Back To School Time

I hardly ever talk about homeschooling, as it’s just a part of everyday life, like laundry, and cooking, and naptime. But the season is upon us and it’s time to figure out some goals and a schedule so we can get back to the books. This year I’m adding the fourth and final child to the mix so I will have a 6th, 5th, 1st and Pre-K kid.

I can feel the sweat popping out on my forehead already.

So obviously I’m gonna need a plan to keep my self sane as well as, you know, TEACH them something and make sure the dust bunnies don’t take over the house.

This year will be our first time attending a Co-Op. It will be just one morning a week and I have to stay there the whole time so don’t be thinking I’ll be getting any great alone time or anything.

I wish!

Then we’ll hit the books at home the other 3 or 4 days of the week. So here is where I list the stuff we use and I know I have some readers that don’t homeschool so just ignore this other part. But for all you curriculum geeks out there…..here goes.

Singapore Math – I love this program because there is absolutely NO prep for me. It explains things in such a natural way and doesn’t kill the kids with a gazillion problems per page.

Evan-Moore Phonics Fundamentals – I’ve used this with all the kids and again, NO PREP! It focuses on a letter each week and uses poems, puppets, cut and paste and word games to teach the phonetics for each letter. It even slips in reading and spelling. Gotta love the multi-task thing.

Learning Language Arts Through Literature – No Prep…are you seeing a theme here? I really like this program. It’s so hard to find a good, complete LA program but this one has it all; writing, spelling, grammar, reading comprehension, and I’m sure a bunch of other technical words could fit in there.

Beautiful Feet Geography – This one takes just a little bit of prep but it uses Holling C. Holling books to teach geography, some history, cartography, science and vocabulary. His books are incredible and it’s a really fun way to learn. You follow one of his characters as he travels through the USA, or in one book the World, and then follow his progress along a blank map, filling in the places he visits.

Then we do lots of reading and discussion of Biographies, The Bible, and lot’s of non-fiction science related stuff. The kids read fiction stuff on their own time or if we are tempted by a good series we’ll read it together. Throw in a few science experiments, a couple of field trips and plenty of time in sports, with friends, and pondering the meaning of the universe and I think the kids are pretty well rounded.

So if you don’t homeschool and you stuck with it this long, insert applause here!

If you do homeschool, now you know what we use and it’s probably pretty familiar stuff.