A New School Year

I was always one of those "nerds" who loved the start of school - buying school supplies, getting new books. And so, I look forward to the beginning of our homeschool year as well. We have been dabbling at school for several weeks, but I guess you could say last week was our "official" beginning. I spent a lot of time over the summer revamping our school room, reorganizing the kids individual school space, and rethinking my homeschool approach. Years ago when my first two children were homeschooling, I was an avid Charlotte Mason advocate. When they hit high school we had to implement some changes, but it seemed to work for us (that was before the days of Ambleside Online). After my girls graduated, there were some mistakes along the way that I didn't want to repeat with my other kids, and so I started over with the gamut of ALL the homeschooling approaches. For years, we tried bits and pieces of everything . . . textbook approach, Classical education and the trivium, self education and the Robinson curriculum, but always I adhered to Living Books as much as possible. All that said, this year we are back to Charlotte Mason. I spent much time reading Charlotte Mason's materials this summer. I am not sure I ever fully understood her approach and now I still feel like a novice. But plug ahead we shall!!!

We have implemented quite a few books from Ambleside Online and because it is my nature, we are doing a lot of my own thing. My friend Lisa, over at Shady Brook Acres shared with me the drawer system and I am finding it to work great for me. Each student has their own "crate" of books and I daily pick from those books to fill their "drawer" which comprises their daily assignments. I also have a crate full of books that we read together during our "morning time" together. So, here is what our schedule looks like this year.

MORNING TIME:
Poetry - Selections of Emily Dickinson / we do this EVERYDAY
101 Hynm Stories - 1x a week
Minn of the Mississippi by Holling
Do Hard Things by the Harris twins
Story of the World - Vol.3
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
Walk the World's Rim by Betty Baker
RedWall by Brian Jacques

By way of explanation, we do a short poetry selection everyday and talk about it if necessary. On Monday we pick a hymn, sing it, and read from the book. The rest of the days I read from several of the other books, mixing and matching as I go. Poetry included, we probably read from four books daily.

The kid's schedules look very similar. (The order of the readings is Monday thru' Friday (M,W,Th,F). We have a homeschool co-op on Tuesday. J is my son, A is my daughter)

BIBLE ~ J-Old Testament, Gospel, Acts, Animals of the Bible
A-Joshua, Luke, Acts, Pilgrims Progess
MORNING TIME
MATH ~ J-Teaching Textbooks (for my review visit www.homeschoolhootenanny.com), A-Algebra 1 through a homeschool mom.
LITERATURE / BIOGRAPHY Reading ~ Lit. on M & Th, Bio. on W & F.
WRITING / PENMANSHIP ~ A-writes something everyday; J-Penmanship.
SCIENCE / NATURAL HISTORY ~ J reads from science selections M & Th, from Natural History W & F, A-Natural History on M, Physical Science (Apologia) thru' co-op.
GRAMMAR / SPELLING ~ J using Sequential Spelling, A using Analytical Grammar and Spelling Power.
READING ~ J reading Historical Fiction(HF), Shakespeare, HF, American Tall Tales. A is reading on the same schedule except on Friday she reads Kon-Tiki for Geography.

Book Selections ~ For J
Aesop's Fables
Story of Inventions
Matchlock Gun
Ben & Me
Burgess Bird Book
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
Pilgrim's Progress - Abridged
Physics Lab in the Home
American Tall Tales

Book Selections ~ For A
David Copperfield
Secret of the Woods
Early Thunder
Traitor: The Case of Benedict Arnold
Tales of Shakespeare
Pilgrim's Progress