It’s the annual *NOT* Back to School blog hop over at The Heart of the Matter Online.. and I wasn’t going to rewrite another post for my curriculum since I’ve already posted it twice. BUT.. I’ve decided that I am, because I’ve made a few changes and tweaks and the other one (listing out every single notebook and workbook) is kind of overwhelming to look at — even for me! So I thought a simplified, updated list might be nice to share with all of the blog hoppy folks instead. Here it is:

2011-2012 Curriculum

{as it stands right now.. starred items are items I already have, everything else is subject to change. ; ) }

Group Subjects

Bible/Worldview

• Memorization – Charlotte Mason Method*
• Who Is God? (And Can I Really Know Him?) — Biblical Worldview of God and Truth (What We Believe, Volume 1)*

History & Geography

• Mystery of History Vol 2: Early Church and Middle Ages
• Literature relevant to this time period. (Here’s a link to a book list for Mystery of History Vol. 2.)
• Geography related literature. (Here’s a link to a book list for geography.)

Science

• Apologia: Exploring Creation Human Anatomy* with Notebooking Journals* and Experiment Kit.
• Coordinating Science Readers for the Kindergartner (A book list coming soon.)

Language Arts

• Our Mother Tongue: An Introductory Guide to English Grammar*
• Writing Strands Level 3*

Art/Music

• God and the History of Art
• The Usborne Book of Drawing, Doodling and Coloring
• The Usborne Art Treasury
• Teaching Little Fingers to Play: A Book for the Earliest Beginner*
• Bastien Piano Basics: Primer Series (all four.)
  

Health/Nutrition/P.E.

• Books about nutrition and health and taking care of your body (Book list coming soon.)
• 2-3rd grade Discovering Physical Education Activity Workbook (won this, I’ll let you know what I think!)
• Nickelodeon Fit for Wii*

Individual Subjects

Princess, Age 11, Grade 6/7:

• Words on the Vine: 36 Vocabulary Units on Root Words (The 100+ Series)*
• Reading Detective A1: Using Higher-Order Thinking to Improve Reading Comprehension (Grades 5-6)
• Teaching Textbooks 7

Drama Queen, Age 8, Grade 3:

• Reading Detective: Beginning, Using Higher-Order Thinking Skills to Improve Reading Comprehension (Grades 3-4)
• Spectrum Spelling, Grade 3 (McGraw-Hill Learning Materials Spectrum)
• Horizons Math 3*

Little Prince, Age 5, Grade K:

• All the preschool workbooks and activity books we already have on hand and then…
• A Reason For Handwriting, Kindergarten: Kindergarten Student Workbook*
• Brain Quest Workbook: Kindergarten*

For Mom:

• Well Planned Day* teacher planner
• Desk Apprentice Rotating Desk Organizer* (with a organizing/planning system similar to this post from The Kelley Eight.)
• Read for the Heart: Whole Books for WholeHearted Families
• Educating the Whole Hearted Child, Third Edition*
• For Instruction in Righteousness: A Topical Reference Guide for Biblical Child-Training
• Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling Teens*

Well that STILL looks like a lot of stuff. =P I guess with 3 kids it’s bound to be!! But it DOES look less intimidating than the more detailed list. ; )

You can join in with the blog hop at Heart of the Matter, too. Check it out.

It’s been a whole month!! I can’t believe how quickly this month flew by.. I should feel a whole month closer to being ready to start school. (I’m not so sure about that! *Insert Mini Panic Here*)

Today I’m going to cover our school day and our lesson planning. I’m also going to show you a few pictures of our school stuff that I couldn’t share last week because my camera was spazzing. But first, I’d like to apologize to anyone who was on the ball and ready to link up today — I wasn’t! I’ve been swamped (see previous post about being “Overwhelmed!“) I’m all ready to go now, though, so I hope you forgive me!

Also, this post is doubling for the Letter “P” of ABCs of Homeschooling today, you can find out why at the bottom of the post (or I guess you can just skip ahead and look down there and see.) =p

Our School Day

Our school day is going to look very similar to last year but I’m thinking about making one little tweak. Last year we did bible, math and language arts before lunch and then scheduled either history or science in the afternoon with a big block of time to do our projects and experiments. This year I’m tempted to do all of our group subjects first and then break apart into individual work.. anybody have any experience or advice here? I’d love some. I think we’ll at least give it a go and then see how it works for us.

Our library bag and morning basket.

For the last several weeks we’ve been working on our morning bible study habit–which has the added benefit of pushing aside the morning tv habit, which was our biggest enemy for starting school on time. We’re going to keep nailing that habit down and hopefully that habit will help us have a better start to our day. It will also flow from morning bible study right on into starting our school with our “bible class” (which focuses less on personal edification and more on learning ABOUT the bible: books, verses, main ideas.) I’m very excited to work on this and grow this throughout the year. (You can read about our “Morning Basket” here.)

Planning For Our Day

One of our other big “enemies” of a smooth school day has been a lack of preparing ahead. Inspired by Samantha’s Planning post at The Kelley Eight, I’ve turned a new leaf in the planning and preparing ahead department. This year, not being prepared is NOT going to be an excuse! Ok, we still have to be self disciplined to USE it, but if something doesn’t get done it won’t be because we weren’t prepared for it. I’ve got two big tools for planning and preparing for our day: My Well Planned Day Planner and the Desk Apprentice Rotating Organizer.

I *heart* my planner. When I get my planner, the very first thing I do is turn to the full year calendar and start circling school breaks until I have 36 weeks left for school, then I number all the weeks.

I should have used pencil! Learn from me. ;0)

The next thing I do is turn to every month calendar transferring the week/break info to each monthly calendar, including holidays and birthdays, etc, while I’m there.

Filling in week numbers, breaks, etc on the monthly calendar.

The last thing I do to prep my planner (which I just started doing this year and I’ve already thanked myself for doing it!) is to flip through every month and label EVERY. SINGLE. school week up the side of the page, “Week 1, Week 2…” Now I can see what week we’re on while I’m looking at a weekly spread — that has already come in handy while lesson planning! Lesson planning is the next thing I do. Last year I planned a week or two ahead at a time. This year I’m going *crazy* and planning the whole year (it’s a part of planning ahead — if I’m to make copies and printouts ahead of time then I need to know what we’re doing and when.) I say I’ve gone crazy because I remember looking at a friend’s Sonlight curriculum back when Princess was in Kindergarten or First grade and FREAKING. OUT. Everything, planned out to the T, telling you to do so much stuff in a day, no flexibility! If you’d told me then that six years later I’d be doing the same thing myself I’d have outright laughed at you! The difference this time is that I’m in control and I’ve grown enough to handle it and not stress out if we don’t get something done on one day and do it on the next. See? God *can* teach an old homeschooler new tricks. ;0)

Filling it in. Science (Tuesdays and Thursdays) and Language Arts (every day.)

The rotating organizer is new and still being filled in, but it’s already being used. I’ve got some weekly folders for “summer school” and the upcoming year. It holds MY pens/highlighters and other teacher supplies. It conveniently contains what I’m working on right now (which is lesson planning for our science.) Once school gets underway it will serve as convenient filing for upcoming and finished work, both, as well as a place to keep record keeping. Record keeping is something I still needs LOTS of work on. The Well Planned Day planner has some record keeping pages (weekly) but I really need some help in this area and I’m open to some tips!

Folders to file in as I make copies. Books I'm reading to prepare for the year, curriculum to be lesson planned, and so much more!

Living it Out

In addition to our morning basket, my planner and the organizer, there are a few other things that will help us get our work and projects done. As I’ve mentioned, most of our school is done in the living room, so the bulk of our school stuff is in there in a kind of “school center.” We’ve got our books, the printer, a desktop, a whiteboard and a bulletin board – not to mention comfortable couches and seating for reading and learning together.

Our "school center." I hope to build a wooden cube-style bookcase for this. Note the American flag stuck in the fake plant. =p

In the living room, I’ve also dedicated the bottom shelf of the bookcase to extra school books/resources. I really need to go through this and purge some things, I’ve got plans to add much more to this shelf for the upcoming school year (I may need another shelf.) ;0)

Wow, um, I need to dust!!!

Of course, projects and experiments are best done at the dining room table or in the kitchen. With that in mind, I’ve turned the cart in the corner of the dining room into a craft cart. This also needs to be totally revamped (I have no idea what or how but it needs some help!) The science experiment box (still working on that, I’ll post pictures when it’s done!) will also go in here so that everything we need for science and art projects are available and ready to use.

Not much to look at.... YET...

So that’s the plan.

I’m always really great at the ‘planning’ part — the real test comes with the “doing” part! Incidentally, my planning post coincided with week “P” of the ABCs of Homeschooling at 5 Kids And a Dog! Dawn and I have both decided to use our Back to School posts about planning for her letter “P” link-up, which she’s posting TODAY instead of tomorrow — I’m sure you can find even MORE planning tips over there!

I’ve really enjoyed this month of sharing and blog hopping with you all. Thank you so much for joining in and making it a great month!

You can find all of the Back to (Home) School posts here and all of my ABC’s of Homeschooling posts here.

If you’re panicking because your school room/area/stuff is SOOO NOT READY for this post, well stop!

Mine isn’t either!! *mini freak-out* And when you add to that the fact that I’m currently without camera.. that means I won’t be having any pictures either. Ahem.

But it’s okay, it’s all good, I promise! If you’re also like me and still have at least  a month before the start of school, there’s plenty of time. If you don’t have that much time (well there’s always weekends after school starts, right?) Or maybe, have a teacher workday and get the kids to pitch in. Or better yet — have grandma watch them and work by yourself! That sounds like a plan. =)

In the meantime, for all of you “on the ball” folks, and the ones already underway using the school room for the new school year, now’s the time to link up your post and share what you love most about your school room, or area, or corner, or whatever you have. For the rest of us,.. well, share what ya got. ; )

Last year we actually HAD a school room. We moved everything out to the separate home office and took up residence in two corners of Hubby’s office room. I have to be honest. That was pretty cool. After our Christmas break, we moved into the living room, which is actually kinda new for us because before we were TECHNICALLY in the dining room. I’ve arranged our pink file crates that are stackable into a sort of square bookcase – one for each of us and holding all of our things. I’d love to take a picture of that for you, but that will just have to wait. On top of the pink ‘bookcase’ I have a square fabric “basket” and my new rotating file organizer and with the American Flag topping it all off we have a nice little school center going on. Our ‘center’ is next to the little desk, where I’ll be setting up a desktop for school and above that is the cork board and dry erase board. So everything is pretty central and close to everything else. It’s nice. Most of the school work is done on the couch and this arrangement has worked pretty well for us for the second half of the last school year.

Having said all that, I have a PRETTY BIG To Do list for all the school stuff before the year starts. And since it’s not picture ready and I couldn’t take a picture of it even if I wanted to, I’m just going to share my School Area To Do List instead. How’s that sound?

The Great Big List of Things To Do For The School Area Before School Starts In September

1. Clear, purge, file the remaining items on the pink ‘bookcase.’ – done!
2. Finish setting up the rotating organizer (mostly it just needs 36 labeled manila folders for each of the 36 school weeks.) – done!
3. As new books come in, make any necessary copies, file them away in the rotating organizer on top for the appropriate week and file the book in the appropriate pink shelf.
4. Create, prepare, set up any 3 ring binders or folders needed for the upcoming school year.
5. Paint the trim of the cork board black, move it over, add framed pics of the kids, the “house rules” etc, make a ‘collage’ wall for the school area. (I know, totally ‘necessary,’ but it’s on my list.) – done!
6. Set up the new desktop, install educational games. – done!
7. Prepare the science experiment box. (A file box with 9X11 envelopes for each experiment with directions and included necessary items except for large items such as mixing bowls and funnels.) done!
8. Print online e-freebies we’re going to be using, create and print 36 weekly writing assigment forms, history notebooking pages, and anything else we’ll be using during the year to file in the rotating organizer.
9. Inventory and stock up any school supplies we’re low on (utilizing these really great back to school sales!) – done!
10. Print new “workbox” labels for our tweaked backwards “workbox” system (that really needs its own post, coming soon to a blog near you.) – done!

How’s THAT for a doozy of a To Do list?! I’m prioritizing and just chugging away at what I can. And whatever gets done, gets done. And whatever doesn’t, will get done later.

So about you? Is your school room/area ready? Are you already using it? What’s your favorite part or what you’re looking forward to most. Or maybe you’re like me and you’re still knee deep in projects and prep. What changes do you hope to make to your school area this year, or what’s on your own To Do list?? Go ahead, share!

Howdy, Back to Home Schoolers! Whether you’re already back to school or waiting for August or September, there’s a good chance you’ve got curriculum on the brain. (Or is it just me?)

Crammed into the holes of my swiss cheese brain are lists and lists of books to buy for the new year. And since we don’t begin until September, I’m in the phase of buying.

Oh my stars, the sweet click sound of the “Add To Cart button.”

But better than the buying is the OPENING. I buy in small groups and they almost never ship together so the UPS man is a frequent visitor these days. I almost feel like I should make him some lemonade or chocolate chip cookies. I mean, why not? The package he brings just made MY day. ; )

Opening the box is like Christmas morning. Riiip, tearrrr, swish…. *inhale the smell of new books, sigh contentedly* It’s a wonderful thing. The smell of a new book. It’s the smell of potential, and knowledge ready to be gleaned from the pages promising to turn my children into super geniuses. Or something like that. But I digress.

Back to the books.

I have lists and lists of books. Some from curriculum we’ve used before, some new things, everything eagerly anticipated. So without further ado I give you our curriculum list for the 2011-2012 school year (and then I’m going to tell you some of my “Must Haves” so stick around to the end– or at the very least skim down to that part if you get bored reading the curriculum list! I won’t tell if you don’t tell.) ; )

2011-2012 Curriculum

Starred items are items that we used before and are continuing in that curriculum but feel free to ask questions about anything!

Bible/Religion

• Memorization – Charlotte Mason Method*
• Personal Bible Study – various resources in our morning basket.
• Who Is God? (And Can I Really Know Him?) — Biblical Worldview of God and Truth (What We Believe, Volume 1)

Updated: I originally had a different route in mind for this but after receiving the Who is God curriculum to use and review I’ve definitely decided to go with this instead. I’m excited!

History

• Mystery of History Vol 2: Early Church and Middle Ages*
• History Through the Ages Timeline Figures Resurrection to Revolution (History Through The Ages)*
• Notebooking Pages by Daisy at “I’m Nobody! Who are You?” (She also has a MOH Vol 2 Resource Page.)
• Literature relevant to this time period. (Here’s a link to a book list for Mystery of History Vol. 2.)

Geography

• Literature relevant to elementary geography skills. (Here’s a link to a book list for geography.)

Science

• Apologia: Exploring Creation Human Anatomy*
• Exploring Creation Human Anatomy Notebooking Journal*
• Junior Notebooking Journal for Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology
• Apologia Anatomy & Physiology Lab Kit
• Coordinating Science Readers for the Kindergartner (A book list coming soon.)

Language Arts

• Our Mother Tongue: An Introductory Guide to English Grammar
• N. Wilson’s Our Mother Tongue Answer Key edition (Our Mother Tongue: A Guide to English Grammar (Answer Key)
• Writing Strands Level 3 (Writing Strands Ser)
• Evaluating Writing (Writing Strands)(a teacher book.)

We’ve ordered and received these already, they’re new but I love them already! I hope that we still love it after we get into it and start doing it!

Art

• God and the History of Art
• The Usborne Book of Drawing, Doodling and Coloring
• The Usborne Art Treasury

Character Training

I’m thinking about adding some intentional character training to our school day.

• Polished Cornerstones (Girls)
• Plants Grown Up (Boys – debating if I should get this for this year or begin next year.)
• Sticky Situations 2: 365 Devotions for Elementary Kids (we already have this, so I figure we should go ahead and use it instead of buying something else.)

Music

Teaching Little Fingers to Play: A Book for the Earliest Beginner over the summer and then:

• Bastien Piano Basics: Piano Primer Level
• Bastien Piano Basics: Theory Primer Level
• Bastien Piano Basics: Technic Primer Level
• Bastien Piano Basics: Performance Primer Level

Health/Nutrition/P.E.

• Books about nutrition and health and taking care of your body (Book list coming soon.)
• 2-3rd grade Discovering Physical Education Activity Workbook (won this, I’ll let you know what I think!)
• Nickelodeon Fit for Wii

Individual Subjects

Princess, Age 11, Grade 6/7:

• Words on the Vine: 36 Vocabulary Units on Root Words (The 100+ Series)
• Reading Detective A1: Using Higher-Order Thinking to Improve Reading Comprehension (Grades 5-6)
• Spelling: Lots and lots of reading and writing. I decided to skip extra spelling curriculum in lieu of LOTS of these two.
• Teaching Textbooks 7*

Drama Queen, Age 8, Grade 3:

• Vocabulary (Spectrum)* (Decided not to add this after looking through it at a store and looking through the Mother Tongue book when it came in.
• Reading Detective: Beginning, Using Higher-Order Thinking Skills to Improve Reading Comprehension (Grades 3-4)
• Spectrum Spelling, Grade 3 (McGraw-Hill Learning Materials Spectrum)*
• Horizons Math 3*

Little Prince, Age 5, Grade K:

• All the preschool workbooks and activity books we already have on hand and then…
• A Reason For Handwriting, Kindergarten: Kindergarten Student Workbook*
• Brain Quest Workbook: Kindergarten*

For Mom:

• Well Planned Day* teacher planner
• Desk Apprentice Rotating Desk Organizer (with a organizing/planning system similar to this post from The Kelley Eight.)
• Read for the Heart: Whole Books for WholeHearted Families
• A Biblical Home Education: Building Your Homeschool on the Foundation of God’s Word
• Charlotte Mason’s Original Homeschooling Series
• Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends (For mom AND kids.)
• For Instruction in Righteousness: A Topical Reference Guide for Biblical Child-Training

I know that’s a lot of stuff!! I’m purchasing the necessary stuff first and then going back to add in supplemental learning. And this year I added a list for me, because, let’s face it — I need to be studying, too! This whole parenting thing (and while homeschooling) is getting more “interesting” you know??

When I look at this list I feel like we’re going to be doing school 24/7 but I know we’re not. The science and history are done on alternating days, art and music share a ‘time slot’ as well, and all the language arts pieces work together so that we’re focusing on different aspects each day. I just remind myself that there’s no need to hyperventilate, no need to hyperventilate, no need to hyperventilate!

I’ve already received my Well Planned Day Planner and my Desk Apprentice rotating organizer and have begun lesson planning the new curriculum as I receive it. If I get to a point where I feel like we’re full up on something then I’ll stop there and not order any other supplemental practice. (I already nixed the idea of needing an ‘extra practice’ grammar workbook after receiving and looking through Our Mother Tongue and knowing that I can print online grammar sheets on specific skills if the need arises.) So it’s all good. There will be no short-circuiting of any brains here. ; )

Speaking of the planner and the organizer… both of those definitely belong on my “Must Have” list! Well, the organizer is new, but DUDE it is awesome. =)

Amber’s 2011-2012 Must Have List

1. Well Planned Day planner.
2. Curriculum: Apologia science, Mystery of History, Teaching Textbooks
3. Printer/Copier — a BIG must have.
4. 3 hole punch and lots of 3 ring binders (for printing freebies, holding copies, and collecting finished schoolwork.)
5. Scotch self-laminating sheets (one of these days I’m going to add “laminator” to this list but until then…)
6. CD binder to hold all of our educational cd’s (toss the plastic cases!)
7. Our dry erase board.
8. Camera – capture those memories!
9. Lots of hugs and kisses (they need those, too!)
10. Lots of prayer (we ALL need that!)

YOUR TURN!

Share your curriculum plan, new things you’re trying, your tried and trues, or even just a list of ‘must have’ items for this year. Link up a post you’ve already written if you’ve got one.. that’s okay!

P.S. – If you missed it, you can still link up with Week One’s post about your school and your students!

Welcome back to the second annual “Back to (Home) School” blog carnival! It’s a month long exhibition of what works for YOU (because sometimes we all need to remind ourselves what we DO have working for us– there’s plenty of opportunity to lament over what’s NOT working.) And most of the time we all enjoy looking at what other people are doing, too. We can find great curriculum recommendations, organizing ideas, record keeping tips and other goodies by taking a minute to step outside of what *we* think and take a look at the advice that other people are offering. (I’m particularly bad about not doing that sometimes.)

And that’s my hope for this carnival, that you’d find at least one tip or piece of advice that you can really use to help your school year go even better. And I also hope that it’s fun! And that you find some new blogs and that some new followers find yours. So let’s get to it, shall we?

Our School

I’ve written about our ‘students’ before: Princess (11), Drama Queen (8) and Little Prince (5). I’ve written about their different learning styles and how I try to teach with that in mind.

What is going to be different about this year is that the kids are starting to get older, Princess is a tween (and starting to behave like one!) and we need to increasingly challenge her to grow her and teach her while also teaching her how to deal with her increasingly challenging hormones. Drama Queen’s math is going to get harder of course, but I need to gently push her to improve her handwriting and tidiness even more and I imagine that’s going to be the most difficult and trying for us. And the Little Prince, though school may not look the same for him as it did for the girls at this age, definitely needs to be encouraged to “do school” with us as much as possible – and hopefully pick up some reading skills along the way. To that end, I’m going to be the most organized and on the ball that I have ever been! (It’s been an ongoing process, a little more each year as we go. I’m getting there!)

Here’s a few things I’m putting in place this year to make sure each of my children get their needs met:

1. Princess needs to write more! It sounds easy enough just ask her to write a lot, about anything and everything, but we didn’t remember often enough to “just do it.” So this year I’m buying a writing curriculum so that we have lesson numbers to follow and complete. (We work well when there’s a book to complete.)
2. Drama Queen has come a long way with her handwriting but there’s still room for improvement. I’m going old school on this one — good effort with her handwriting will earn a smiley face sticker on the assignment. It’s so easy – but I know that it will motivate her.
3. Little Prince is an active, hands on kind of guy but he’s starting to sit still a little more these days. I want him to actively explore but I also want him to start learning how to read. He gets a kick out of using books his sisters have already used so we’re going to make the most of that! I’m going to keep pulling out the McGuffey primer. It was his sister’s. ;0)
4. I need to do better about getting all our science experiments in so I’m creating a science experiment box – a sterilite box that I already have that will hold supplies in manila envelopes labeled with their numbers. I’m working on that before school starts so that all our experiments are ready to go (minus large items like mixing bowls or staplers..)

These are just a few things, I have several new goals and ideas for this year. But I don’t want to bore y’all. =p

My overall hope for our school this year is that we can enjoy learning together, REALLY learning together, despite the hormones and the sibling rivalry and the pesky little brother. I pray that God gives me the wisdom how to deal with the parenting while doing the schooling! I pray that I succeed in teaching them about God and spiritual disciplines while teaching them about the world He created.

Now it’s your turn to link up and tell me/us about your school, your students, and/or your goals for the new year!

(P.S. I forgot to remind you that it’s okay to link up posts you’ve already written for your own blog or someone else’s back to school carnival, it’s okay! As long as it’s on topic. Thanks!)

~ You can find the Back to (Home) School, Week 2 post here.

Not Christmas — the next best thing! It’s time for Back to School!

And back by popular demand (by at least three of you) I’m going to be doing the “Back to (Home) School” carnival again this year. But THIS year,… no more ‘post every day for a week’ craziness. How about every Monday during the month of July? Better? I thought, so too.

But WAIT! That means next Monday!

Yes, yes it does.

And next Monday is a holiday!

Yes, yes it is.

But I can’t very well say “every Monday except the first one which will be a Tuesday.” Talk about confusing. No worries, though… my post will be going up on Sunday and you’ll be able to link up for several days. So if you need to take off Monday to celebrate with your family – who am kidding… Go Celebrate The Holiday With Your Family! Link early or link late but on Monday celebrate!

Is there a plan? You betcha! Take a peek:

July 4th ~ Your Students / Your School

July 11th ~Your Curriculum (Or “must haves” for supplemental learning, favorite resources, etc.)

July 18th~Your School Room/Area (Or your favorite organizers/tools/etc.)

July 25th~Your School Day, Lesson Planning, Organizing, or Record Keeping

As always, if you’ve already written these posts on your own or for another blog hop/carnival it’s okay to link up a post you’ve already written!

So get ready to link up! Take this opportunity to share your tips, your wisdom, show off your shiny new books, or even poll your audience for opinions and suggestions. It’s the chance to showcase the things that you’ve got going for you (because if you’re like me… you’ve got plenty that still needs to be worked on! Is it just me??…)

See you Monday! (Or Sunday. Or Tuesday!)