homeschool year 2011-2012

I can't believe we will be embarking on our 3rd year of homeschooling. Looking back I see how our first year was sort of a "trial run" as I got familiar with where the kids were at academically and tried to learn what learning styles best suited them. It was also a time to see the areas that challenged them and the areas that they excelled in. It was a year for them to fall in love with learning again and for me, a year to learn how to be both mom and teacher among other various hats I wear. I would say our first year was a great transition into becoming a homeschool family and confirmed that it was exactly what we needed to be doing.

Before I knew it we were already into our second year of homeschooling. Last year was probably one of the most challenging years as we tackled Camden's dyslexia head on through many therapies and specific teachings plans, thanks to Dianne Craft who taught me how to teach Camden. Our year was successful on so many levels, not only did Camden gain two years in reading (insert a Praise The Lord right here) but more importantly he gained confidence and felt smart for the first time in his 10 years of life. Through all that blood, sweat, and tears both Camden and I put it, it was worth every bad day and all the tears on both our ends (and there were many) to finally hear Camden say the words, "mommy, I really am a smart boy." Those 7 words made it all worth it!

And here we are ready to start our third year of homeschool in about two weeks. I'm really excited for this school year. What I've found with homeschooling is that each year looks a little different than the year before. And this year is shaping up quite nicely. Here's a little peak into our year ahead.

Jadon- he will be entering 6th grade, our last year before he is officially a jr. higher. He is really excited about the year ahead, and so am I. He will be homeschooled Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. On Wednesdays he will be attending a class taught by an amazing teacher who Jadon really enjoys learning from. She teaches a history based class that also involves reading, composition, language arts, geography, debate and current events. He took it last year and really enjoyed it. This year will be a study about American History. I love the book selections she has chosen and I know he will learn a lot. On Thursdays he will be attending a science with labs/math class taught by the son of the history teacher. He is a science major at ASU and is waiting to get into medical school. Jadon is really excited about this class too. I'm excited about it because an hour of that class will be spent doing math work and Mr. Jared will be able to tutor the kids on the math work they bring in. This will be very helpful for me. Jadon's core curriculum will come from these two classes and during his homeschool time, the majority will be spent on homework for these classes. I will also have him do Spelling, Bible, and Math in addition to the class homework. I love the freedom to cater his education and not have to be locked into a particular system.

Camden- I will continue to implement therapies similar to last year to help Camden overcome his dyslexia. If we have the same success as last year, Camden will be reading one year ahead of where he needs to be by the end of this year. He is entering 4th grade. We will be focusing more on writing and composition this year, he will learn cursive and also learn how to be a fluent typer. I'm really excited about starting a history study with him, I bought a really neat resource book at the convention this year and I know it will be something Camden looks forward to. We will continue to drill away at math and enter the world of division. I have some fun things that will hopefully help in this area:

I have a lot of other fun things planned with him too! Camden will not be attending Eagle Ridge this year so he will be homeschooled Monday through Friday. We may do a co-op study with another homeschool family which I'm sure will be a highlight of Camden's week. We may use this book for that (which would also involve getting the dad's involved):

I love all the options. I'm also looking forward to having some alone time with Camden when both Anna  and Jadon are at their classes.

Annagrace- I can't believe she will be a first grader! Her year will look quite different this school year. She will be attending Eagle Ridge twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She loved going one day a week last week so we decided to let her go twice a week. After homeschooling last year, I learned that Anna is very self motivated and breezes through her curriculum. She is very independent and requires very little help. So I changed her curriculum to one that is self driven. It came in the mail yesterday and she is so excited to get started! She will be doing Alpha and Omega's lifepacs. She will do their language arts, science, and history/geography units. I know she will work hard on them Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Another thing I am excited about is our family Bible time. Instead of doing our family devotions in the morning, we will be doing them at dinner time. With Michael leaving the house so early in the morning on the days he works, we decided it would work quite nicely to do our Bible study time at dinner. I'm so excited about the material we will be using. Our year will be focused on creation and the first 11 chapters of Genesis. We will be reading through these books:

We already started reading through the one titled The Answer Book for Kids, volume 1. (there are 4 volumes). The kids already ask at dinner when we get to read the book. They don't even realize they are learning. The questions proposed in the book are awesome and the responses are well thought out and explanatory. I'm loving it! I can't wait to get into the other books too. I look forward to some great dinner conversations over this next year. Hopefully this will be a great base for teaching them about creation so that they can have a strong backbone when they encounter teachings from an evolutionary standpoint. Not only do I hope it will give them a backbone, but hopefully some well thought out responses when they encounter this as well.

So that's just the surface of what we will be learning this year. I'm really excited to get started! I feel so much calmer this year and not nearly as stressed as I have in years passed. Maybe this homeschooling thing gets a little easier over time. Now if I could just figure out how to keep my bathrooms clean and kitchen floor mopped, pantry stocked, and dinner on the table by 6 p.m., I'd be in good shape. :) It's all about priorities, and for this time in our life educating our kids is at the top.