Our 2018/2019 homeschool year has begun!
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Through the summer, our goal is to log three full days of school per week. Once August gets here, we'll be doing four school days per week. Year-round homeschooling gives us the opportunity to work fewer days per week and take more frequent breaks.
We officially started back June 5th, and so far everything is going pretty smoothly. We have tweaked our schedule a little, started using a new motivational system, and added a few new activities to our days.
Big Brother is doing 5th grade this year, and Little Brother is doing K4 (pre-kindergarten). Baby Sister is currently 4 months old.
Here are our curriculum choices for this year:
5th Grade:
ACE (PACEs) for Math, English, Word Building, Literature/Creative Writing, Science, Social Studies, and Bible
Math Supplements (just to add in some fun challenges):
The Smart Alec Math Series Grade 5 Workbook
Fine Arts -
Piano Lessons (I'm teaching piano myself this year.)
Extras -
Weekly Book Reports (We're using reproducible pages from this fantastic resource.)
Quarterly Scripture Memory Passages
Life Skills-
Assorted daily and weekly chores
Practicing basic cooking skills
Packing Baby Sister's diaper bag
4-H (Homeschool Club, Country Ham Club, public speaking competitions, and more)
ACE Junior Regional Student Convention
Big Brother has a new binder organizational system this year for his work, and I got the idea from this YouTube video.
We also started a brand new Privilege System for Big Brother similar to what is shown in this YouTube video. I will be telling you a little bit more about our system and how it differs a little from the one in the video in a later post.
K4
(Check out this treasure and more from homeschool mom Erin Cox at Life, Abundantly!)
Based on principles from classical education and the Charlotte Mason method, this curriculum for 2-4 year olds is thorough yet fun and so easy to add to our days. Little Brother (now a big, busy 4 year old) has been using The Gentle + Classical Preschool Level 1 since March, and he has learned so much already! We spend 2 weeks on each unit gently learning a new letter, Bible verse, life skill, science topic, social studies topic, nursery rhyme, motor skill, and more.
Other materials we are using for K4:
Life Skills-
Self-Care
Assisting with daily chores
Simple cooking skills (He makes some awesome little homemade pizzas!)
Little Brother joins in and listens along with anything we are doing with Big Brother that interests him. We also incorporate lots of additional learning activities from Pinterest and YouTube. By the end of this year, I hope to start teaching him some short and simple piano lessons.
I will be sharing over the next few weeks more information about our daily schedule, Big Brother's school binder, our Privilege System, our latest Morning Time routine, and more.
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