Home is where you start from: Summer end-Homeschool begins

Saturday, September 05, 2009

Summer end-Homeschool begins

We started our homeschool year August 24th, so we just ended our second week of the new homeschool year. It's been good, though on the light side so far. We eased into the year with just the basics for the youngest 3, giving them time to adjust to being back, and giving me time to deal with not only schooling a new year, but also to having Meg in a new umbrella school program for high school, and all the prep time/meetings I've had to do to tutor in our new Classical group. Planning is my weekness, so actually this weekend I am putting the finishing touches on the subjects we need to add on, such as spelling and writing notebooks.

Our summer was such a full one! I cannot believe all we did, and the places we traveled to.
Here we are in front of the Mayflower II !!

Josie attended a week long Tennis camp near our house. In our neighborhood, actually. I appreciated the short drive time!

The only kind of driving Meg will be doing for a few years...!

We have a tradition of going to the county fair every year. It's getting more expensive as the kids get older...I miss the days when I could pack them all a p&b sandwich and a few juice boxes and maybe buy one special treat...and then let them ride the ponies and go on the big slide and they were in heaven! Now they want to go on ALL the rides. And they eat. alot.

here's a look at what we did in homeschool these 2 weeks:

Teddy, Demi & Amie (The Littles...)

Math
cursive handwriting sheets
number writing sheets
reading (Sonlight Core 2 regular for Amie, 2 advanced for Rand, and Core 1 for Teddy)
Classical Group work- lots of memory work (timeline, Bible verses, geography, science, multiplication facts, and more!)

Meg and Josie

Math
English grammar
Core 6 History/literature/geography (Meg started in the Summer, Josie just started...Meg will complete both Core 6 and 7 this school year, Josie will do Core 6 at a normal pace)
Classical Group work for Josie which will include English grammar and writing.
Bible

Meg will start General High School Science in a week at the umbrella school, and also yearbook and photography.

we have piano going for Amie, Demi and Josie, Violin and Orchestra for Meg, Irish dance for Meg, Demi is starting roller hockey, and the youngest 3 start art next week.

whew, I'm tired already!

I'm waiting to set up a perfect routine, if there ever is such a thing...before I do a more indepth post on what we are using and how we use it.

Happy schooling everyone!

Labels: homeschool

posted at 1:56 PM
4 comments

4 Comments:

At 4:36 PM, Blessed Mommy said...: Sounds like you have a very active school year planned. My head is spinning reading about it. But, I know it will be fun.
At 7:23 PM, Hen Jen said...: Thanks Blessed Mommy! funny, this is the 'lite' edition, I'm still waiting for my sonlight order for the 3 littles... I am wondering how we will get it all in. Help, I am addicted to the best educational products out there, but I can only make my kids sit for so long...!!
At 1:39 PM, Blessed Mommy said...: I looked at your other blog and noticed you were selling TOG year one, do you mind me asking, why? I have looked at this before, but for me it looked like to much work and info overload for me, but I always read such good things about it. Do you mind sharing?
At 8:59 AM, Hen Jen said...: Hi Blessed Mommy,

sorry I took a while to answer, I was trying to decide if I should make it a blog post or not.

Yes, I sold my TOG, it was a lovely program. I really enjoyed the books they used, very high-brow. Someone once said that you need to approach TOG as a buffet and take what you need each week from it, otherwise it will overwhelm you..good advice, but I realized after using it a year and a half that I was only using the book schedule every week, so it had become a very expensive book list. It is not open and go, even as nice as it is laid out, there is just so much information there, I had to wade through pages each week to decide what to use and to find the discussion questions. I just realized I really needed something more open and go- and that it was taking me too long, it took us a year and half/almost 2 years to work through year 1- and with my oldest starting hs this year I realized I just didn't have that kind of time to mess with.
Also, I had a big realization that I was treating my 5 students as 3 different groups, using 3 diff. sets of books....so using something more open and go such as Sonlight would not really be that big of a deal, I was already doing the equivalent of 3 cores, but with more work. I also realized that tho one year plan was a good bargain, after purchasing books, lapbooks, pop quizes, maps, etc...it was really pricey.

anyways, those are my reasons. I do think TOG had some better, more classical books than Sonlight...I am planning on maybe adding some in here in there, but...and big but...my kids did not delight in the TOG books like they are with the Sonlight, I have my kids begging to read ahead now.

feel free to email me with more questions, if you have any!

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