Home Education Plans for 2015-2016
As complicated as it can sometimes seem, one of my favorite things is planning out a new school year. This year I’ll have 11th, 8th, 6th, 4th , and 1st grades (although we only loosely follow the traditional idea of being in a certain grade–one of the things I love about homeschooling is the ability to customize my child’s education to their unique needs, and sometimes that means using materials listed at different grade levels).
This year I invested in yet a different homeschool planner. And I’m in love with this one. It is so much more intuitive to me, and I love all of the planning helps included at the beginning of the book.
I added tabs to mine to make it easier to find what I’m looking for. I’ve already filled out all the planning pages, which were so helpful.
I also love the inspirational quotes and scriptures included throughout the book:
Every school year I schedule a time together where we all gather for:
- Bible Study/Prayer
- Scripture Memory
- Character Study
- Hymn Study
This year we’re using Character Building for Families again, in conjunction with Laying Down the Rails for Children. I bought this two-book set a year or two ago, but I’m just now figuring out how I want to use it. My plan is to follow the study in Character Building for Families and enhance that study with Laying Down the Rails.
There are a few stories I won’t be using in LDTR, but it’s a simple matter to just use the parts that are helpful to us. We’re using Our 24 Family Ways for our family devotional time in the evenings.
Also, during our morning together time (which I used to refer to as Circle Time, but now I have older children who thought that sounded too “little” for them!), I’m planning to use parts of Heart of Dakota’s Preparing Hearts for His Glory.
This may sound very ambitious of me, and maybe it is. But I’m hopeful that this plan will prove to be very doable for this year. Here’s how I’m planning to use this.
Each of my children has an Abeka history book that is recommended for their grade level. We used Abeka history last school year (we switched to it early in the year), and everyone loved it. I use the history book as a reader…each child just reads their history for the day.
Last school year they would come to the dinner table telling us how much they had learned in their history textbooks. They liked that it was relevant to what is going on in the world right now. Their history book gave them an overview of things that had happened in the past and also things going on currently. They actually enjoyed using them!
So, I knew I wanted each child to have a history book to read. They just read this independently except for my youngest. I will read his short selections to him.
But back to Heart of Dakota. I had already planned to use Grandpa’s Box as part of our morning devotional time. I already had the book, and it looked wonderful. When I saw that HOD used Grandpa’s Box for history readings, I started trying to figure out how I could make this work for us.
My plan is to use the “Reading About History” and “Storytime” section as part of our morning read aloud time. Look at all of these wonderful books we get to read!
A couple of these books we already had (Hero Tales and The True Story of Noah’s Ark), but all of the rest are completely new to us. I’m so excited to get started with them!
Another part of HOD that I’m planning to use is the poetry section:
Except I already had this lovely copy of A Child’s Garden of Verses, so I plan to read the poems from here.
Here are some of our other choices:
- Art: Deep Space Sparkle and Chalk Pastels
- Nature Study: Nature Friend Magazine (a gift from grandparents)
- Sewing (for boys and girls): Sewing School
11th Grade:
- Teaching Textbooks
- Apologia Biology
- Abeka United States History
- Abeka Grammar and Composition
- Calligraphy
- Herbalism Course
- Rosetta Stone Spanish
8th Grade:
- Teaching Textbooks
- Apologia Physical Science
- Abeka History: America Land I Love
- Abeka Grammar and Composition II
- Proverbs Journible
- Who Is God? Worldview Course
- Rosetta Stone Spanish
6th Grade:
- Teaching Textbooks
- Apologia Human Anatomy and Physiology
- Abeka New World History and Geography
- Abeka Language C
- A Reason for Handwriting
- Rod and Staff Spelling
- Spelling Wisdom
- Rosetta Stone Spanish
- Booklist, including: Boyhood and Beyond, Created for Work, Practical Happiness, Titus Comrade of the Cross, David Livingstone: The Pathfinder, Boys of Grit Who Became Men of Honour, Concord Cunningham on the Case: The Scripture Sleuth (he loves these books!)
4th Grade:
- Teaching Textbooks
- Apologia Zoology 2
- Abeka The History of Our United States
- Abeka Language A
- A Reason for Handwriting C
- Rod and Staff Spelling 4
- Spelling Wisdom
- All About Reading Level 2 (see my review here)
I found these beautiful books at a thrift store for $1 apiece.
For all of the above grades, I also have a reading list. Isn’t this the cutest book report form? My 4th grade daughter will love it.
1st Grade:
- Abeka Arithmetic 1
- Flip Over Math
- My Body Science Book
- Abeka My America and My World
- Language Lessons for Little Ones
- A Reason for Handwriting
- All About Reading Level 1 (read my review here)
- Rod and Staff Workbooks
- Kumon Mazes
You can find this “Formidable List of Attainments” form on this page.
I think I have everything just about ready for the first day of school. I have school supplies, spiral notebooks for each child’s daily assignments,
back to school interview forms, and my yearly chalkboard grade printouts for our first day of school photos. I put these in a frame and take a photo of each child on the first day of school. The ones we did last year turned out so cute!
From the very beginning, Deuteronomy 6:6-7 has been at the heart of the mission statement for our homeschool. It’s the “why” behind all that we do.
“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
I received this little card from Clementine Pattern Co. when I placed an order. One side of the card has this beautiful Scripture artwork done by Breezy Brookshire. I just love it!
I decided to frame mine, since I had an empty 5 X 7 frame available. It required a bit of trimming, and it doesn’t fit absolutely perfectly…
But I thought it would be a nice reminder of our goals and mission as we enter yet another homeschool year. (We’ve been homeschooling from the beginning, so does that mean it’s been 16 years now?! Or, if you count when we actually began preschool, I guess it would be 13 years.)
You can get the full-size “meant-to-be-framed” print of this verse here in Breezy’s shop (I love all of her artwork!).
So, I think we’re ready for a new school year. Lord willing, we’re planning to begin next week. We still have some summer activities we’re looking forward to, but I wanted to go ahead and get a head start since it’s so hot outside anyway.
Disclosure: This post contains my affiliate links. Your support means so much to our family–thank you!
I love your blog! I am actually taking some of your curriculum ideas and using them for my children lords will for the 2016-17 school year. I wanted to know with the Abeka My America My world did you purchase the teacher edition or were you able to teach without it? Thanks in advance. Bless you!!!!
Thank you! I didn't get the teacher edition, I just bought the student book (used, from homeschool classifieds) and we just read it together. Blessings to you!
I loved this post! I was homeschooled all growing up, and we always called group time Together Time, too! I love that name much more than Circle Time…in fact, I had no idea what Circle Time was at first, until I realized that it was just Together Time by a different name! We're now homeschooling our kids, and I'm going to try the same planner that you're now using. Enjoy the school year!
Thank you, Julie! Yes, I like the name "Together Time" better than "Circle Time," too. 🙂 It's encouraging to hear from 2nd generation homeschoolers! I hope you enjoy the planner as much as I'm enjoying mine. 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing all the books you are using- I have just put several of them on my Amazon wish list!
You're welcome! I always have a full Amazon wish list. 🙂
Your year looks delightful! I've never figured out how to have a very successful morning time with toddlers underfoot, but you have me inspired to give it another try! That book of poetry is beautiful, I love Tasha Tudor. I may need to invest in that one. Thank you for sharing your plans!
Thank you, Becky! I know, it is a lot harder to have that morning time with toddlers. I've always heard if you give the littlest ones your undivided attention first that it goes better. I always tried to make sure they had playdough or something that would hold their attention while I worked with the older children. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. 🙂 Give yourself grace, and enjoy your little ones–I miss having them around!
Hi, Joy! I have a little one I will be homeschooling for preschool, and I was just curious what are some of your favorite things you've used in the past? Thanks!
Hi Sara! Well, a lot depends upon the age of your child. I think my absolute favorite thing for preschool has been Before Five in a Row. I did a few posts on that when we were using it: http://www.artfulhomemaking.com/2013/07/planning-for-before-five-in-row.html
Mostly we just enjoyed reading together and doing crafts/cooking projects related to what we were reading. And hands-on math activities are fun, too. I also used the Rod and Staff preschool workbooks and some Kumon workbooks.
Also, I was always inspired by this free curriculum, and I used parts of it when my older three were little: http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/pre-kindergarten.html
Hope that's helpful!