Wednesday, July 17, 2019

New Year Curriculum Planning

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It's my FAVORITE time of the "School year"!!!
           July!!! Back to school sales, sooo many markers, pens, and cute colors. All the things to get a school supply addict excited!  For many of us, we are just lucky that whatever we purchase, stays in our home. It doesn't get dumped into a communal bucket, but happily rests in each one of our own children's desk space. 

Well, that's the easy part. Stocking up on paper, pens, and crayons is mindless fun. Scoring deals on cute staplers, tape dispensers, scissors, is even better. But what do you do about the real meat of your homeschool? 

I love to spend hours searching catalogs and websites for educational supplements, fun things that get our kids excited, new reading material, and of course, the core curriculum. In this blog series, I'll be sharing what we have chosen for each grade by subject! When planning for three grade levels, I have to break it down this way so I make sure I don't miss anything!

This is what happened in May... I had to purchase everything before we went on vacation to avoid late shipments. It was fast paced, and kinda scary knowing that I was on a timeline. Part of the rush in ordering was due to our educational funds needing to be spent by a certain time. And then, the UPS guy showed up with everything in one day. 


No joke... all at one time. Ha!
It was like Christmas! Each of the kids had 2 boxes each from BJU Press, and a few things from Amazon, Lego Education, and Back to The Roots.  Now that we are back from vacation and cleaning up our homeschool area, it's going to be fun to separate everything and share how we are using these great materials! Now..on to the first subject! 
Here is our first Core Subject: Language Arts! 





I often refer to this as English, because I'm a child of the 80's and that's how it looked on my report cards..so that's just what I occasionally call it. But Language Arts, or ELA usually encompasses English, Writing, Vocabulary, Spelling, and Reading.

We've decided to continue using BJU Press for our English & Grammar. I really love the style of the books, the ease of the Teacher Guide, and how each grade sort of follows another. For Vocabulary, my middle and high schooler are using BJU Press again, and my 4th grader is using BJU Press for Spelling. Then I added Patriotic Penmanship for the older ones to practice their handwriting, and my 4th grader will be using BJU Press Handwriting again this year (not pictured). 


4th Grade Language Arts 
For 4th Grade, I've got IEW for extra writing, and some other fun supplements listed below! 
                               
8th Grade Language Arts 
For 8th Grade, we are incorporating some important literature such as 'The Diary of Anne Frank' and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'.  Then I've added a few other books and supplements for a broad range of study. 
10th Grade Language Arts 
Finally, for 10th Grade, we have Literature from BJU Press! I'm super excited to give that one a try. We will probably read 'The Scarlet Letter' and 'The Great Gatsby as well'
Well, that wraps up our Language Arts Curriculum. Please comment if you have questions!  Also stay tuned for our next part in this series, Math... 




Have you seen our New Logbooks??? We created these tools for each child to keep track of their progress! You can get individual designs for your kids 







We Went on Hiatus...

We had these incredible plans... a vacation jam packed with fun, family, and making memories. In fact, in the beginning of June, this was true. Our vacation started out as expected. We stopped in San Antonio, New Orleans, Pensacola, and stayed for awhile soaking up Florida sun and Salty Air! (I'll make a fun post about this later) Then, we headed north to more family in Ohio, hoping to enjoy some unique adventures up there. And then a family member fell crucially ill and our plans changed. 

I can only praise God for giving us some time there with them, because without that vacation, we may not have been able to have that. After two weeks, and a few fun activities, we had to come home. It was a long and harrowing two full day trip home. Hello, July... we began to settle back into our lives here, cleaning the house, unpacking, snuggling our precious animals, before we got the call that our family back in Ohio needed us again.

So now we are floating around our home, trying to settle, but not really because we might have to move closer to family. It's a hard feeling to have, and of course the emotions that come with a very ill family member. I mean it's cancer...it's not something that is going away until God call's them home. 
We are sending a few of us back to Ohio quickly for support, while Mama, that's me, gets to stay home and hold down the fort. 

It's not an easy thing to do, to plan for a move, or a funeral, and a homeschool year for 3 kids all at one time. However, I have to keep the wheel turning. 

Stay tuned for our next blog posts on our trips and new school year curriculum! 

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