This week's theme...

"This week’s theme is about sharing your 2008-09 homeschool agendas and plans. So this week I hope you will share what you’re doing this year for your homeschool agenda. Share the different curriculum you’re using. You can also include what age/grade you’re using it for, how long you’ve been using it, and why you like it. Please share a Bible verse that has encouraged you or inspired you during this planning-process, and how."

My favorite part of homeschooling (other than the field trips!) is the planning! I usually get started in the spring for the following year. I love to plan out what is to come. I use a program called Homeschool Tracker and it really helps me with getting everything laid out. I even printed my kids their own Agendas this year, with personalized covers and bound them. They love them. Each day's assignments are on a separate page and they check off each subject when it's done. There is also a place to put scores if they've taken a test or done something else that I need to keep track of the grade. Then, I can just pull their agendas every couple of weeks and enter their grades into the computer.

I decided to use several curricula that were new to us this year. Of course, we stayed with some tried and true favorites, as well. We kept the Saxon math and the Bob Jones English and then added almost everything else new.

For Bible, we are using Character Building for Families - which we actually began last year, but I didn't follow through too well with it. I switched early in the year to everyone reading their own Day to Day Bible. The Character Building for Families is working out better this time... I think we were all ready for it this year.

Both kids struggled with vocabulary on their end-of-the-year tests, so I figured I'd try Wordly Wise 3000 with both of them this year. It is going well, both kids enjoy it so far. The second week, several of the words from my daughter's list were in a book she's reading for pleasure! I explained how that was God showing her how useful doing vocabulary as a school subject is!

Nick also had a hard time with spelling on his testing, but did fantastic with his spelling all throughout the year. That told me he could memorize words for a week, but he really wasn't learning how to spell. The choices he made on the test acutally sounded out correctly, phonetically, but we needed a new type of learning because most of them were wrong! I checked around and found AVKO Sequential Spelling 1 to be what it seemed like would help him. We are a couple weeks into it and he's doing great!

I'm also using Handwriting Without Tears 3rd Grade Cursive program with him. I should have done this instead of teaching him D'Nealian printing from the beginning. His printing is so hard to read, but so far with HWT, his cursive is beautiful! And, he's writing it when he isn't asked to...that's a plus!

We are using GeoMatter's Trail Guide to World Geography instead of a history program. I never learned Geography in school and wanted my kids to have a better grasp on where places are in this beautiful world of ours, so I decided we'd use that as our base and learn some history of the countries we're studying. We're having a good time with that curriculum, as well. I can teach to both of them, and then they do individualized work based on their grade. They are able to do some projects together, which is fun. Here is a picture of the Terra Cotta Soldiers that they made, representing the 8099 life size terra cotta soldiers buried in China:

For science - a subject that I lack interest in - I decided to go with The Complete Book of Science for each of them, based on their grades. There are a lot of worksheet pages, but a lot of hands on learning and experiments, too. I think that was a great choice as well. I planned out the year lining their units up so they would be working on the same topics at the same time. They seem to like it and they really look forward to whatever experiments we're doing each week. Here they are with their snails, which Ciara has to observe for 2 weeks:

I'm assigning reading to both of them, and if the book is on the Book Adventure site, they are taking the quiz after reading. They are also both reading for pleasure this year, a lot more than in the past. We finally found a series of books that Ciara enjoys and she's reading more than doing any other free time activity right now (I'm a reader too, so this warms my heart!)

I've used the Manager's of Their Homes guide to set up a schedule several years ago, and we're trying to stick as close to it as we can, at least during school hours. I'm still having trouble fitting in the housecleaning, but I think that's a defect in my brain - I just can't seem to make it a top priority! I tried to post a copy of our daily schedule here, but it's so small you can't read it. (Can anyone explain to me how to put a picture in a post that can be clicked on to enlarge???)

I hope I haven't droned on and on and bored you to death. This is the first year I've felt entirely comfortable with my curriculum choices, and we're having a great start to the year.

Edited to include our verse for this year: "I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you." Psalm 32:8



Hope you are having a Blessed Day in your homeschool,


Lisa