so that I can get the next 6 letters planned and organized.

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

My Homeschool Plan and System

Written May 2010.  Posting now, as I am in the middle of planning and organizing our school days for the fall.

I always knew I would homeschool my children.  I was homeschooled for one year and got a taste for it; I loved being homeschooled.  Thinking back, my mom did a great job!  I was only in second grade and I’d wished she’d continued.  When I got married, I was so very glad that my new husband was very supportive of homeschooling as well.  I thought I’d be a “school-at-home” type homeschooler, but as it turns out I’m very much an unschooler (not a radical unschooler though, we still have a lot of rules!).  We let life teach our children.  We offer tonnes of opportunities for learning and developing and reading and interacting.  And, get this, MY KIDS ARE LEARNING!!!  I love it.

So why am I changing things up this year?  Never before in my three years of homeschooling have a bought a curriculum.  That’s the plan for this coming year though.  As my children get a little older, I see that they are craving a little more structure and direction in their learning.  I want to offer new and different things.  I do not feel that I am allowing for that; we are doing a lot of the same things over and over again and I feel that the children are getting bored.

I didn’t search very hard for curriculum.  Curriculum is everywhere in the homeschool world.  This curriculum kind of fell into my lap.  I did research this one and many others to make sure this is what I really really wanted.  I compared this one with that one.  I wanted something that I could be hands-off and let them do their own exploring and reading.  I wanted something that provided direction.  I wanted something that taught me too!  And you know what, I’m pretty sure I found it!

This coming year we are going to start with Year 1 Unit 1 of Tapestry of Grace.  We have already started through the first three weeks of this program and really enjoyed it.  The reason we didn’t continue this year was because this curriculum requires a lot of reading.  I wanted the children to be able to read the material for themselves.  Like I said earlier, I want my children do discover things on their own with little direct instruction from  me.  So I decided to hold off on exploring deeper into the curriculum with the kids until they could read better.  Over the summer we will be working more on reading and writing so come late fall they will be ready to go full force.

Tapestry of Grace is a four year program; each year contains 4 units.  I am combining this curriculum with other workbooks (and such things) and making it work for our unschooling  / eclectic mindset.  We are going to work through the material slowly.  My plan at this point is to take Y1U1 and double the time to go through it.  So a 9 week course is going to take 18 weeks or so.  I don’t want to feel like I have to cram all the information into one week.  I know we don’t have to do all the material listed; I know that I’m supposed to pick and choose from the activities provided in the material.  I know we won’t do all of it; I don’t even want to, but I want to allow my children to dig in and dig deeper if they want.  I want the freedom to allow them this time.  I also want to allow them to say, “Mom, this is boring.  Can we move on?’  And we can do that.  We’ll start Y1U2 when we get there.  I love the flexibility of Tapestry of Grace!

I think that’s what I love about homeschooling the most.  I can pick and choose what we want to do and when and where.  We can let life happen and not worry about “keeping up” to grade level.  We can work at our own pace.  We have a baby coming this fall and so I’m not even planning to start serious “sit-down” school until mid-October.  We school through the whole summer.  I believe that if I don’t continue with engaging my children in learning all year round that they will get bored.  The fact is they do get bored.

ETA: I even purchased a prek workbox curriculum for my preschooler and kindergartener.

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

Working On My Homeschool Plan

Some have asked to see my schedule for the year.  This is what it looks like:

Starting September 5, 2010 to October 16, 2010 (6 weeks) we will do regular school.  I haven’t figured out the plan completely, but we will continue with math (as we have been through the summer), we will add science (2 times a week) and character studies (2 times a week).  We will add piano as long as I can get some books from which to teach.  For the younger two, we will do a letter of the week for those six weeks.  Then we will break for one week.  In that week we will only do the regularly scheduled activities of dance and choir.

Starting October 25, 2010 to December 4, 2010 (another 6 weeks) I hope to have purchased and planned at least 6 weeks of Tapestry of Grace material and have all the books here.  So we will add TOG to the math, and other subjects mentioned above.  The younger two will continue with another 6 letters of the alphabet.

YAY for December!  We will break from all regular school-y stuff and do a unit study on the topic of Christmas.  I will have to be planning this during the fall months.  That will take the four weeks of December to January 1st when we will start another 6 weeks session.

After two more 6 week sessions we will have another unit study in April (3-30).  I have not yet decided what this unit will be, but I’ll let the kids decide I think.  Then another two 6 weeks sessions followed by a third unit study / planning / summer break in August (July 31 to August 27).

Now to print some planning pages to get more specifics down on paper and out of my jumbled mind.

What does your homeschool year look like?

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

Update on Pondering Curriuculum and Planning

The decision has been made to print the three weeks of Tapestry of Grace. I will then work on planning those three weeks over six weeks. That will take us from the first week of January to mid-February. By that time, if J keeps working like he has been, we should be in a financial place to purchase the curriculum for the first year.

Building a Life will also be continued in January. The kids are looking forward to it, but there are too many things to be excited about in December to focus on sit-down school too much. So the rest of December will be a lot of planning and organizing for me. I love that part of my teaching job.

Kristyn is working on chapter 11 of 13 in ACSI Math 1. She is pushing hard to get the book done. Cora-Jean is just not there yet. She is working on it but doesn't have the same drive as Kristyn to get it finished by January. I may have to push her a little.

Letter of the Week has been asked for. If I don't have the pages printed, Marrissa is asking where they are. So, more planning to get at least one activity a day planned for M and W for the month of January. The thing with that is that Kristyn and Cora wanna do what Marrissa and Wyatt are. We'll have to work it all in together somehow.

I've also decided that we will start Tapestry of Grace as soon as we can and get into a regular routine with it. I want to have the routine of school carry us through when it gets tough at the end of the pregnancy and when the baby first comes.

Planning planning planning. I think I will have a separate calendar / planner for each child. I will write that child's assignments and plans in that book / folder / planner. I don't know how else to plan for them. How do you plan and organize your homeschooling students?

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

Thinking about Christmas

It's only 112 days away!

Here's a link I've been lookin' at this evening. http://organizedchristmas.com/

Here's our guideline as far as our purchases / giving for the kids. I read it somewhere and I'd give credit if I could find it.

Something to wear,
Something to read,
Something that's wanted,
Something s/he needed.

Just thinking out loud.

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

The plan for our week, with meal ideas.

Well, the new month is upon us! And is filling up fast.

Monday is an afternoon with friends from church with supper at their home. Monday evening is Simply Sensational Divas Review Twitter Party. (Make sure you sign up and join in! Giveaways to be announced and won!!!)

Tuesday is baking (hopefully) with Grandma Irene. (For those of you who knew she was ill, I just wanted to let you know that she is doing much better.) J has a meeting that night, so supper will have to be something quick.

Wednesday is library day.

Thursday is J's fire practice, so something quick again.

Friday is still totally empty!! WOOHOO!

Saturday is a "Welcome to our World" party for a new baby in our church! Potluck meals are always so fun!



Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

Don't forget to check out the great giveaways at Simply Sensational Divas Review.