Hey Mama! Homeschool Planner (Review)

Gena Suarez from The Old Schoolhouse® has created a wonderful new tool for homeschool moms! I was excited to get a chance to review the Hey, Mama! Homeschool Planner for 2019/20 Year and try my hand at using a paper planner. This is a beautiful 188 page spiral bound book with a variety of planning resources and devotionals included.

IMG_20190520_180737_067 — Homeschool Mom Planning Kit

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The calendar portion of this planner begins with July 2019 so I was not really using that portion (though I did go ahead and plug in some important dates and events). However, this is not just a calendar; there are a variety of planning pages in this planner that can help you get your new year planned, goals set, and curriculum organized.

In the past, I have typically used my computer to plan and one of the first benefits that I saw with the Hey, Mama! Homeschool Planner for 2019/20 Year was that it was very portable. Instead of planning while sitting at my desk, I was able to take the planner with me wherever I wanted to go. Planning while sitting in a swing and watching the waves on the river proved to be much more relaxing than staring at my computer. I also took it along on a family camping trip and used campfire time to discuss first semester goals with my two older children.

This planner starts out with information for creating an academic transcript if you have a child that is in high school and then flows into annual calendars for the next several years. Then the really good stuff gets started, you have the first devotional from Gena Suarez. Each month has a one page encouraging devotional for mom before the planning page and two-page calendar spread. This pattern continues from July 2019 through June 2020.

After the calendar pages are lesson planning pages, each week is a two page spread offering spaces for up to five children and seven different subjects. These are undated which allows you to fill them in as you go and not worry about weeks off or changes in plans. There are also some great devotionals distributed throughout those pages.

The Hey, Mama! Homeschool Planner for 2019/20 Year finishes with planning pages for each child (up to five children). There is a blank page for notes, a curriculum planning page, attendance, Books Read page (my children are excited to track their books this year), annual goals and semester goals pages. I really liked how these were laid out and kept it fairly simple. We worked together on our goal planning and I think that having the goals right there in the planner will help us stay focused on them as I am reminded of them whenever I use the planner. The goals sheet was broken down into seven different areas to address the ‘whole child’ and not just academic goals.

Goal Areas:

Educational
Spiritual
Physical
Personal Talents
Life Skills
Financial
Relational

My older two children both chose similar physical goals and are looking forward to training for and competing in a 5K during the first semester. They have even picked out the race they want to run on Thanksgiving morning. I was most appreciative of the relational goals because we are working hard on their relationships with each other.

If you are looking for a homeschool planner I encourage you to check out the Hey, Mama! Homeschool Planner for 2019/20 Year from The Old Schoolhouse®. I think it offered a variety of resources that would be useful for planning for younger or older children and could help keep your home school year on track. I do need to mention that they are 98% sold out and do not plan to print any more until next year. If you want to find out more about how other families are using this planner make sure you click the link below to read more reviews.

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50+ Reasons to Be Thankful for Homeschool!

I am so thankful for the opportunity and the blessing of homeschooling my children. However, like any family we also have our tough days. We have the days I feel like I can’t do it all. We have the days where the children are fighting with each other. We have days where decimals seem like they are going to get the best of us. On those days I find that it is so very beneficial to remember all the reasons that I am thankful we homeschool.

Our family has many reasons, including wanting to put God first in our lives, teaching true American history, family time, and the time freedom. I asked homeschool moms on my Facebook page and in our Schoolin’ Swag Facebook group to share with me the reasons they were thankful to homeschool. Some of them I have shared word for word and others I combined because multiple moms shared similar reasons. It is my prayer that when you are having a tough day or if you are considering making the switch to homeschooling, that these reasons would be an encouragement to you.

Take a few minutes with a hot cup of coffee or a cold drink of lemonade (or my personal favorite chocolate milk), read over this list and reflect on all the reasons to be thankful we can homeschool our children. If you have other reasons, I would love to have you share them with me in the comments.

Witness every ‘first’
Flexibility
To raise them according to God’s word.
I love spending time with my kids.
Fun field trips
Learning more about life on a daily basis.
I’m thankful my husband & I get to be a bigger influence in our children’s lives than strangers who don’t share our family’s values. ❤️
No more bullying at school.
One big blessing(among so many) is seeing how close my children are to each other.
I’m thankful for the time to get to really know them.
I’m thankful for being able to cater to each individual way my child learns.
I’m thankful I was able to instill a love of reading in two kiddos.
I’m getting to build a strong relationship with my son.
He learns at his pace, not the systems pace!
I was glad I had spent EVERY MINUTE of him in his childhood ~ IT GOES SO FAST! (From a mom whose oldest is in college)
I love the fact that we can school outside when the weather is appropriate.
We can also school year round and take vacation days when we want to, not when scheduled for us.
As homeschoolers my children have learned to get along with people of all ages.
I don’t have a bunch of unteaching to do like I would have to if they attended school
I can teach them the whole American history story.
I can teach them what the Bible has to say in regards to science, philosophy, humanity, religions, etc.
Kids can spend more time studying in detail the subjects they are interested in.
“It means when my 13-year-old son told me he would finish his project in a fortnight his comment had everything to do with the great books he’s reading and nothing to do with a video game.“
The life learning that happens.
The uniqueness of my children’s personalities was allowed to blossom.
They get more sleep and more unstructured time.
” As a mom of 6 with Multiple Sclerosis I couldn’t imagine schooling my kids in any other way. It provides the freedom we need, while we figure out structure with flexibility.”
It is awesome to learn new things together.
Have time for “extra” things like starting a garden together.
We can read books together on topics that aren’t typically school subjects.
They can learn to handle firearms and shoot safely without punishment for having a firearm.
Siblings in different grades can learn together rather than rarely seeing each other throughout the day.
We can take vacations as a family without working around school schedules.
We have greater flexibility in scheduling medical and dental appointments.
An older student can tutor a younger friend in a subject during a regular school day.
We have a school holiday on birthdays.
Early risers can start school while others are sleeping.
We can eat breakfast together at a decent hour.
We wanted our children to know us.
We can go on nature walks together and notice details of the world around us.
We can have long conversations about things that are side bars of a lesson and wind up having a completely unexpected lesson.
All the coffee and like minded mommas out there.
I’ve been learning all these years! I’m smarter now than I was 21 years ago when we started hs’ing
I love that we can learn so many subjects from a Christian worldview and really discuss what we are learning.
I love that when my child doesn’t understand a concept in math, we can stop and really focus on hands-on learning for as long as we need to until he gets it.
I know they are safe (where they are, what they’re doing, who they’re with, no peer pressure).
A hike in the mountains, baking cookies, building a fort, growing a garden, etc can be packed with lessons you can’t learn in a book.
Mornings are less stressful.
I don’t want my kids to fall through the cracks of the education system.
We can let them have a say in their education.
I’m grateful for how it’s forced my family into deeper relationship, better communication, and more learning for all of us! -Beth of Fit2B

Be encouraged today that this hard work you are doing is totally worth the hard work and the difficult days! You are not alone and it does get easier.

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Deals and Freebies

Schoolhouse Teachers is also offering a great sale! I

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Homeschool Complete (Review)

What do you do with a child that is ready to start kindergarten work, when you are already balancing two other older children and a baby? You look for a product that will give him what he needs in a simple easy to use format that doesn’t take all day. I’m researching curriculum for my son who turns five next month and is in that very situation. Homeschool Complete offers full programs that are all inclusive and feature a unit study format. I decided to try out the first semester of Kindergarten Complete with my son and see how it worked with him and with our schedule.

What Does Homeschool Complete Look Like?

The semester is broken up into various units including: All About My Family, Fall, Farm Animals, Zoo Animals, Winter, Sea Life, Martin Luther King Jr. and more. Most of the units are about four lessons long with each lesson being one day’s work. They suggest using the unit for four days and having the fifth day of the week be activities of your own choice.

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My son was excited about ‘doing school’ and eager to try this program most days. I found that it took us between 45 and 60 minutes to do the lessons most days. He really enjoyed the math and reading components (which at this point were mostly read alouds with comprehension questions). He was starting to learn some of the letter sounds but struggled with those as well as the writing components. I felt like the math was moving at a really good pace. He could easily keep up but was not becoming bored.

He struggled to keep up with the writing even though it was mostly copying words that I had written. He enjoyed learning how to write his name but when he had to write other words, he seemed to struggle. This will vary based on the child and it is worth noting that he is on the younger side and another 6 months or a year’s worth of fine motor skills may make the writing much more attainable for him.

Each day they would go through their calendar activities, talking about the date, days of the week, moths of the year, etc. There was a short math lesson, followed by language arts which generally consisted of reading a book or passage aloud and then discussing it. Often the book or passage related to the theme of the unit study and included the science or social studies for the day.

Most days also include some type of enrichment activity. Also days often include a Bible lesson, physical education lesson, art lesson or music lesson. These extras are typically very simple and easy to implement. For example, practice a low crawl for fire escape is one of the physical education ideas. An example of an art lesson was to create colorful fall trees by painting with sponges. One of the enrichment/science activities was carving a pumpkin and having the child feel the inside and then use adjectives to describe it.

What Did We Think About Homeschool Complete?

I thought this program was well thought out and provided good coverage of the basics with some other fun activities. We are a very science and history heavy family and I would include more of that in our studies but those would be easy to supplement. If you are a family that starts those subjects later or puts less emphasis on them at a young age, there is probably plenty included in the curriculum.

In addition to the curriculum you do need to be prepared to purchase or borrow books for each unit. Many of them are fairly common and not difficult to find. We also utilized videos of a couple of them being read aloud on YouTube for books that we did not have. There are materials needed for some of the art and science projects but in general they are common materials or inexpensive. For example, we needed pennies for counting one day and paper and crayons for an activity.

Overall, if you are looking for a simple and easy to implement complete kindergarten curriculum Homeschool Complete may be a good choice for you. They also offer complete curriculum for grades first through fourth and unit studies for grades K-6. I encourage you to check out their website as well as the other crew reviews to see if this might be a good fit for your students.

Discounts and Updates

**Update** Homeschool Complete is offering 5% off to our readers right now!! Just click on that link and use code SWAG through July 31.

Also, since the time that I wrote the review they have added art kits, Grade 5 and just recently Pre-K. They are a faith based program, but also offer a secular version for those that may need that for state funding or personal reasons.

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What About Report Cards?

When people find out that I’m a former public school principal turned home school mom I get lots of questions. Grades and report cards are subjects that come up often in those conversations. People always want to know how I grade the children and if they get report cards.

grades

The second question is the easiest to answer so I’ll answer it first. No, they do not get report cards. The purpose of report cards is to share student performance with their parents and in the case of the last report card of the year, the teacher for the following year. There really is no need for me to create a document to share information with myself. I do know parents that choose to create a report card for their child/ren for various reasons and it is certainly an option, but for our family it would just be an extra piece of paperwork on my already cluttered desk.

The first question is a little more complicated. At the elementary and middle school level, our family chooses not to do grading in the traditional sense, i.e. grade every assignment and average it out for a final grade. This does not mean that I do not check assignments for accuracy or that they have never received a score on an assignment. It looks different for various subjects and at various times. For example, in spelling they take a test each week and either it is scored with a 100% or the incorrect ones are marked and the work corrected. They really enjoy the chance to earn that 100 or maybe just the small treat that sometimes accompanies the perfect score.

My son uses a computer based math program for his seventh grade math and it gives him a score for every lesson. For him I require 80% accuracy or he has to re-do the lesson. My daughter is in fifth grade and is still using a book based math. For her math I mark the incorrect problems and she fixes each one that is incorrect but does not receive a numerical score.

In writing, they have assignments and I will help them proofread and edit but no numerical score is given. We use real life writing opportunities like our North Carolina Junior Historians projects, NC State Fair essays, letters to our elected officials, etc. In general, our science and history lessons are done together and they do projects or oral discussion to share what they have learned and show master of the content.

In a public school setting grades are important because they share how much content is mastered by a particular student in a particular subject with parents and other stakeholders. Grades also give a quantitative measure of achievement. In the home school setting I have the ability to continue to work on a topic until mastery is achieved and because we are all here together, I do not need to worry about using that information to share progress with the stakeholders.

I first talked about elementary and middle school grading because those are the ages which I am currently homeschooling. However, beginning as early as next year I will have a child taking high school level courses that will be included on a transcript. For these courses I personally believe that grading is more important. The transcript will share his accomplishments with outside stake holders who will need more quantitative data. Therefore, while I will still work with him to mastery of those subjects I will use a quantitative grading scale for each course.

There is no one right way to handle grades in your home school. The freedom to do what works best for your family is one of the many benefits to homeschooling. Some children might really enjoy getting a report card and others may not care. I would love for you to share how you handle grades in your home school!

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Deals and Freebies!

Reading Eggs has their new kindle books FREE on Amazon today (10/18)

The World of Peter Rabbit and His Friends Only .99 on Kindle! We love Beatrix Potter’s stories and this one includes her original illustrations.

Sunny Under the Sea Free (always double check because Amazon changes prices regularly!)

Wind in the Willows on Audio for only $2.95

Alice in Wonderland on Audible for less than $1!!

FREE: Check out this great new FREE resource for classical and Charlotte Mason education! Classical Christian Education & Charlotte Mason. Great for folks already homeschooling or if you have friends that are looking into it!

FREE Fantasy and Fairytales StoryBuilders from Write Shop!

Memorable Monthly Musical Genre Study

Music Genre

In the past we have focused our music appreciation on famous composers and studied a single composer for a semester or a year. While I believe these are valuable we wanted to do something a little different this year that would introduce the children to a wide variety of music and help us create some fun family memories at the same time.

A little while back we were camping at a campground in Virginia and the folks next to us were playing some music that my husband and I had listened to when we were a little younger than we are now ( I won’t date myself too badly). The songs would come on and sometimes one or both of us would sing along because we remembered the lyrics even after all of these years. The children were amazed that we knew the words and wanted to learn more about the music we used to listen to. We realized that we wanted to expand their musical knowledge while still being careful about the language and content that we filled our ears and hearts with.

So this year we have decided to choose a different genre of music each month. Throughout that month we will listen to a variety of songs from that genre and learn about some of the famous musicians. Whenever possible we will attend a free or inexpensive local concert related to that genre. I will mostly use music that is available from Amazon Prime or YouTube to make this an inexpensive study.

Our first month we are starting with Bluegrass music! I know that it is not as popular or mainstream as some genres but I think it is so much fun. I love the instruments and the fun songs. Fall also tends to be a time when I can find more bluegrass concerts available locally. There are always several at our North Carolina State Fair and the apple orchard where we are hoping to pick apples later this month hosts multiple local bluegrass bands (among other genres). If timing works out we will hear a band at the apple orchard and if not we can catch a concert next month at the fair.

I have not scheduled out the other eight months because we will use the availability of free or inexpensive local concerts to help with our scheduling. We intend to study jazz, classical, gospel, big band, classic country, blues, rock, and Celtic music. I know that there are many other genre’s and sub genres that we could have chosen but we felt that those included many favorites that we wanted to expose the children to as well as a well rounded variety. Each month I’ll share a short post with the genre we are studying and some free resources that you can use to share with your children.

What favorite genres or musicians do you want to share with your children? Share your ideas in the comments!!

Bluegrass Resources

Please check these before using with your children to make sure they align with your family. I have listened to some of the tracks but not all of them.

Best Loved Bluegrass

True Bluegrass Gospel

A Brief History of Bluegrass

What is Bluegrass?

Bluegrass Instructional Materials

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Deals and Freebies!

SchoolhouseTeachers.com is doing an amazing sale this month! Buy One year get One Year FREE! We use this for several of our courses and one price covers all the students in your home for as many of their over 400 courses and you would like to use.

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Enrichment Studies has a great free fine arts memory match game this month!

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!

If you have been considering adding an art program to your curriculum, you need to check out the newest upgraded membership over at You Are An Artist. My children love the lessons with Nana and now they have two different membership levels, the newest one includes all of their lessons with some great new additions including the Presidents, hymns, and famous artists. They are also offering 25% off of any of their courses (not memberships) until 9/3!

How Do I Get Started Homeschooling?

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No Two Homeschools Are Exactly Alike

There are as many variations on homeschooling as there are children. Each family has the flexibility to choose what works for them and sometimes that even varies from child to child with-in a family. That said, I hope these resources help provide a path and support to get you started on your own journey.

The very first thing you need to do when you are thinking about homeschooling or have just decided to homeschool is spend some time in prayer asking God for his guidance and talking with your spouse so that you are both on the same page.

Homeschool Laws

Then, check your state’s laws. Each state has different requirements for starting and annual reporting. In some states you do nothing, some you simply register, and some have testing or portfolio requirements. I will discuss North Carolina’s laws because I homeschool in North Carolina but if you live in another state I encourage you to look up the laws of that state. The HSLDA website is a great place to get information on the laws of each state.

In North Carolina you must register your homeschool with the state once your children reaches compulsory attendance age, which means that you register during the school year your oldest homeschooled child turns 7. In order to register you must hold a high school diploma or equivalent. If all of your children are younger than 7 there are no requirements and you do not need to register or report. You do not register each child in North Carolina so once your homeschool is open any, or all, of you children can attend your homeschool without further registration.

Once you have registered your homeschool, you are required to keep attendance, immunization records (or waiver), and complete a nationally standardized achievement test annually. You are required to “operate the school on a regular schedule, excluding reasonable holidays and vacations, during at least nine calendar months of the year.”(NCDNPE) You are also required to notify them when you close your homeschool. There are other recommendations but those are the only requirements in North Carolina.

Picking a Homeschool Curriculum

Once you have registered, you will probably turn your attention to curriculum. One of the most common questions I answer is, “What is the best curriculum?” There is no one right answer to that question. As we mentioned earlier each family and each child is different.

There are many wonderful curricula available and before you dive into researching them I highly suggest researching homeschool philosophies and determining which one you lean towards. This in no way means that you need to dogmatically follow one philosophy but by narrowing down your preferences you can narrow down the curriculum choices and help you find one/s that will work well with your family.

Personally, we lean towards what I like to call ‘Charlotte Mason Eclectic’ which basically means that I use some of the ideas and Charlotte Mason methods but I adapt them to meet the needs of my family. I have friends whose children thrive under a classical education and others who prefer a Montessori education, even a couple who ‘unschool’. For more information on the various styles I recommend this post by eclectic homeschool.

Based on our preferences, I tend to spend more time looking at resources that align with the Charlotte Mason approach though I keep an open mind to others as well. Once you have found the style/s that aligns best with your family, you can use that information to narrow down curriculum choices.

Homeschool Curriculum is Not One Size Fits All

There are many good programs available and it is important to remember that just because it works for one family does not mean it is the right fit for your family. Honestly I recommend buying used, or at least on sale, whenever possible, especially that first year. In addition to lowering your initial costs, it means that if you need to resell it because it is not a good fit you should be able to get close to what you originally paid for it.

I have many reviews here on the blog and the Review Crew also has reviews of hundreds of programs to help you get more information about what is available.

Research philosophies, read reviews, talk to other homeschoolers, and then make your selections. This should help you find curricula that will be a good fit, but most (if not all) of us have purchased curriculum that turned out not to be quite right.

This does not mean that homeschool isn’t the right fit nor does it mean you have to settle for a bad year. If a curriculum isn’t working for you I suggest first trying to tweak it to work for you, but if it simply doesn’t work ditch it and move on. Resell it if you can and try something different.

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Creating a Flexible Homeschool Plan

Now that you have prayed, talked to your spouse, followed you state laws, researched philosophies, and chosen a curriculum it is time to make a plan. I am a big proponent of having a flexible plan. A plan gives you a road map to get where you want to go and the flexibility allows you to make it work in real life. Many veteran homeschool parents will tell you that it takes the first two years to really get your feet under you and you still need to be prepared to change as you go through various stages and life events.

You can decide to school year round, five days a week, four days a week, on a traditional school schedule, on a modified year round or anything in between as long as it falls with-in the laws of your state you have a great deal of flexibility. We personally tend towards four days a week of ‘book work’ with the fifth for field trips, special events, appointments, or catching up on housework. For more information on how I plan out our year check out my planning post here.

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Finding Your Homeschool Tribe!

Now that you have a plan you are ready to get started. I highly suggest finding a ‘tribe’ of homeschool parents to help you along this journey. This could be in person through local groups, co-ops, or it could be online. There are many great Facebook groups including Schoolin’ Swag where you can ask questions, share successes, and get encouragement. You may also want to read some encouraging and informational books about homeschooling. You are ready to begin this difficult but completely worthwhile journey. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them or point you in the right direction for assistance.

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Deals and Freebies!

If you have not tried SchoolhouseTeachers.com, you don’t want to miss this sale! I have multiple reviews on the blog about different courses we use from them.

If you are looking for a fun way to encourage reading this summer, check out the FREE summer reading materials from Your Morning Basket with Pam Barnhill. The passport and reading bucket list are a great way to encourage reading!

Homeschool Complete is offering a special 10% off discount to my readers! Just use code: SWAG

Evan-Moor is offering their Daily Fundamentals book FREE right now to help out during this time.

Get a FREE Literature Kit from LitWits using Code 11READ4FUN. We are currently enjoying the Heidi kit but have also previously loved the My Side of the Mountain kit.

IEW is offering some great free resources right now.

FREE Baby Yoda Art Lesson from Nana!

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Friday Favorites: My 5 Must Have Supplies That You Might Not Think About

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Today’s blog hop theme was Friday Favorites and I decided to share five of my favorite homeschool supplies that you might not have thought about. There are other supplies that we need as well (pencils, paper, books). I also did not include chocolate milk which I find to be necessary for me to function homeschooling or not, since I know many of you prefer coffee or tea. However, these are supplies that make my life as a homeschool mom a lot easier. I’ll share what they are and how we use them in no particular order.

Velcro Dots

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I am not sure how I would have survived homeschooling without velcro dots. Especially the preschool and early elementary years. I used them for our calendar time, I used them for counting games, for matching activities, and for identifying things on a map or timeline. I recently realized that I could use them on sheet protectors to make an extra pocket in our three ring binders. This was really helpful in keeping the pieces in my four year olds calendar notebook. I love that with velcro dots it is easy to keep reusing things and to switch things out as needed. They are also inexpensive, you can get 250 sets for less than $10.

Primary Journals

These are my favorite nature journals for young children (even through upper elementary). It gives them lines spaces to write and blank spaces for drawing, leaf rubbings, or even gluing flowers or leaves. They are fairly durable and handle being in and out of bags on nature walks without being overly heavy. My children get new ones whenever they fill one up and at the beginning of the school year. They are also great for young children who are learning to write and want to illustrate what they have written.

Boogie Boards

When I hear the term ‘boogie board’ my mind immediately goes to the ocean, but this is a different kind of Boogie board. This is more like a high tech etch-a-sketch and we love them in our homeschool. You draw or write on the board with the stylus and then when you are done you simply push the button and it erases. My children use them for school and play. One way we use them for school is spelling practice. They find it to be more fun to write it on the board than in their notebooks. They also use them to work out math problems and for doodling while they listen to me read aloud. It saves paper and clutter while being fun and reasonably inexpensive.

Magazine Holders

I love these for sorting books, particularly books that we are using during the current year or unit study. I sit them on top of the shelves and for example I can put all of our “Ancient Greece” books in one, and all of our “Skeleton Books” in another. I also use them to sort loose papers, extra folders, and extra notebooks. This allows me to keep those supplies handy and available without having them cluttering up desks or tables. The children could also use one on their desks to store folders or notebooks that they need throughout the school day.

Glider Rocker

Almost 13 years ago my husband bought me a glider rocker when I was pregnant with our first child. I have used that chair ever since. First, it was in the nursery but when we began to homeschool when he was six and his younger sister was four we moved it up to our school room. It provides me with a comfortable but supportive place to sit while I read, teach, or monitor progress. Even if you do not have a separate school room I highly recommend a comfortable and supportive chair. The glider rocker is also a great place for me to hold my littles and read. I even ‘sneak away’ to sit and relax or read in it by myself occasionally.

Those are five of my favorite homeschooling items. What items do you love in your homeschool that people don’t always think about?

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

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Deals and Freebies

Back to School Bundle Sale going on now!! Back to Homeschool Online Course Bundle

SchoolhouseTeachers.com is doing an amazing sale this month! Buy One year get One Year FREE! We use this for several of our courses and one price covers all the students in your home for as many of their over 400 courses and you would like to use.

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Enrichment Studies has a great free fine arts memory match game this month!

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!

Check out these other posts:

Amanda @ Hopkins Homeschool
Angie @ Run Ran Family Adventures & Learning
Annette @ A Net in Time
Ashley @ Gift of Chaos
Betty @ Let’s Get Real
Brenda @ Counting Pinecones
Carol @ Home Sweet Life
Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses

Take a Look Tuesday: Our School Room

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*Some of the links in my posts may be affiliate links see below for more information. *

I need to start off by saying, you DO NOT have to have a dedicated school room to homeschool. That said, we are blessed to have a room that is our ‘school room’. This does not mean that all of our learning is done in that room, but it does give us a place to focus on our school work and to keep the books and materials ‘mostly’ contained. We had an unfinished upstairs and my awesome and handy husband finished a section of it for us to use for our school room.

My cozy window seat might just be my favorite part of this room. I had dreamed for years of a comfy window seat for reading but we never had the right space. When we build this room in a space that had a dormer window it was a perfect fit. Sometimes I sit here to read or teach and sometimes the children sit here and work. We can also use the space to look outside at the trees and watch for birds, squirrels, and other wildlife.

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My second favorite spot is my glider rocker area. I have spent many hours sitting in this seat reading to my children, watching them work, teaching them, and praying over our homeschool. When I sit here to read or teach the children can sit at their desks or bring out the pillows or bean bags and sit on the floor in front of me. During different seasons of our homeschool we have had a calendar area just above the rocker as well as a magnetic board for our All About Spelling tiles. There is a CD player just to one side of this so that we can listen to music or audiobooks.

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My handy husband also built dual purpose bookshelves. In addition to holding books they serve as a room divider. We have some of our book collection on these shelves, separated into broad categories such as chapter books, picture books, history, science, and Bible. We have a fairly extensive book collection (thanks to yard sales and Amazon) and not all of our books fit into our school room but I try to keep a good variety of fun books to read, books for extra studies, and books that go along with our current curriculum.

My son loves his surplus military field desk!

On one side of our school room we have a round table that we use for working together or when one of the children needs a larger work space for a project or assignment. My children, particularly my older two, also like to have individual work spaces so they each have a small desk on the other side of the room. The four year old never likes to be left out so he has his own small desk as well but spends most of his time in his preschool space.

Beside the round table I have our preschool area. There is a book shelf which holds bins of educational toys that are only used during ‘school’ time to keep them exciting, books, and crafting supplies for the four year old. In addition he has a small vertical book rack/shelf that makes it easy for him to see the books he has and to put them away when he is finished.I am also working on a container of file folder games to go in this area so that he can work on those with this older siblings.

I hope you have enjoyed this closer look at our school room. We enjoy using this room as well as our kitchen table, front porch, and even the van to learn and grow. I would love to hear about your school room and I’m happy to answer any questions you might have about our space.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Resource Library

Deals and Freebies

Back to School Bundle Sale going on now!! Back to Homeschool Online Course Bundle

SchoolhouseTeachers.com is doing an amazing sale this month! Buy One year get One Year FREE! We use this for several of our courses and one price covers all the students in your home for as many of their over 400 courses and you would like to use.

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Enrichment Studies has a great free fine arts memory match game this month!

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!>

Check out some of the other Take a Look Tuesday Posts:

Jennifer @ Dear Homeschooler
Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory
Karen @ Tots and Me…Growing Up Together
Kellyann @ Walking Home …
Kimberley @ Vintage Blue Suitcase
Kristen @ A Mom’s Quest to Teach
Kym @ Homeschool Coffee Break
Laura @ Four Little Penguins
Linda @ Apron Strings & other things

What Are We Using For 5th Grade?

*Some of the links in my posts may be affiliate links see below for more information. *

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My daughter is in the 5th grade this year. This is my current plan for next year. As always, it is a flexible plan that we will adapt as needed throughout the year. I will also be supplementing with various Review Crew products.

Reading: We had the chance to review Home School Navigator last year and my daughter really enjoyed it. She requested to use it as her primary reading program for this year. I love that she can complete in fairly independently and feel like it is a good fit for this year.

Writing: Writing for my daughter will be a bit of a mix. She will complete some of the writing included in Home School Navigator as well as some real life projects such as pen pal letters, Junior Historians projects, and 4-H Project Record books.

Spelling: All About Spelling We struggled for years to find a spelling program that worked. When I used traditional lists he could often spell the words correctly for the test, but none of it seemed to be translating into spelling correctly in his writing. I tried non traditional curriculum, word walls, and copy work but nothing was improving his spelling. All About Spelling has been such as blessing as we’ve used it over the last 3 years and I have seen steady improvement his his spelling. One thing we added last semester that made managing the program a lot easier is the All About Learning App which means that we can use the kindle instead of magnetic tiles. The magnetic tiles are a great option for many learners but our preschooler kept getting into them.

Math: We started using Math For A Living Education last year and will continue this year. She actually requested that I go ahead and purchase the book this spring when she finished the fourth grade one and she is working in it a little bit here and there throughout the summer. She is excited to be moving ahead and feels like this program works well for her.

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Science: We will be finishing up both Apologia Physics and Chemistry and Apologia Anatomy. We did parts of both of those last year and will be finishing them up this year.

Art: You Are An Artist Clubhouse Subscription I need to be honest and say that I’m not always (read never) the best at making sure art happens in our home school. At least I was not before I found a way to have art done for me in an easy relaxed way from the comfort of my home. We love these lessons because they are simple and easy to follow. She enjoyed the lessons and likes to use her pictures to send to grandparents and other family members. I like the subscription because there are lots of options for the whole family, but they also have a lot of great courses that you can purchase independently.

Bible: For Bible we will be listening to the Daily Audio Bible App as a family during our morning basket time and working through the Bible Study Guide For All Ages as a family. In addition he will be going through the Sibling Challenge Journal by Not Consumed which includes Bible study on sibling relationships.

History: We will be beginning our second cycle of Story of the World this year with Story of the World Volume 1. We are excited to be going back to Ancient History and looking forward to going deeper into our studies. I will also be supplementing Story of the World with some great games and resources from Home School in the Woods. I will be posting a chapter by chapter list of resources for Story of the World Volume 1 as soon as it is completed.

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Typing: My daughter went through Bytes of Learning UltraKey Online last semester and we saw a great deal of improvement in his typing speed and accuracy. She is looking forward to working through it again and trying to get even faster.

In addition to these studies we will be completing our morning basket time and ‘Evening Education’ (more on this in a blog post next week) as a family. These times will include poetry, missionary studies, artist and composer studies, and read alouds. Once I have ‘finalized’ my morning basket plans for this year I’ll share what I have in the basket as a separate post.

I would love to know what curriculum you are using this year. Are you still searching for that perfect fit or have you found something you love?

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Resource Library

Deals and Freebies!

You Are An Artist Clubhouse Memberships are now Open for enrollment!!

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SchoolhouseTeachers.com is doing an amazing sale this month! Buy One year get One Year FREE! We use this for several of our courses and one price covers all the students in your home for as many of their over 400 courses and you would like to use.

Free ABC Mouse Trial: Looking for a little summer education for your children when it is too hot to play outside? ABC Mouse is offering a FREE 30 day trial. This is a great way to give it a try and see if it works for your child.

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Enrichment Studies has a great free fine arts memory match game this month!

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!

Help! I’m Homeschooling!: Helpful Habits for the Heart of Homeschooling (review)

*Some of the links in my posts may be affiliate links see below for more information. *

When I agreed to review, Help! I’m Homeschooling!: Helpful Habits for the Heart of Homeschooling I was hoping it would be a good book that I could recommend to the folks that look to me for help in getting started. However, what I got was so much more. I do recommend this for new homeschoolers but honestly it is a great book for veteran homeschoolers that need a bit of encouragement or refreshment.
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Trica Hodges uses each short section to talk about a different homeschool habit that was helpful in their homeschool. She has suggestions that range from spiritual to practical and from young children to high school.

One of the habits that I want to try this school year is morning room time. I love the idea of a time for the younger ones to play independently while I accomplish a few things with the older children. I think the thing I most love about how she makes it work is that the little ones get to hear her voice and work on learning during that time so it is almost like she really gets to be in two places at once (and don’t we all wish for that at times).

This year I will have a baby, a preschooler (who desperately wants to be included in school work), and elementary student, and a middle schooler. Time management is going to be critical for us and I love how she has a variety of time management ideas. What works during one season may not work in the next but she has a variety of ideas that can implemented to help with time management.

There are many other ideas and habits included in Help! I’m Homeschooling!: Helpful Habits for the Heart of Homeschooling. She packed a lot of great information and easy to use ideas into less than 100 pages of text. This book can be read in its entirety or you can simply choose the habits that you feel you need to work on. She recommends (and I wholeheartedly agree) that after reading you choose one or two habits to work on and not the whole book. If you are homeschooling and want a little bit of help with habits and making things flow more smoothly, you are just getting started, or you are considering making the change I highly encourage you to check out this short but powerful book.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Resource Library

Deals and Freebies!

You Are An Artist Clubhouse Memberships are now Open for enrollment!!

Free ABC Mouse Trial: Looking for a little summer education for your children when it is too hot to play outside? ABC Mouse is offering a FREE 30 day trial. This is a great way to give it a try and see if it works for your child.

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Enrichment Studies has a great free fine arts memory match game this month!

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!