I am a member of The Homeschool Lounge and have really enjoyed being a part of that community! It is really an awesome support group of homeschooling families.
In this month of August they are having a homeschool open house. We are all posting about our homeschool plans for the coming year. Not only will this help us get to know each other and see what each other is planning...but it is also giving a chance at over $5,000 in giveaways just by entering our post!! And who doesn't like giveaways!!
Who we are:
Seth - age 4 - ready to tackle Pre-K. Below you will see the curriculum and resources we are using.
Aaron - age 2 - ready to tackle Tot School activities (explained more below) as he continues to learn about his world around him
Alyssa - infant - will be eating, napping and pooping (what more can you expect from an infant - HA!!)
Where we will be:
Most importantly - we will be at HOME!! We are fortunate enough to have an extra room where we can set up and learn.
This is a view of our classroom. It's small but hubby said that will probably be good to help keep Seth focused!! We'll see! :-)
What we will be learning:
Seth's line-up:
1) Hooked on Phonics - we will be going through the Hooked on Phonics series. We will be taking our time with it and incorporating other activities to go along with it. Right now Seth thinks learning is a fun game and I want to keep it that way. He also has a big eagerness to learn how to read!! You can follow our blog to see the fun activities that I have come up with for our phonics lessons. I have so many ideas in my head! I hope they all work when we actually try them :-)
2)bible lessons - We are going to use the ABC's of the Bible curriculum. It is a full year's worth of bible stories...one for each week. We will have a lesson every morning during breakfast...focusing on one bible story for the whole week. Both boys will be involved with this and I am looking forward to these lessons. I feel this is the greatest advantage to homeschooling...to be able to teach my kids the bible lessons! And we will start this off with a BANG! Our first bible lesson is Adam and the Apple so we will be having apple breakfasts all week long (apple muffins, apple oatmeal, etc...) Most of our crafts during the week will also relate to our bible story for that week as well.
3) Super Star Speech - Seth is showing a bit of speech delay. Poor thing comes by it honestly...I had to take speech therapy as a child. I found this curriculum and got a GREAT Deal by buying the e-book and printing it myself. This really does a good job of helping you develop your therapy plan and gives lots of ideas and helps for your therapy.
4) Other subjects - My mother, an elementary ed teacher, found this great book for me. This book could be a stand alone curriculum for the pre-k year. It is filled with so many activities and lessons on a wide range of subjects including math, science, history, etc... we will be enjoying these lessons. I also have many workbooks from Target and Hooked on Phonics to work on our math and handwriting skills.
5) Brain Quest - I found this at Target a few weeks back and thought it was really cool. I thought it would be a neat way to guage what Seth has learned. I thought I would go through the questions at the beginning of our year (which is what we have been doing the past couple of weeks) and make note of the questions he got wrong. That way I know things that we need to focus on. I thought I would go through the questions again in a few months and see how far we have come. I have found that with these questions he has gotten over half of them right already!! So I think in a few months time we will definately have mastered this level and will be ready to move to the kindergarten level.
Aaron's Line-Up:
Aaron is 2 years old...Aaron is not ready for school...I am not a mom who wants to have a child prodigy and hammer in school at such a young age (in fact I realize that Seth is still a bit young but he is showing an eagerness so we are giving it a go). But I LOVE Carisa's blog and her Tot School that she came up with. Tot School is not school... it is a special play time set aside just for Aaron. I don't want Aaron to be left out since I will be spending some focused time on Seth with his school. Therefore this is Aaron's designated time for one on one play with Mommy. Now I do strive to, during this time, to have educational play. I will use fun activities to help Aaron develop fine and gross motor skills, learn his colors and shapes and eventually his letters and numbers and so on. I am super excited about this special time with Aaron and already have thought of so many activities for us to do!
Next year we will be able to bring Alyssa into Tot School as well :-)
When we will be learning:
We are starting school next Monday - August 17, 2009!
I am wanting to keep the schedule as flexible as I can. A couple of months ago I came up with the Special Agent Oso daily missions (one of Seth's favorite shows on the disney channel). So I will have the chart for a visual for him each day to keep up with what we are doing.
Here is the general schedule we will try to follow (of course this will be tweaked as needed once we get started)
Mondays
9:30 - 10:00 - breakfast and bible lesson
10:00-10:30 - morning chores
10:30-11:00 - Seth Lessons
11:00-11:30 - Tot School
11:30-12:30 - play/free time
12:30- 1:00 - lunch
1:00 - 2:00 - Seth nap (Aaron will most likely nap until 3:00 or after)
2:00 - 2:30 - game time with Seth
2:30 - 3:00 - Seth lessons
3:00 - 4:00 - craft/activity time
4:00 - 5:00 - play/free time
5:00- - 5:30 - afternoon chores
Tuesdays
8:00 - 8:30 - breakfast & bible lesson
8:30 - 9:00 - morning chores
9:00 - 1:00 - story time at the library & lunch out
1:00 - 2:00 - Seth nap (Aaron will nap until 3:00 or after)
2:00 - 3:00 - Seth lessons
3:00 - 3:30 - Tot School
3:30 - 5:00 - play/free time
5:00 - 5:30 - afternoon chores
Wednesdays
9:30 - 10:00 - breakfast and bible lesson
10:00-10:30 - morning chores
10:30-11:00 - Tot School
11:00-11:30 - Seth Lessons
11:30-12:30 - play/free time
12:30- 1:00 - lunch
1:00 - 2:00 - Seth nap (Aaron will most likely nap until 3:00 or after)
2:00 - 2:30 - Seth Lessons
2:30 - 3:00 - play/free time
3:00 - 4:00 - craft/activity time
4:00 - 4:30 - afternoon chores
(we have church on Wednesday nights)
Thursdays
9:30 - 10:00 - breakfast and bible lesson
10:00-10:30 - morning chores
10:30-11:00 - Seth Lessons
11:00-11:30 - Tot School
11:30-12:30 - play/free time
12:30- 1:00 - lunch
1:00 - 2:00 - Seth nap (Aaron will most likely nap until 3:00 or after)
2:00 - 2:30 - game time with Seth
2:30 - 3:00 - Seth lessons
3:00 - 4:00 - craft/activity time with both boys
4:00 - 5:00 - play/free time
5:00- - 5:30 - afternoon chores
Fridays
9:30 - 10:00 - breakfast and bible lesson
10:00-10:30 - morning chores
10:30-11:00 - Tot School
11:00-11:30 - Seth lessons
11:30-12:30 - play/free time
12:30- 1:00 - lunch
1:00 - 2:00 - Seth nap (Aaron will most likely nap until 3:00 or after)
2:00 - 2:30 - Seth lessons
2:30 - 3:00 - game time
3:00 - 3:30 - afternoon chores
Right now I am using Google calendar to make my schedules...and a lesson plan book from the $1 aisle at Target. I am just planning a week's worth of lessons at a time because I don't know what the exact pace will be yet on the lessons. I am filling the lesson plan book with tot school activities as I think of them so that I don't forget them.
I just found out yesterday that I won one of the Homeschool Day Planners from the July giveaway on The Homeschool Lounge! I am so excited!! I never win anything. They are mailing it tomorrow so I am sure once I get that all of my planning will go in there. And the cool thing about that planner is that it will help schedule other house duties such as cleaning and meal planning, not just homeschool! I am so excited because I so need a good planner! I sure hope it is easy to use and will help keep me organized.
I hope you have enjoyed a glimpse into our homeschool. Like I said we are just starting so all of this is subject to change! Ha! Feel free to keep up with this blog to see how our journey plays out. I know I am sure excited about this journey!
I am also open to advise, suggestions, etc...feel free to leave a comment!
Happy homeschooling everybody!
Loved this, you are so organized, I am jealous. Love your blog.
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