Frazzled LaShawn

For the last few weeks I have been busy preparing for our upcoming “school” year.  I find it funny that everyone is getting ready to END the school year and I am preparing to start.  Well, that is because I am weird.

Let me ‘splain.

Last year when we finally felt like we received confirmation for God that we were supposed to homeschool (yes I do feel like we were called) the boys were still a few months from being done with their school year in public school.  I spent that time preparing for what would happen once they were out of public school.  We let them finish out the year.  As their summer began we started easing into math.  I noticed that where the public schools were in math was not where I thought they should be.  So we spent a portion of the summer just on math.  Well, by the time July rolled around the boys were BORED.  So we started with our other subjects.  This year we have been very laid back.  My goal was to get them out of the public school mindset.  Since about February it has felt like we were just about done with 2nd and 4th grade.  So we have been just doing a little bit of work here and there.  We all feel like it is time to move on.

I am completely changing up our homeschool for this year.  We will school four days a week through the summer taking weeks off here and there.  We will also take a good deal of time off around Thanksgiving and Christmas.  This is one of the joys of homeschool.  We get to decide.

Curriculum is being changed too.  This year will be much more rigorous for the boys.  We needed the laid back year we have had this last year.  DESPERATELY needed.  Now it is time to charge ahead.  Both of the boys have proven to be much more independent in their work than I expected.  (Brodie does still require more supervision that Austin)  We sat down and talked about what we wanted out of the year.  Turns out they both want me to basically have an assignment sheet for the week and let them go.  They also both requested that I grade more.  I really have desire to keep grades at this age.  But they do.  If it helps them and motivates them…then that is what we will do.  We are basically changing everything.  Chase will join the ranks of my “in school” boys.  Evan will do some motor skills work mostly to keep him occupied while others are working.

I have been asked about our curriculum so here is a list of what we will be using:

Austin (5th Grade) and Brodie (3rd Grade):

English, Spelling, Reading, Bible, Math, and Handwriting:  Rod and Staff Curriculum

History: TruthQuest - Early American History:  Exploration to 1800 (lots of reading aloud and discussions together with me)

Science: Apologia – Zoology 1: Flying Creatures of the 5th day (done together with me, as well)

*a sidenote:  I never set out to use basically one curriculum for all our subjects, but I was REALLY impressed with Rod and Staff the more research I did.  We are excited to give it a try*

Chase (4) and Evan (1.5):  I am still planning it out (we are using a combination of things)

There will still be lots of reading going on and lots of outdoors.  We will begin our new year May 3rd and we are all really excited.

Imagine that….excited about learning.