Our 2020 Homeschool Goals

I enjoy setting goals and planning, but if I am being honest, I really have not taken the time to do as much goal setting as I normally would for a new school year. Everything has felt so up in the air since March that I haven’t really felt like I had everything together. However, with the Review Crew talking about goals this week, I thought it would be good to at least set some general goals for our homeschool year.

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As I sat down to think, the first thing that came to mind was having more consistency with my first grader. As a young child he learns so much through play and day to day life, but I also feel that he has reached a point where he needs some consistent focused academic time each day as well. It is easy for him to get pushed to the back burner by the demands of my older children, but I plan to work hard to make sure he has some consistent academic attention this year.

Strengthening our family relationships was the second goal that came to mind. In many ways we already have strong family relationships, but I want to continue to build on those. The children struggle with competing with one another and bickering about chores and such. We want to continue to work and grow in those areas. One of the ways that we work on those relationships are through shared read alouds and morning time where they are learning together. I also want to be sure I make time for family games and activities. I have noticed that my oldest two are really bonding over their shared interest in music and I want to make sure I encourage them and give them time to practice together.

Finally, my oldest is starting his first year of high school this year. It feels like just yesterday that he in first grade and we were just starting this homeschool journey. As we finish his homeschool journey over the next four years my biggest goals for him are to help him strengthen his faith and understanding, to give him a solid foundation and worldview, and to make sure he is prepared for adulthood. He is a christian and is well on his way to being prepared, but my husband and I want to make sure we are making a conscious effort to help he be prepared for whatever the world may throw at him. To this end we are involving him in more conversations politically, having him take an apologetics course, and overall just making sure that we are giving him the tools he needs to be a christian and a productive citizen in a fallen world.

Over the next few weeks I will be discussing goals with my children. They will set personal goals for academics as we as other areas of their lives such as physical fitness and spiritual growth. The goals that I created for our homeschool and their personal goals will help guide our year. Do you make goals for your homeschool?

Make sure to hop on over and check out all of the other fun posts here.

This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

Deals and Freebies

TODAY is the LAST Day for this great Gardening Bundle Sale!!

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.

August 31st is the LAST day to sign up for the Journey Homeschool Academy Science Courses! If you want more information click on the link above or check out Journey Homeschool Academy High School Biology Review

Starting August 31st all of Evan Moor’s Daily Practice titles will be on sale 20% off!

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

Our Ninth Grade Curriculum Choices

matthew sailing

I have a high school student!!! How did this happen? It feels like just yesterday we started this homeschool adventure when he was in first grade. There have been ups and downs over the years but I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to homeschool him and we are looking forward to the joys of high school. I know there will be challenges but there will also be joy and celebration.

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I think I have spent more time contemplating (and sometimes agonizing) over our choices for this year, than ever before. It feels like such a weighty decision when you realize that these courses go onto transcripts that will follow him to college. However, I came to realize that I still had lots of flexibility and I could still change things up as needed. I did not need to add more pressure to myself or to him.

We decided to try a modified block schedule this year. Each semester he will complete three full courses. In addition, he will be working on music and physical education all year. At the end of the year he should have eight courses completed. We liked the block scheduling for allowing him to focus on fewer courses at one time. However, for music and physical education we felt that spreading the hours over the full year would make it easier to complete and show good progress.

First Semester:

During his first semester my son’s three main courses will be literature, biology, and financial literacy. Literature might be the course I am personally most excited about because we are going to work through that one together. We are doing British literature, but not just any British literature, we are focusing on the Inklings. (He will do another year of British literature later to catch all of the other wonderful British authors). For this course he will be studying C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and his choice of two other Inklings. He will read a variety of novels from these wonderful authors and participate in round table discussions about their works. He will also complete two papers related to the novels. I have chosen about half of the books and he will be able to choose the other half based on the author.

microscope

For biology, we were blessed to be able to review Experience Biology: Upper Level and we loved it. Since we reviewed it this summer, he gets to start biology five lessons ahead when we jump into our studies in a few weeks. This will give him some flexibility to have a little smaller load during a few busy weeks of the semester. We truly loved this program from Journey Homeschool Academy. It was a great mix of well done video lectures, online quizzes and tests, and hands-on labs. I love that he was getting a strong college prep course from a Christian perspective and that it only took me about ten minutes a week to check the assignments that needed to be checked by a parent. If you want to know more you can also check out my review: Journey Homeschool Academy High School Biology Review.

Finally, he will be completing Dave Ramsey’s Foundations in Personal Finance: High School Editionfor his financial literacy course. Years ago, my husband and I read Dave Ramsey’s book and completed his Financial Peace University course. We love the sound, Biblically based advice and feel that it will set our children up to be good stewards of their money. I like that this course was already set up for high schoolers and is done digitally so he can read the information, watch the videos, and complete the quizzes online. He will also be keeping a journal and responding to journal questions. To prepare for this course and to help him start high school with the right mind set, he and I both read Debt Free Degree, by Anthony O’Neal and I highly recommend it if you have a student middle school or older.

Second Semester:

In his second semester he will be studying Ancient History using Drive Thru History and Geometry with Mr. D both with SchoolhouseTeachers.com. He will also be doing a Bible Apologetic course.

Drive Thru History!

Our family loves Drive Thru History and they are lots of fun just to watch, but I am excited for my son to be able to go through and use them as a high school history course. SchoolhouseTeachers.com has created worksheets with short answer and essay questions to accompany each video. In addition, I will have my son do a capstone project showing what he learned throughout the course.

As we reached the high school years I found it was best if math instruction came from someone other than myself. It has been a ‘few’ years since I took many of these courses and I have forgotten quite a bit of what I once knew. We were excited to find that the Mr. D Geometry course was included with our SchoolhouseTeachers.com membership. This course provides quality video instruction for geometry and my husband will also be available to help him if he has any problems.

Last year, I had the opportunity to review the Unbreakable Faith course from Pilgrim’s Rock. This is a high school level apologetics course and my son completed the first portion of the course during the review. This course is set up with readings and video and includes quizzes and tests that are computer graded. Matthew will be finishing this course for an elective Bible credit.

Year Round

For his other two elective courses this year, we chose music performance and physical education.

For physical education, he is working with my husband to create a weight lifting, running, and circuit training routine. He will track the hours he completes each week as well as his progress on several physical fitness goals.

For music performance, he is taking lessons from Mrs. Sarah VanKleek at Practice Monkeys. He is currently taking violin lessons, but as they are getting ready to start guitar lessons he may switch instruments. He will track his time completed in both lessons and extra practice and also track progress based on assessment lesson results. In addition, he will be performing with his youth group band and if things open back up from the pandemic he will also continue to perform at a local nursing home. To round out his music course he will participate in monthly SQUILT Music lessons. Our family has been enjoying a subscription to SQUILT Music this summer and plan to continue to use it throughout the year. These lessons will help increase his knowledge and background in the music appreciation aspect of music.

In addition to these programs, he will be doing Bible study with us each morning and listening to some of our read alouds. As we move forward, we will see how timing is going to determine how much of our other morning time and extra activities he participates in with us. He knows that he will have to focus and work hard with this course load, be we want to continue to make time for life learning and fun.

What are your favorite high school resources?

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!

Fabulous Four Morning Routine (Free Printable)

Between a toddler who like to rise early, a five year old that loves attention, teens who don’t like going to bed early, homeschooling, and blogging, I often feel like my time is not my own and I can get frustrated when I do not accomplish all of my goals for the day. It is so easy for the urgent (screaming toddler or ringing phone) to side track me from the important (Bible Time). In an effort to be realistic about what I can accomplish each day, move me closer to my goals, and stay focused on my priorities I created a little program I am calling the fabulous four.

These are four things I will accomplish each day. For me, three of those things will remain the same each day: devotional/Bible time, morning time, and physical activity. I want to make sure that I get a personal devotional time each day. Ideally, I do this early in the morning but even if it waits until afternoon nap time, the prayer and Bible reading is important and beneficial. Our family loves morning time together as a way to start our school day and encourage family learning. However, lately I have not been as consistent as I should and I really want to refocus on that time even amidst the interruptions of the toddler. I need physical activity each day for both my mental and physical health. I have plans to walk several days a week with a neighbor and hope to either walk or do Fit2B workouts (with or without the children) on the other days. The fourth will be the whatever item on my to-do list is most important for the day. Hopefully, I will accomplish many other items on my list that day, but this will help me prioritize and give me a good reminder that I can’t do everything.

morning devotion

I chose those first three items because they are things that are important to me and areas where I desire to be more consistent. You may have other areas that you would like to focus on such as, a particular chore, dinner prep, read aloud time, etc. I think the important thing is to have a reminder of what you want to accomplish to help you stay on track. I hope that this concept helps me to be more consistent with those habits that I want to focus on and encourages me to remember the important tasks even in the midst of the ‘urgent’.

I have included a free printable of the Fabulous Four Morning Checklist that I am using. You could print them out for each day and put them in a binder, but my plan is to put a copy into a plastic sleeve so that I can use a dry erase marker each day to track my accomplishments. I would love to know what habits or tasks you are trying to be more consistent with and how you plan to focus on those this year.

Fabulous Four Morning Checklist

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Deals and Freebies

$10 off $10 coupon for Evan-Moor Books makes for some great deals or maybe even a freebie!

Little Women is only .99 on kindle right now! (Amazon prices subject to change always check before purchasing.)

FREE Baby Yoda Art Lesson from Nana!

If you are looking to add some new electives or switch up some of your classes, SchoolhouseTeachers.comis having a great sale and you can get a whole year for $99, that is over 400 courses to use with all of your children for one low price.

All About Learning has released the best deal of the day: A FREE Snowman Pack with reading and spelling activities for a variety of ages.

Apologia has a new FREE Christmas/Advent E-book!

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)

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

Smartick (check out our full review here) is offering a 25% off discount if you use this referral link! Elizabeth is still loving this program.

Letting Go of Good Things (or Why I Sold Our Latin Curriculum)

There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of wonderful home school curriculum products available on the market today. You can find materials to teach almost any subject you can imagine and using a variety of different teaching methods and philosophies. It is a wonderful time to be home schooling because there are so many resources and it is easy to find ways to encourage your children in their various interests and passions. However, I was reminded of a very important lesson this week, just because we can teach anything does not mean we need to teach everything.

You know from all of our reviews and posts that we love checking out new curriculum and sharing resources with my readers. We have had the opportunity to let the children explore music, art, stopmotion videos, literature units, audio dramas, and so much more. In addition, we have completed our core curricula in science, history, math, reading, and spelling. My children are getting a rich and robust education, but I sometimes forget that we do not have to do everything.

Sold Latin Graphic

My ‘aha moment’ this week came when I finally sold the Latin curriculum that I had been storing for several years. Latin is popular among many of my home school friends and I had begun to feel like I really needed to include it in my children’s education. So, when I found a good deal on a program years ago I quickly purchased it and put it aside for when we had time. Each summer, I would look at it and decide that I needed to do it, but I didn’t have time and it hung over my head as an unmet expectation. This week I realized that I was holding on to that Latin because of what other people were doing and not because it was what was right for my children and our home school. I thought about how many other subjects my children were learning, how I was able to be successful both in life and a career without Latin, and ultimately that it wasn’t going to get my children any closer to the goals we have for them. I handed it over to my husband to sell and felt the weight of those expectations lift from my shoulders.

There is nothing wrong with teaching Latin and I am not writing this post to bash Latin. Latin can be a good program, but it wasn’t the best choice for us. Latin, in this post simply becomes symbolic of any unmet or unreasonable expectation. What I want you to know today, is that you do not need to teach everything your friend is teaching, everything your favorite blogger is teaching, or even everything the public school is teaching. You do not have to use every good program that you see. Think about the goals you have for your children and the programs and subjects that will best help them achieve those goals and then let those other things go. If we try to do all of the good things, we will become overwhelmed and carry the weight of unmet expectations that is not ours to carry. Take a few minutes this week to evaluate your expectations in relationship to your goals and make sure you aren’t carrying around the weight of other people’s choices.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

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Deals and Freebies

Starting August 31st all of Evan Moor’s Daily Practice titles will be on sale 20% off!

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)

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

Our Morning Basket 2019 (and a Free Printable)

I had high hopes for a nice morning basket time last year but in reality, it didn’t happen very often. Our together time was spent serving at church (look for my post later this week about our year of service in the aftermath of Florence) or working on more ‘pressing’ educational assignments and much of their learning was done independently. We did what needed to be done and I have no regrets on that end but I really missed the time together and wanted to get back to it. I spent a lot of time contemplating how I wanted to work out our morning basket time with ages ranging from thirteen years to eighteen months.

We are only about a week into school, and I fully accept that we may have to modify or adapt, but what has been working so far is to do our morning basket time in the living room right after breakfast. The toddler is still awake and happy, and everyone else is ready to go. The toddler plays on the floor while we learn together. I decided to focus on a few short items each day and not to stress about covering a certain amount. In general, I just do the next thing for a couple of subjects including hymn study, composer study, read aloud, and Bible.

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For hymn study, the first few days of a month we read about the story of the hymn, who wrote the hymn, and any scripture references that align with the hymn. Then each morning we listen to one or two editions of the hymn and sing along as we learn the words. We can also include copy work and art lessons into our study but typically I assign those to be done outside of morning basket time.

In an effort to make it very easy for me to include composer study into our routine, I signed up for the Women Composers study over at Enrichment Studies. Each morning I get an e-mail with information about a female composer and links to listen to their works. This takes 5-10 minutes and is a great way to expose them to a variety of composers. This course is one semester long and next semester I will choose something else in its place, possibly an artist study.

I know reading aloud is one of the most important things I can do in my home school. I also know how easy it is to get busy and not include this time, especially with older students. However, by having it on the list first thing in the morning I am more likely to get it done and by reading aloud the same book to everyone we have a shared family experience that brings us closer. I started this school year with Who Was Beatrix Potter? which aligned well to the book I was reading with my five-year-old and some books that I had read personally. I plan to choose a variety of fiction and non-fiction books as we go through the year.

My two oldest children have their own Bible study/devotional times, but we also like to include Bible time together. This can range from reading a section in the Bible, going through a Bible study, or currently memorizing our Bible verse for the year. Each year I choose a Bible verse as a sort of theme or anchor in our year. This year I chose Deuteronomy 6:6-7. I created some fun printables with the verse to help my children memorize them and I have even included them as a free download (at the end of this post) for you if you would like to use them for memorization or a reminder.

I do not necessarily do every one of those things every day, but we spend 20-30 minutes together on those things before my older children work independently for a bit and I take the two youngest on a walk. We enjoy our time together and it helps us fit in some of those ‘extras’ that are easy to forget.

I would love to hear what you enjoy for your morning basket time? How does it work in your home?

Deuteronomy 6 Printables

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

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Deals and Freebies

Free 5 Day Learning without Worksheets Challenge: FREE 5-Day Learning Challenge We have done several of her different challenges in the past and they are lots of fun and easy to implement.

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)

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

Adding Fun to Your Homeschool: Incorporating Hobbies

Children (and adults) naturally want to learn more about the subjects that interest them. We can incorporate fun into our homeschools by incorporating those hobbies that already interest them into their school days and often into other subjects that they might not have a natural interest.

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

One of the hobbies that we first incorporated into our homeschool was Legos. My son adored anything related to Legos and I began to use them often. He would play with them while I read aloud, it kept his hands busy and his mind focused on the book. Then we used them for him to make projects related to history and science. He created the Great Pyramids of Giza the year that we studied Ancient Egypt and even won a ribbon when he entered them into a competition at the fair. Later he built a model of Tryon Palace that was displayed at the history museum. I have even seen them used for fractions and other math concepts.

Tying into the Lego concept, a newer hobby that we have incorporated into our school is stopmotion video. My son uses a kit from Stopmotion Explosion and his Legos to make videos about history or science. This is a great way for them to share what they are learning or to encourage them to do a little more research to get information for a video.

Science tends to come to life when it can be hands on and active. To help add fun to our science we have incorporated several hobbies that are science based. My children, especially my boys, love gardening. They can learn about plants, insects, composting, seasons, and so much more just through the garden without ever even looking at a formal textbook. We also enjoy bee keeping and have several hives in our backyard. This also gives my children a chance to learn in a real-life way and encourages them to be more aware of pollinators and other insects.

Art and music are subjects that sometimes get pushed to the side or left out due to time constraints. I am as guilty of that as any mom, but I have been working on doing a better job of included those subjects because my children are very interested in them. I can incorporate them into our other studies in various forms. For example, my son enjoys drawing and I can have him show me what he learned in science by drawing a picture of the concept. My daughter has really gotten into music since she began playing the violin. She recently enjoyed collecting songs that went along with the history program that we were studying. A child could also create a song to help them remember math facts or science terms. Bible study is another great place to incorporate music, through hymn studies or songs to help memorize scripture.

When we can weave things that our children enjoy into our other homeschool subjects, we can make those subjects more fun. While I am the first to admit that sometimes you just need to do the work because it is important information, I try to incorporate fun ideas whenever possible. Just like in real life, I may not enjoy mopping the kitchen floor but it is always better when I turn on some music or a podcast. What hobbies do your children enjoy that you could weave into your homeschool day? For help with encouraging hobbies you can check out our post from this spring: Exploring Hobbies on a Time and Money Budget.

Don’t forget to check out all of the other great blog hop posts and come back tomorrow for the final installment in this series!

CREW @ Homeschool Review Crew – 2019 Annual Not Back to School Homeschool Blog Hop

Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses – ABC of Homeschooling

Dawn @ Schoolin’ Swag – Adding Fun to Your Homeschool Day

Erin @ For Him and My Family – Large Family Homeschooling

Lori @ At Home Where Life Happens – Learning Life Skills

Monique @ Mountain of Grace Homeschooling – Homeschooling the High School Years

Monique D. @ Early Learning Mom – Homeschooling With Autism

Yvie @ Homeschool On the Range – 5 Days of Upper Grades Homeschooling

Abby @ Making Room 4 One More – Time Management for Homeschool Moms

Amanda @ Hopkins Homeschool – 5 Days of Homeschool Questions

Amy @ the WRITE Balance – Year-Round Schooling

Annette @ A Net in Time – Homeschooling.

Betty @ Lets Get Real – Homeschooling High School

Cassandra @ My Blessed Mess – Eclectic Homeschooling
Kimberley @ Vintage Blue Suitcase – Roadschooling with a Teenager

Yvonne @ The Life We Build – 5 Days of Relaxed Homeschooling

Destiny @ Some Call It Destiny – Encouragement for the Homeschooling Mom

Karen @ Tots and Me…Growing Up Together – A Peek into Our Homeschool

Cassie D @ Deputie Tribe – Homeschooling 6 Taking Care of YOU

Kristen Heider @ A Mom’s Quest to Teach –Theme: A Quest for a Great Homeschool Year

Patti Pierce – Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy – My Favorite Homeschooling Things

Wendy @ Life on Chickadee Lane – 5 Days of Nature Study

Jacquelin @ A Stable Beginning – Homeschooling my final 4

Christine @ Life’s Special Necessities – Yes! You Can Homeschool Your Special Needs Child

Sally M – Tell the Next Generation – Tips for Homeschooling Struggling Learners

Kim @ Good Sweet Love – Last Year of Elementary

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Resource Library

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

Mid-Year Goals, Book, and Art Updates

How can 2019 already be half over? The year is passing quickly, but I’m pleased with the progress I’m making on several of my goals. First, we recently completed our goal of decluttering 1,000 things from our home. It was a family effort and it feels so good to have sold, donated, and trashed things that were no longer needed in our home to make space and reduce visual clutter. The children are also pleased that it makes cleaning up so much easier when there is less stuff. We had promised them the chance to go out to eat at a restaurant of their choice when we finished our goal. They debated on several fancier restaurants in town but ended up deciding on sushi and pizza. We even decided to give it a go again and work towards another 1,000 things but this time including items from our storage room.

I have been keeping up with my reading goals this summer and I am looking forward to reading even more as we have a little vacation coming up later this month. Since my last goals update, I have finished five more books and I am currently reading three others. I have shared a list of those books below but want to take a minute to highly encourage you to check out A Homeschool Experiment if you are looking for a fun but encouraging summer read. This is a novel about a mom’s experiment in homeschooling that will have you laughing, crying, and nodding your head and she goes through the process of figuring out what works best for her kids while showing the real-life side of things.

Books Read

Currently Reading:

Upcoming:

We have not done as much hiking in other places as I would have liked but I have been enjoying walking and biking with my youngest two children several times a week right in our own neighborhood. This has been a great way to get some miles in towards my 100-mile goal and we have plans for more hikes when the weather cools off a bit in the fall.

I have been a little slack over the summer at getting our foot print art posted so I wanted to take a minute and catch that up as well. In June we did a family hand print art project for my husband for Father’s Day. I convinced him to let me get his hand print four times on the canvas and then I put the hand print of each child into one of his hand prints. I thought it turned out well and he has it hanging up in his home office. I even managed to get the baby’s hand print.

For July we wanted to celebrate summer a bit and so we have feet in the sand foot print art! I first brushed the baby’s foot with paint and then placed it into the sand before making the prints on the paper. We used sand from our sand box because I forgot to do it when we were at the beach a couple weeks ago. You could use any kind of sand that was available. I do recommend dry sand so it doesn’t clump as badly.

We are making progress on our goals, enjoying a little down time this month as our summer winds down, and getting ready to jump back into our ‘school’ schedule in September. I would love to hear more from you about your goals and the progress you are making. Also, don’t forget to check back every day this week for our blog hop!

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Resource Library

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!

Our 8th Grade Curriculum Choices

Some days I find it hard to believe that I already have an eighth grader! I started homeschooling him in first grade and it seems like it cannot have possibly been that long ago. We started with a class schedule that was slightly shorter, but much like the one I had as a classroom teacher. It didn’t take more than a few weeks for me to realize that I didn’t want to create school at home but I wanted to create a learning environment where we could thrive. We have had our ups and downs, good days and bad days but I think we have learned a lot and each year gets better.

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

He will be taking Algebra 1 as an eighth grader which means I have to start his transcript this year. We looked at several programs but settled on No-nonsense Algebra. It came highly recommended by some fellow homeschool moms and we gave it a trial run this summer. The simple and straightforward approach seemed to work well with my son, especially after we worked through a couple of lessons together and I ensured he was working out the problems as required. This program combines short online video lessons with well written and worked out example problems, followed by a short practice session (usually about 15-20 problems). Each lesson also includes about four review questions at the end to help with retention.

For language arts he will be using several programs. First, we are continuing to use All About Spelling. It is one of my favorite programs ever because it was such a game changer for our family. This program helped both of my older children to finally understand spelling and translate what they were learning in spelling to their everyday writing. My son could read years above grade level and make hundreds on traditional spelling tests but could not translate those words into his every day writing. We had tried multiple other spelling programs before we finally purchased All About Spelling. With-in just a few weeks I was able to begin to see improvement. Last spring, my daughter had the opportunity to try out Fix It! Grammar from IEW and we felt like it was a really good fit. The short lessons were effective without being overwhelming. I thought this would also work well for my son so I purchased another copy of the student book for my son to begin this fall.

check list

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to review Lightning Lit & Comp: Hewitt Homeschooling Resources with my son. We did the first two chapters and I felt like it was a good match for his personality. We are planning to finish that program for his eighth-grade literature, although I will be mostly using the literature components and not the composition because we will be using a different composition program. He started working his way through Sharon Watson’s writing program Jump In and we plan to finish that program this year to give him the skills he needs for high school level composition next year.

We will be studying North Carolina History as a family. We love history and have spent a good deal of time volunteering at our local historic site. My son turned 13 in May and was very excited to be able to join his father in volunteering with their NC Continental Line group. History is the subject he is most excited about and I look forward to helping him learn and grow in this area. I will be using a variety of books, our North Carolina Junior Historians program, the North Carolina Historic Sites, and a variety of other resources to take them through North Carolina’s history. We will also use State History from a Christian Perspective to get us started and get a good overview of North Carolina.

For science he will be using Apologia General Science . This was another product that I had the privilege of reviewing this summer. I had been looking for a science that would help him become more independent and give him a good review of a variety of concepts in preparation for high school next year. This program did an excellent job of that and is very well laid out. I loved how easy it was for him to know exactly what he needed to accomplish because of the checklists and reminders that are included in the student journal.

Cutting Grass

To further his goals of running and growing his own business we started working through The Kingdom Code . He is loving the program, enjoying having his own grass cutting business, and looking forward to continuing in that program. It is a great program that teaches entrepreneurship and economics from a Biblical perspective. I will be sharing a weekly journal on the blog about his progress through this program, so make sure to follow along.

In addition to these programs, he will be doing Bible study each day and our morning time which will include read alouds, music appreciation, missionary studies, and more. Of course, there will also be lots of free play, field trips, and hands on adventures to keep the real-life learning going. Over the next couple of weeks, I will be sharing more about what we are using for our morning time. If you have younger children you may want to check out Our Kindergarten Curriculum.

What are your favorite middle grades resources?

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Resource Library

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!

Our Summer Bucket

We often talk about summer bucket lists this time of year but today I want to talk about our actual summer bucket. I got this idea from a book study that I’m doing with my friend Jenn over at Homeschool Fanatic. The book study is all about being organized and getting your things together for summer was one of those challenges.

I decided but it would be far easier for me to say yes to summer fun if I had everything together and ready. I didn’t want to go out and spend a whole bunch of money but I wanted to be able to make things easy. So, I gathered supplies that we already had and made a trip to the Dollar Tree to finish it out. I’m hoping that we can use these things throughout the summer for some fun family time. With everything all together I won’t have to worry about taking the time to gather things we can simply go outside and enjoy.

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

You might choose different things depending on the ages of your children and what they like but these are the things that I found to put into our bucket. My kids range in age from thirteen to one so I chose versatile items that would allow us to all have fun together. In the heat of the summer, I’m always looking for a little bit of water fun but we don’t have a big pool at our house am I big kids are too big for most of the little kiddy pools. I put together some water squirters and water soaker balls that would be easy to use and we’re available at the Dollar Tree. Some folks might choose water balloons instead of soaker balls but we liked that the balls could be used over and over again and would not leave trash on the ground.

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I also went ahead and put sunscreen in our bucket so that would have it ready so we can enjoy our outdoor time safely. Then I added some sidewalk chalk because it’s fun for all ages. Other fun toys could include bubbles, balls, or even outdoor lawn games like ladder ball. You might also add bug spray if those tend to be a problem in your area ( you might also want to try the amazing Spartan mosquito eradicator. )

As I was putting together this post, I realized that there was one more thing that would really help out our bucket: towels! If you have extra towels, it is always nice to have them together with the water fun toys so we don’t forget to bring them outside and have to come back in dripping water all over the floors.

In addition to these summer bucket basics, a few larger items that I purchased to keep from year to year include a Little Tikes slide that I found at a yard sale, this really fun splash pad that my son got for his birthday, and a sprinkler. For my older children, they have these fun hammocks that they can hang up in the backyard to relax or play. Another larger purchase that we have found to be really beneficial is the sun shade they can go over a play set or some other play area in your yard to help keep it a little cooler and the sun off of your little ones.

Now when the children get bored or are begging to do something fun together, I have all I need to to go outside and have a great time together. What items would you put together in your Summer Fun Bucket? Do you find it makes it easier to do fun things if you have all of the supplies ready to go?

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Resource Library

Deals and Freebies

Schoolhouse Teachers is also offering a great sale!

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!

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

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

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.