2018/2019 New Homeschool Year

We are getting ready to start our new school year.  I can't believe the summer is almost over. But in truth, I'm so ready for it to be over. The record breaking temperatures here in Texas have really drained us and has limited us on what we can do outside. We do not school year round, but I think this summer would have been a great time to start.

This year I only have four that are still in school. That is crazy! It seems like just a year ago that my planning pages had 9 kids across the top. Now I only have 4 and 2 of them will be completely independent so that means really, I only have 2. I don't know if I should be sad or thrilled!

I'm really changing things up this year. We are trying several new curriculums and methods. You would think after 22 years I would know exactly what I want to do, but my kids still have different learning styles so I work to accommodate while still challenging them.

My two oldest still in school are Zach and Gracie. Zach began working with his dad so he fell behind last year as he struggled to balance working and school, so we are working to get caught up. He is 16, super smart and willing to do whatever he needs to do.
He will be doing all of his school lessons online using Power Homeschool (formally known as Acellus School) It was suggested to me by a friend and I've spent the summer looking it over. I think it will be a good fit for Zach. For $10 a month he can take 6 courses. That's perfect and we can supplement what we need to.

Gracie is 13 and will be doing 8th grade work.  She is also working from the Power Homeschool site for some of her courses, not all. I'm working to prepare her for Highschool and I think this will be a good fit for her as she is already very independent in her work.
She will be using Apologia's Physical Science for science because she really loves that. She is also doing Geography with the younger boys and I. I love that she still enjoys doing hands on projects with her younger brothers.

Gracie loves Art. She found her talent with watercolor and sketching so I found Arty Factory,  a website she will go to twice a week and follow the lessons there. She can choose various types of art and I will assign some Art history to go along with her other lessons as well.

Sam is practically 12. His birthday is the last of our September birthday marathon.
He will be doing some 5th grade work and some 6th grade work. The beauty of homeschooling, we can focus on the areas that still need more work.  I realized last year that Sam needs more of a hands on approach with his math (and I do too), so we are switching to Math U See. I was really hesitant to switch him to this, but after talking with some of my homeschool mom friends I think we will be ok.

A friend told me about a fairly new curriculum that uses a touch of the Charlotte Mason method. I've always loved this method, but am too unorganized to make the most of it. The Good and the Beautiful site is a full curriculum for the younger grades and more is coming for the older grades. Language Arts for grades 1-5 are FREE! You can print it out yourself, or you can order everything already printed (for a price of course). I printed everything out yesterday. It's a lot of printing, but it really gave me a chance to look over everything in better detail and I am really looking forward to using this. She incorporates poetry, art, geography into the language and grammar lessons. I printed out grade 5 for Sam because we really need to get a more solid foundation in writing & grammar.

For several years I have looked at using My Father's World with my kids, but I could not afford to buy the whole kit. A friend was selling an older version of the teachers manual of Countries and Cultures so I bought it and loved it! Gradually over the summer I've been collecting the books needed. Many of them I already had. We are only doing the Bible and geography/history portions. But I'm excited and think the boys will really like this. As we study different countries, we are learning of various missionaries from past and present who have served in these countries. We are getting our hands dirty (which always makes me nervous) as we are doing a lot of hands on projects and cooking foods from various countries.

We attend a local co-op and Sam will be taking the rest of his classes there. He will be taking Chess, Literature, Anatomy & Physiology (Apologia), PE and Computer Coding.

Charlie is my baby and it's so hard to type this...but he will be in 1st grade! When did this happen? We like to call him our 40 yr old 1st grader because he just acts so much older than he is. Growing up in a house full of big people will do that to you.

I basically ordered for Charlie what I ordered for Sam just in 1st grade.

Language Arts: The Good and the Beautiful
Math: Math U See Primer
History/Geography: Countries and Cultures
Science: Apologia Anatomy. I bought him the Junior Notebook and he & I will work through parts of that together.

Charlie is taking classes at our co-op as well. He will be doing Grammar, Spanish, Bible, Art and PE. He can't wait to take big kid classes.

The boys and I are going to read through the Narnia Series together this year. They have only seen the movies (shame on me). I loved reading through this series with my older kids, so I'm really looking forward to this.

So, here's to a new year. I've been praying and searching and comparing and praying some more over what we should do, so I'm looking forward to how our new year will be. I'm expecting great things!

Simplify...The Saga Continues

I didn't know if I could get myself together in time, but we are starting school tomorrow.  I've been sitting at the computer so long I have pain in my hip when I walk from sitting in a hard chair.  BUT...I'm done. Do the happy dance with me! I have the first semester planned out for our 18 year of homeschooling.  Did I just say that?  Have we been doing this 18 years?

I still don't like it when moms ask me how I do things because I still feel like I have no clue.  I'm still figuring it out.  Yes, I am a slow learner. :)

This is our second school year living together in my in-laws house.  Bless their hearts. Our junk has taken over their house & I hate it. But they never say a word about it.  No matter how much I try to keep the level of junk to a minimum it sneaks in anyway.  And so the challenge to organize our school materials remained my biggest accomplishment yet.  In our house I had 11 bookshelves completely dedicated to school books & materials.  I had a huge filing cabinet packed full. There is no room for that here, so I had to learn quickly how to simplify & reduce.

I am excited that I have learned to simplify our school "stuff" tremendously.  The majority of our school books are still in storage even though I did bring some more here a few months ago. I pulled out what I thought we would need this year.  After I finally figured out who was using what & what I needed to buy I then packed up what we were not going to use & those boxes are in the garage waiting to go back to our storage unit.

I now have one and half bookshelves instead of 11. :)

 This is where our readers & History & Science books are kept.  The smaller shelf to the right is where I am keeping my books (Teacher Manuals, Solution Manuals, etc..).

My mother in law had this amazing piece of furniture made years ago. It is in the Dining Room which is also Scott's office (on one end of the table) and our school room (on the other end of the table). It is solid wood & beautiful & my school stuff kinda crept up on it & gradually took over the bottom part. She graciously offered to take the rest of her dishes off so I could have the space, but I told her no.  I'm making do just find with what I have.

Below is a plastic drawer unit I brought from home.  At first it stayed at my parents house when the younger kids & I stayed there more of the time.  When we moved here I brought it & it definitely keeps things more organized.

 

The four younger kids each have their own drawer.  In their drawers are their books, folders, pencils, and any other supplies they want to keep.  The top drawer are our art supplies that I do not want them to be able to get to.  I keep boxes of colored pencils, crayons, markers & pencils out on the buffet.  But misc type stuff is in the top drawer.

It isn't a perfect system, but we are making it work.  For years I knew I needed to simplify our school, house..life.  And the Lord has helped us do that.  Not exactly the way I would have chosen to do it, but that's ok.

Since we are short on bookshelves, I have learned to utilize technology.  Scott has a Kindle Fire & I have an iPad with the Kindle app on it so many of the books the kids will read are a Kindle download.  That saves on bookshelf space tremendously!   I'm also using some iPad apps for phonics practice, math drills & geography.

Another new thing for this year is I'm using a blog to post my oldest sons assignments.  I have 8th, 10th & 12th grade boys who would rather use a computer than a piece of paper any day.  I'm also trying to eliminate all excuses for not getting work done (I know you are shocked any of my kids would avoid school work).
So far, I have scheduled 5 weeks worth of assignments on the blog.  Each Sunday their assignments for the week will show up in a post.  For example, Collin's assignments will be in a post titled, "Collin: Week 1".  He had to subscribe to the blog so he will get an email.  The beauty of this is that when he is on break at work, he can pull up the blog on his phone & find links to his Bible, Science & History readings for the week.  He is so excited. **insert sarcasm HERE!**
This is an experiment, so we will see if it really works & if they use the blog like I hope they will.  If not, I will go back to my paper plans.

One more new thing this year is our Bible curriculum.  I have never really used curriculum for Bible, but since I am simplifying that meant less planning for me. Last year I really dropped the ball on Bible. This year I am excited to use Bible Road Trip by Danika Cooley.  She is writing a 3 year survey of the Bible.  She is still writing the 3rd year.  The first year covers the books of Law & History.  Year 2 covers Prophets and Poetry & Year 3 is covering the New Testament.  I spent many weeks pouring over this & the deeper I got, the more I loved it.  I'm so thankful for Danika's hard work on this & especially for offering it for free!  I went through 2 reams of paper to print all of this out & the more I printed the more grateful I became for her hard work!

So, I have spent all of this time planning & printing & creating.  But we all know what will happen.  I can plan all I want to, but if I have planned away from God, his plans will succeed, not mine.

"Many are the plans in a man's heart (and on a mom's lesson plan page), but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." Proverbs 19:21 {emphasis is mine}

I'm excited about our new school year.  I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us.

The Mom Heart

I knew something wasn't right.  I couldn't explain it, I just knew he was in danger.  I told my husband to call our son.  It was normal for him to still not be home this late at night, but for some reason I felt that he needed to be home.  My heart said pray.

I can't explain why I text her when I did.  I just knew she was on my mind so I let her know I was praying for her.  Normally she would reply very quickly, but not this time.  I didn't think anything about it until later that afternoon. I text her again.  Still no answer.  My heart said pray.

I could write out time after time when I have felt this urgency to pray for my children.  I never can explain why I feel this sudden need to cover them in prayer.  I really became aware of this when our family separated for a while.{ You can read why here.}  I didn't have my teenagers with me everyday for the first time since they were born and my heart hurt.  My prayers for my kids changed because all of a sudden I didn't know what they were doing.  I didn't know who my daughter was babysitting for.  I didn't know my son missed his orthodontist appointment.  I didn't know my daughter had been throwing up all night.

I know really do what is speaking to me, telling me to pray.  It is the Holy Spirit.  He is real and powerful and will impress my mind and heart in ways I often don't understand.  I have come to be very thankful for this, even though it often brings pain to my MomHeart.

I've come realize God has given me this MomHeart as a way to be connected with my children in ways they don't even realize.  The older my kids get and the farther away they go, the bigger my MomHeart becomes. It enables me to look them in the face & know.  Just know things they don't want me to know.  To know if they are being truthfull. To know if they are hurting.  To just know things that often, I don't want to know.

Scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit all through out, even in the Old Testament because the 3 persons of God existed before time began.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot recieve, because it neither sees him nor knows him.  You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. John 14:16-17

God gave us the Holy Spirit as our advocate & counselor.  When my heart is hurting, the Holy Spirit brings peace and comfort.

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.  John 14:26

How many times have you remembered a scripture verse or something someone said to you that you had not thought of in years.  I love how the Holy Spirit does this!

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. John 16:13

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Romans 8:26

So often as a mom, I don't know what to pray for my children, but I just know I have to pray.  It often comes out something like this...

"Lord, you know where  _(name)  is and what they are doing.  You know what they are saying and what they are thinking.  Protect them. Speak to them. Consume their mind with you and your promises. Thank you for _(name)_ and thank you for hearing my prayer."

Sometimes I find out why I needed to pray.  Most often I don't.  Sometimes my kids will ask, "Mom were you praying for me last night?" I love that.

If you suddenly feel an urgency to pray for your children (or for anyone) don't dismiss it.  Stop right then and pray. Cry out to the Lord on your childs behalf.  Listen to your MomHeart...a.k.a. the Holy Spirit.

28 Things Your Family Needs to Hear You Say

Found this on Pinterest & just had to share it here.  Our words to our family matter always.  Even when our kids get older & leave our home, our words to them matter.

We can either build them up or tear them down.  (Proverbs 14:1)

Planning the new school year

We will be starting our 14th year of homeschooling. I can't believe we have been at it this long! I tried this summer to make some changes to our upcoming school year so to help me feel a little more organized. I'm still leading Mom2Mom at church & that still feels like a full time job. I'm trying to get as much planned out now so that when Mom2Mom is in full swing, our school is ready to go also. My students this year are:
Sarah - 11th grade
Morgan - 9th grade
Collin - 8th grade
Austin - 6th grade
Ben - 4th grade
Zachary - 2nd grade
Gracie - PreK/K (Ashley will help to teach Gracie)
Josh is 10th grade, but Scott teaches him. I don't even have to plan out his lessons!

A few changes...

Terms
I have sectioned our year off into 4 terms, 8 weeks each. I have allowed for holidays & birthdays. We will go for 32 planned weeks, but I'm sure for some of the kids it will be longer, or shorter depending on how well they do their work. Collin, Morgan & Sarah have to read at least 1 book per term that is not related to another subject. 2 fiction, 1 biography & 1 Shakespeare play. I'm encouraged by how they are already getting excited at picking out their books for the year. I'm really hoping that my don't-like-to-read kids will do this and read beyond.

Weekly Planning
For my older kids I have planned out their work by weeks instead of daily plans. I have planned out 32 weeks of Math lessons & History lessons, etc... They are independent enough to get their work done by the week deadline. If they don't, they know there are consequences & most are natural.

I spent some time on Ambleside Online this summer to get some idea's for my older kids & was surprised by the excellent reading lists, so I am following some of that. For example, Sarah is reading Knowing God by J.I. Packer for part of her Bible. Morgan is reading, Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowel. I feel silly for not thinking of having my children read more good books like this myself.

For my younger kids, I have enough materials left over from the older kids that I don't have to buy much. I have learned that until they are in about 3rd grade, you don't even need a math book. Anything they need to know can be found in your house. Once they begin reading on their own, you can get them a math book & let them begin to do independent work. I always love it when they can read independently! FREEDOM!


I never know how the year will actually play out, but I am praying that I will be sensitive to the Spirit's leading and sensitive to the needs of my children. I write the plans in pencil, knowing the Lord will probably change them.

Recommended Courses for High School

It is that time of year when we are planning for the next school year. If you have a child in Jr High or going into High school, you are about to walk into new territory if it is your first time.

I have found a website that has helped me as I plan what my high school kids need to do in their last few years of school. Home Scholar is a very useful site that I encourage you to wander around on.

Here is an article she wrote to help you know what courses your high school kids will need.

One of the key convictions of homeschooling is that parents know the best way to educate their children. A parent's knowledge about their student's learning style can help them in selecting the courses they should take in high school. Homeschooling in high school is very efficient and there is time to give your children an education that has breadth and depth. Here is a list of recommended courses to take in high school. Courses that colleges look for in their applicants. As you read it, think about how you can incorporate these subjects into your homeschool.

To read the rest of Lee Binz article go to Home Scholar. com

Free Transcript Download

I found this & just had to pass it on! It is a transcript template (EXCEL version) that is so easy to use. Just fill in the fields & it does all the work for you of averaging grades & such.

Update! I have used this for 4 of my children & love the ease of organizing their courses.

Create professional homeschool transcripts easily!
Download PEAH's Free Homeschool Transcript Template