Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Homeschool 2012-2013

Summer is not quiet over for us yet. While most families are scrambling to get all of the "back-to-school" goodies and trying to squeeze out the last few days of summer, our summer is still going strong. One of the advantages of homeschooling is that we get to set our own school calendar. So, we won't start back until September.

This doesn't mean I will be spending my days laying by the pool. Most homeschool moms spend a large majority of the summer planning the next school year.

As I have looked back over the past year and made plans for the future, two words have been consistently brought to mind: simplicity and balance.

We are cutting back on outside activities and I have re-arranged my violin teaching schedule to accommodate my family's needs. One of the reasons I wanted to homeschool was that I loved the idea of spending long days, teaching my children and enjoying their company. As another mom once said, "It's hard to homeschool when you are never home!" I am being very stingy with our homeschool time. I am making "home time" a priority.

Another change headed our way is the opportunity to travel more. If all goes as planned, we will be taking school on the road every once in a while. Our family loves to travel and this is a welcome opportunity. Having school in the mountains is a dream, especially when it comes to nature study!

Probably the biggest change for me, though, is going to be incorporating technology into our curriculum. Augh! Screens give me a headache. I would much rather read a book while sitting under a tree than to be trapped inside, glued to a screen. I am both dreading and looking forward to teaching the kids how to use our new tablet. I am truly not sure how I feel about this, but I will let you know if we love it or if we decide to sell it cheap on eBay.

One of the things I LOVE about homeschool is the ability to design our own course of study and cater it to the needs and interests of our children. I also love the fact that once we breeze through the basics each day, we can study the "fun stuff".

Each day, we will use Bob Jones curriculum for reading, English, science, and history. We will use Spelling Power and Math U See.

Then, we get to sit back and relax while we make our way through Geography Through Art, The Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide, Let's Meet Famous Artists, Teaching Character Through Literature, Meet the Great Composers, Prima Latina, Then Sings My Soul: Favorite Hymn Stories, Inspiration Station Art, and The Ultimate Homeschool Physical education Game Book. Bailey will be doing a unit study on the American Girls Collection and Zack will be working on a unit study about inventors and their inventions. Nature Journals are our constant companion . I will mention it here, but Nature Study has become a way of life, not necessarily a school subject. It's just something we do everyday.

Another very important part of our children's education is "Grandparent Time." We are blessed to have my parents living just a few miles away. Weekly visits with  the grandparents are an invaluable opportunity for education and something Bailey and Zack look forward to! Pa Pa teaches them about gardening, woodworking, dominoes, and checkers. Nanny teaches them music and baking. Bailey and Zack learn so much from their grandparents about respect and having a Godly world view. They have also learned how to tie a string around a locust, how to shoot a BB gun, and the best way to catch a catfish. They have even learned to speak "Okie".

We are cutting back on a few outside activities, but we are still going to continue music lessons, and couple of "social clubs". Oh, and don't forget 4 trips to the ice rink each week for figure skating and hockey! I know it sounds like a lot, but this is actually a slower schedule for our family. Several of these activities over-lap, so the time commitment is not as great as it first appears.

So, there you have it - a nice, simple, balanced homeschool year in the plan book. Now, I'm off to pack for a couple of weeks in the mountains. We still have an entire month of summer!