Getting Started...

This week is our official first week of home school. After years of research (I'm not exaggerating) about curriculum, education theories, home school organization, and a good week of visiting family who kept my kids happy as clams while I nailed out 11 weeks worth of planning, I felt pretty ready to start.

I put the finishing touches on our home school space in the basement and I'm happy with how it came out. Special thanks to the previous owners of our house who, unintentionally, set up a perfect home schooling space with wonderful storage. I got a great adjustable table from Ikea, four classroom chairs from garage sales and craigslist, and two adorable school desks from craigslist.

Colin began Kindergarten and Anna has started preschool. Neither K or preschool are required in Ohio and K is only half a day so this is a good year to get in the groove and not have too much pressure. Next year we will have to officially report to the state.

For those of you interested, here's our plan:
Colin is doing Math U See Primer and getting through about 3 pages a day. It's really below his level at this point but I want him to feel like math is easy for him so he has the confidence to deal with the harder concepts that will come up later. He's already a good reader so we're just doing lots of library books and I'm having him read aloud to me regularly to reinforce the concepts. We'll start grammar next year. We're doing several unit studies this fall including introducing science, a week on community helpers, space, and US Presidents. I'm also reading aloud to him chapter books like the Magic Tree House series as well as other classic kids books to be determined. Colin will also be attending Classical Conversations, a supplemental home school program, once a week.

With Anna I'm following the Letter of the Week Preparatory Curriculum from this site. I started this with Colin years ago but never finished it. It's a great little program that gives Anna "her own thing." I especially like the learning poster aspect of this program. Every day we'll add something new to the poster. In place of the nursery rhyme, we'll be learning Bible Verses that go with the letter of the week.

For both of them, we're going to do simple science experiments, occasional Five in a Row unit studies, nature walks, crafts, cooking projects, tons of library books, board games, etc. We'll do school at home mostly on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, half a day on Thursday (Classical Conversations day), and Friday is a special day for field trips and other outings. We'll hit the library every Tuesday.

For organization, we're jumping on the Workbox System bandwagon. At this point, I have 6 boxes for each of them. I fill them the night before with their activities for the day and they use a sticker chart to mark their progress.

So, there you have it. I have a plan and now I just have to stick to it. Prayerfully hoping for a great year!