Tag: home education

2024-2025 Homeschool Curriculum Picks

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

Here we go again! We are back in the homeschool swing and of course, we changed up a few things again. I wrote a post recently about how we were going to continue to use Acellus Academy for homeschooling, but about 4 days before our school year started I changed my mind. I changed my mind for a few different reasons, the main one being I didn’t like the idea of my kids going to their rooms and sitting on their computers for a few hours and that was the school day. We homeschool so we can do this together, not sit in front of a screen and barely interact. Acellus Academy was what I needed last year. The year was hard and there were a few extended family issues early in the year that were overwhelming, and then we moved. So, for that, I am so thankful I had that option, but I decided not to continue down that road. There were a few other considerations with the curriculum itself mainly because I was not sure how good overall the program was. Most of the programs seemed to work just fine, but we did not care for the writing portion. I had also started looking for Math options that would work better for my daughter, who struggles in math, and that led to me going a whole different route this year. Lastly, I knew that some of the curricula we had chosen and used in the past were great and I wanted to get back to those. I have state-tested my kids twice and they were pretty far ahead in most subjects. Their language skills were always top percentile, so if nothing else I know for a fact what we do for Language Arts is working. All of that together helped me choose this year’s curriculum.

(2024-2025 will be our ninth year of homeschooling and I will have an 8th grader and a 6th grader)

Homeschool Planner

I have not always been great at using my yearly planner. I have homeschooled in three different states and none of them have required that I keep records on hand. I usually keep a homeschool planner for myself, but since it’s not mandated I tend to get a little loose with that planner halfway through the year. I don’t really need it, since we typically have a curriculum where you simply do the next lesson, but I do like to have one. I have tried numerous versions of pen and paper planners over the years, but my favorite has surprisingly been an online planner. So, this year I went ahead and signed back up for the Well Planned Gal’s online homeschool planner. The Well Planned Gal has a great paper and pen planner if that is what you enjoy, but for me, it was too much stuff. I like a plain planner. The online version has a free 30-day trial of the full planner, and if you don’t want that it has a limited free version. I know I like it so I went ahead and signed up for the year subscription. My favorite thing is that I can enter all the lessons/Assignments for the week or month and then print out weekly plans for my kids. I can also print out weekly sheets that tell us everything we did and then put those in a records binder. This is what I did two years ago to make my own records. I will warn you that there is a bit of a learning curve to learn how to assign things well, but it’s worth it. You can also track grades in the program, meal plans, chore charts, and attendance. In fact, it tracks attendance for you as long as you are going in and checking off the daily assignments. For me, this has been the best and most used planner I have tried.

Online Planner- https://shop.wellplannedgal.com/index.php/shop/well-planned-day-online.html

Language Arts

Language Arts was a pretty easy call. As I mentioned my kids have scored high on their language skills so I trust the programs that we have used for years. First and foremost we will be going back to IEW. We used both their Structure and Style and their Fix-it-Grammer programs. Structure and Style is the one thing my kids were not excited about bringing back as the weekly assignments can take a bit of time, but the program is fantastic and we are keeping it. Fix-it-Grammar is also something I have been impressed with for years. They are better at grammar than most adults I know and it doesn’t take very long each day. It’s a simple but very effective program. To round out the Language Arts curriculum we will continue using Wordly Wise for vocabulary, and Spelling Power for spelling. I will be putting an emphasis on read-alouds this year as that was something we let go of for a time last school year, and they, of course, have their own daily individual reading.

IEW- https://iew.com

Wordly Wise- https://www.rainbowresource.com/wordly-wise-3000-all-editions

Spelling Power- https://www.rainbowresource.com/002784.html

Math

Math has been a bit of a tough spot for us for a few years. For most of our homeschool time, we have used Math-U-See. It works great, I have nothing bad to say, but my daughter in particular struggles with math. Some of it is that she hates Math and therefore doesn’t try hard, but some of it is that she needs it explained in different ways. Because it’s difficult for her I have also tried a few online programs. We used Teaching Textbooks, CTC Math, and then Acellus Math. They all work about the same. My son doesn’t struggle with math as much, but he also hasn’t been thrilled with a math program yet. I happened to watch a YouTube video about a week ago talking about Dension Algebra and it sounded wonderful so I ordered it. The thing that really caught my attention is that there is a solutions binder as well as a video for each and every problem he will have. One of his biggest complaints last year was that he would be taught a concept and then have problems that didn’t necessarily line up exactly with that concept. Math is not my strong suit and there were a few times that even I couldn’t help him after watching the instruction video. So, if he gets stuck at all this year there will be a step-by-step how-to for that problem. I also prefer paper and pencil math. He would try to do the online problems in his head instead of using scratch paper and sometimes that would cause him to get a problem wrong that he shouldn’t have. Dension Algebra has instruction videos for each lesson and then solution videos for each problem. This I think is the best compromise for math. It’s still being taught by a math teacher, someone who really understands the concepts, but he has to work the problems out on paper, and if he gets stuck there are numerous help options available to us both. Denison Algebra however only starts at Pre-Algrebra or around eighth grade. Therefore, we cannot do Denison Algebra with my daughter. For her, I decided that we should try something a little different. I have always had them in the same math program but at different levels and I realized that homeschooling is about finding what works for each child. She obviously needs something different. After looking around we decided to try Math Mammoth and if needed/wanted we will add Beast Academy. I have often put a lot of pressure on myself as a homeschool mom, that my kids have to be above average in every single subject. Now, I am starting to look at this like not every child excels in every subject and we do our best to get those children where they need to be. I graduated from public school and barely passed math. I can’t get frustrated with my very artistic child when she doesn’t naturally take to math. My goal for her now is to take it slow, make sure she understands the concepts before moving on, and get her through math.

Denison Algebra- https://www.denisonalgebra.com

Math Mammoth- https://www.mathmammoth.com

Beast Academy- https://beastacademy.com/

Science/History

I am still struggling with both these subjects. I know what I want to do, but I have not found the curriculum. For science, I want to split my kids this year. We have always had them in the same science as a group subject, but they have such different interests and I want my son to be able to get his work done without waiting on his sister. If you haven’t guessed by now I have one child who buckles down and gets his work done, and one who can’t sit still. My son is very science-brained while my daughter is very much an artistic brain. It makes doing everything together a bit of a challenge especially as they get older.

For my son, I am looking for a space-related science program. Even some sort of astronomy unit study. The problem I am facing is that there isn’t really anything geared toward his age/understanding. There are tons of space units for younger children or ones that have basic space facts. He knows more about space than I could ever hope to. We have taken him and let him talk to scientists and they are always amazed at his understanding of space and what he talks about. So, I need something more challenging but also I don’t know that he is ready for something like a high school level course. He also wants to know things about black holes, or other topics that there simply isn’t as much information on as the planets for example. I did order him a few textbook-type books from BookOutlet and I may have him read those and report back to me. I think this is very much going to be a piece-and-go year for us and science. I will have him watch any documentary I can find, use NASA’s, and anything else that comes our way. I am still hopeful that I will find a good program for him soon, but he will learn either way.

For my daughter, she is very into animals, so I am looking for a Biology unit for her. She doesn’t want to do human biology, only animal biology. Again, the problem we face is that we have studied biology and she knows quite a bit. I would love to find something that dives a little deeper into things. For her, I am leaning more toward unit studies so she can study a topic in-depth and then move on to a new one. I will find something this week and print it off for next week. I am not too worried about timing since we take the first couple of weeks pretty slowly anyway.

For History, I am planning on studying American History as a group subject. I am splitting them for science but I think History is still something we can do together. I had a plan to use these great American History books we’ve had for years, but I can’t find them. We moved and I thought they moved with us, but I have no idea where they ended up. It was actually stuff we got from BookShark years ago that we haven’t used yet. If I can’t find them soon I will have to find another avenue to go down. I have looked into programs like the Tuttle Twins, Notgrass History, and what we have used in the past Story of the World but I am not sure what direction we will take yet. Again this is a subject that I wasn’t planning on adding until week two or three so I have a bit of time. We also have been homeschooling for quite a while, so we have all kinds of books and encyclopedias to get us started while we wait.

Reading

I always have a giant list of books I want everyone to read in my head. Don’t all homeschool moms? Last year I more or less let them pick the books they wanted to read and then asked them to read 20-30 mins a day. This ended up not being enough. My daughter also started a ton of books but didn’t finish very many. With everything that happened last year personally, It wasn’t something I really fought. This year however we are going to fix that. I plan on assigning them one book a month and then letting them pick one. For our first set of books I simply took the number of pages, decided if I wanted them to take one or two weeks to read it, divided the pages by the days I wanted it done in, and then assigned them the reading. I haven’t made the list for our entire year but I have quite a few picked out……….

Read Aloud– Howl’s Moving Castle, Wild Robot Series, The Girl Who Drank the Moon, The War that Saved My Life, The Trumpet of the Swan, and a few more yet to be decided.

Son– Glitch, Artemis Fowl, Green Ember, FableHaven, Northwind, Stowaway, Last Day on Mars, and others

Daughter– Stuart Little, Sweet Home Alaska, Caddie Woodlawn, The Penderwicks, Princess Academy, Aggie Morton, and others

I like to leave room to change my mind as I find new books all the time, but also have a plan for quite a few required readings for the year. There are always so many amazing books out there that it’s hard to choose a few for the school year.

Final Thoughts

As always I am very hopeful that the choices we made for the year are good ones. Other than that I know that our attitudes will be the make-or-break aspect of our entire year. I am trying to let go of the pressure to be perfect and instead enjoy this time that I have been given.

Homeschool Planning: It’s that time of year again

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

As the summer heat increases and the garden starts to grow, it’s time to move on to the next challenge of the year, planning the homeschool year. I feel like our summer break has flown by and we didn’t do any sort of school this summer at all. We didn’t even manage to get any reading done. The farm has kept us busy enough each day. However, at the beginning of the month all that will change. Due to the schedule we would like to keep we will be starting school in about two weeks. That doesn’t give me a whole lot of time to prepare, but after seven years of doing this, I don’t need a ton of time to plan. We also made some changes last year that are going to make this school pretty easy for me to get laid out.

Curriculum Options

Last year, mid-school year, we made a big change to what we were doing. My daughter was fighting me every day on Math and we could not get past it and get all of our other school work done. It really was beginning to throw our entire school year off. Not only for her, but also for my son since we do group subjects, and I was stuck trying to get her to finish her math. I was exhausted, mostly mentally, and I knew we couldn’t keep doing things the same way anymore. So, we made a big change. We switched fully to an online school option. In December of last year, we switched to Acellus Academy and its online homeschool program.

For our family and where we were last year Acellus worked very well for us with one major issue. You can start Acellus at any time during the year, but it will start you back at the beginning of the school year regardless of how far along you are. I didn’t love this, but I also knew it wouldn’t hurt my daughter to go back and get refreshed on some of her math skills. With Acellus my kids were able to do most of their school by themselves and finish within a couple of hours each day. It was significantly less frustrating than what we were doing previously. However, since they had to start over again we did not fully finish the school year, but came close. I haven’t checked because our account is currently paused, but I am assuming Acellus will have us finish up that school year before we move on to the next. This is fine with me and we should be able to get caught up without too much extra time during the school day.

As of right now, I do plan to continue with Acellus for the time being. I have looked into other programs such as Shoreman Math and other online math/science options, but for now, Acellus is what we will use. We were a little disappointed in the writing curriculum last year, so we will be adding IEW back in as a supplement and for a handwriting option, but that’s about it. As always the plan could change at any moment but this is our current plan.

They will also be required to read each day on top of the Acellus reading, and I would love to be able to fit read-aloud back in. That was also something that sort of got dropped last year. With Acellus the kids would get up, eat breakfast, and start school. It ended up taking away from our read-aloud time, but I am going to concentrate on getting that brought back into our day somewhere. Maybe during lunch break, or in the evening but it is something that I believe in and will be getting it going again. I am currently working on my list of books I would like to assign to each kid and add to our read-aloud list. The hardest part is there are so many great books and I can’t choose them all.

Final Thoughts

Sometimes what you picture and how things actually work out are not the same. I have always pictured a relaxed homeschool day where the kids and I hang out and learn together. We have managed to do that pretty well for the most part, but last year did not go that way. When this happens we have to adjust. Acellus has some pros, but it also has cons. Just like anything we do, no one thing is perfect, but more what you make it. Did I feel like a failure? Yes! I still sometimes catch myself comparing our homeschool to what we see online. I wasn’t that homeschool mom who was baking with their kids every day, doing endless science projects, and taking them on a million field trips. I was struggling to make it through the day. So, we let go of what we thought the year was going to look like and moved forward with what needed to happen right then. Guess what? My kids still learned. In fact, they probably learned more since Acellus allowed them to get to all their subjects every day. My daughter still hates math and struggles with it, but she loved her teacher and likes the ability to see exactly what she needs to get done. It worked when I needed something to work. Don’t be afraid to let go of your perfect ideal plans and move forward with what you need. I have high hopes this upcoming school year will be better, as each year I learn more about what they need and what I can give them. Homeschooling is hard, but it’s even harder when your curriculum isn’t working for you. Make the change and choose the pace. It’s worth it.

Kindle E-Reader

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

I know, I know! As homeschool moms and book readers, we prefer physical books that we can have on shelves all over the house. Books everywhere! I was the same way. My home library was quite large, and I was proud of all the amazing books I had available for my kids to read. However, we’ve recently made a change that we love and I think it might be worth considering in your own home.

We have switched over to mostly Kindle reading or e-books. I have had a Kindle for years and have switched back and forth between it and physical books many times. Currently, it has become my go-to for one very specific reason. I can adjust the text size on my Kindle. I have had glasses since 9th grade and as I’ve gotten older I have been told I need readers. My eyes are pretty sensitive and I have found myself straining, even with readers, to read the tiny words that some books have. My Kindle has helped this problem so much. It’s super simple to adjust the text size all you do is pinch and move your fingers like you’re zooming in on your phone. My kids tease me about how large my font is, but my eyes are sure thanking me. I also really just enjoy reading on the Kindle. Somehow it makes it feel like the books go faster and I have read so many more books in the past two months than I did the whole previous year because I finally picked my Kindle back up. The Kindle also has a backlight on it and I’ve been getting a good chunk of my reading done at night comfy in bed. I love it and I have now switched my children to a Kindle as well.

Kindle Kids

Back in October when Amazon had its most recent Prime Day I picked up a Kindle kids for my kids to share. When on sale, the Kindle kids is a great option. The Kindle comes with a case and a full year of Kindle kids, which is basically Kindle Unlimited but for children’s books. Both series that we were reading were available on that subscription for free. It has been wonderful. They can take the Kindle in the car, to sports practice, in the bath, to bed, basically anywhere, and read. I have seen them read so much more than when they had to carry a physical book around. Not to mention the ease with which we can get a book. For example, my oldest is currently reading through the Harry Potter series. We own two different copies of this series. One of them is older and the cover was starting to fall apart as he read it, the other is the large illustrated version, which isn’t very easy to carry around and read. We tried borrowing a copy from the library and that also was old and falling apart. So, the Kindle came in, and we downloaded his book, and he was able to read it without worrying about his book falling apart. As soon as he has finished a book the next is readily available to download and read. My younger child was also able to get the Warriors series which our closest library didn’t have in stock and has started reading that. As of now, I have no complaints, except that the kids have only one Kindle to share. So, for Christmas, I bought another and now they will each have one. On top of the kid’s Kindle I also grabbed myself a new one for Christmas. It doesn’t come with a cover or a subscription like the kids ones, but my old Kindle was going on about 8 years old and had a few cracks in the screen. I forced myself to put it under the tree but I can’t wait to open it up and use it.

Decluttering

Another benefit of the Kindle, and the reason I started thinking about them in the first place, is my ability to clear out the house a little. As I mentioned earlier we had quite a large amount of books in our home. I love books and I loved having them on the shelves, but in reality, they were taking up a lot of space. We had books that I bought years ago because I found a good deal and I was really hoping to get to, but they were still sitting on the shelf unread. So, I cleared out a ton of our books. In fact, I did this while I went through a rather large decluttering of the whole house. I kept the books we have read and loved and a few others that I felt were worthy of keeping, but I got rid of probably 80 percent of our physical books. If it gets to a point where I want to read some of the ones we decluttered we have the library or our Kindle subscriptions. Im really happy with the switch we made and the kids seem to love it as well.

Where to get books

If you switch to a Kindle you do not have to buy e-books or a Kindle subscription. If you have a library card you can borrow e-books from the library for free. My library links directly to Amazon and sends them straight to my Kindle. There is also the Libby app, which I don’t have so I can’t say a lot about it, but I’ve heard from tons of people that it’s great. I have recently bought myself a Kindle Unlimited subscription because it went on sale and has quite a few of the books I like to read, but be aware Kindle Unlimited doesn’t always have the most popular books. There is also a website called BookBub that you can tell your preferences to and you get daily emails with deals on e-books from your favorite categories. Most of those are around $2-$3. It’s not quite as fun as getting a box of books in the mail but you can get the book you are waiting on much faster and often times cheaper. I’m sure there are many other options but those are the ones I use.

Lastly, you can get audiobooks on your Kindle. You can listen via Bluetooth from your Kindle, no wired headphones, which I don’t love, but it is an option. The Kindle kids subscription has a few available with it, not really popular ones, but still an option. I will probably keep up with our audible since that’s where the books we want are, but it is another benefit of the Kindle.

Homeschool Classrooms

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

Do you need a separate homeschool space to be a successful homeschooler? I have often been guilty of scrolling Instagram or YouTube and getting caught up in the beautiful homeschool spaces. When things get difficult and I’m struggling I tell myself that if only I could have a homeschool classroom it would make everything so much easier. It would to an extent. It would help corral all the school supplies in one room for example. I also think being able to shut the door would keep distractions like the dogs away. However, having a separate space is not even close to being essential to homeschooling well.

Currently, we are homeschooling from our third home since we started, and I have had a different set-up in each house. Most of the time we have used our dining room and table as our homeschool space. Once, I did have an actual homeschool room (still open to the living area) with a desk for the kids and a chalkboard. However, none of these different set-ups have made a bit of difference in our actual ability to do school. In fact, regardless of our set-up we almost always end up schooling from the couch and the kitchen table.

So, what do you actually need to homeschool well? The answer is pretty simple, it’s a parent who is willing to put in the effort. That’s it. There is no need for fancy classrooms, expensive curriculum, or any of the other things you see when you scroll Instagram. All the things that look good in pictures are completely unnecessary for actual schooling. You as the parent will make or break homeschooling all by yourself. Having a separate and beautiful space might be something that brings you joy, but it does not make you a better homeschooler. The attitude of the homeschooling parent is the key to a happy and well-run homeschool. Our entire house and what happens inside of it is all a result of our attitudes and commitments. Are you committed to educating your children? That is the biggest piece of the puzzle. You will make more of an impact than having the perfect home, classroom, curriculum, or anything else we think we need to be successful in educating our children.

Don’t let social media put unnecessary pressure on you or make you think you are less than because you don’t fit a certain aesthetic. The only thing your kids need in their homeschool is you and your willing attitude. A committed homeschool parent with a library card can do a better job than a parent with the best curriculum that isn’t fully engaged. Trust in yourself, you can do it!

Socialization

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The hot-button topic! This is one of the biggest debated aspects of homeschooling. I encourage you today to not worry about it so much. The fact is that homeschooled kids can be, and mostly are just as socialized as their public school peers. In fact, I just dropped my kids off to go hang out with their friends for the afternoon. My two homeschooled children are currently at their friend’s house having a blast.

There are numerous options when it comes to homeschooling and getting your kids introduced to other children. We have homeschooled in three very different states now, and at every one there have been co-ops, homeschool groups, and all kinds of meet-ups for our children to attend. Especially in the younger years finding a group of moms to hang out with is really very easy. If you are looking for local groups facebook is always a great place to start. Here where we are, there are at least three different groups, tons of co-ops, and other speciality groups. Each one of them has a facebook page that will help you get connected.

As my kids have gotten older finding people that we all click with has gotten to be a bit more complicated. This is usually due to lots of younger homeschoolers and not as many older ones. Sometimes, one kid connects but the other one doesn’t. This doesn’t stop anything though because we have found other options that work for us. My kids and I train jiu-jitsu. One of my best friends from the gym is also a homeschool mom. I have found over the last little while that there are multiple homeschool families in our gym and have connected with a few of them. We have park meet-ups, library days, and our kids train together multiple times a week. Finding families with the same interests as you is always a good place to start. On top of that, my daughter is on a swim team. She makes friends wherever she goes. Her best friends however live right down the street. They go to a private school here in town, so we don’t school the same, but as soon as time allows they are here or she is there. My son has a friend who lives one street behind us and another on our road.

Of course, there were times when my kids struggled with friends. Especially after this last move. It takes a while to settle into a new place and get to know people. The kids in the neighborhood weren’t outside much because we moved right before winter. But, life usually works out and once the weather was nice again they made friends in the neighborhood. Over time they got to know their training partners and become friends there. Now, my kids definitely do not suffer from a lack of friends to hang out with. In fact, often times we struggle with having too many options. Between all the local groups there is an option to do something almost every day. We have to pick and choose because at some point we actually do need to get school done.

If worry over socialization is holding you back from homeschooling your kids, I hope this encourages you to do it anyway. It is 100% possible to make mom friends while homeschooling, and to make friends for your kids. Sometimes it takes a little bit of extra effort, but it is worth it and it is possible. Your homeschooled kids can have best friends, sleepovers, and every other normal thing that kids experience. Also, homeschooling is gaining popularity every year. This means more and more options and opportunities for your kids. They will not be missing out because they are homeschooled.

Not How It Was Supposed To Go

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Our first broken bone

Every year I have high hopes for how the school year will start. This year was no different, but of course, things didn’t exactly go to plan. On the Wednesday before school started, we met our homeschool friends at the park for a hang-out day. Everything was going great, the kids were playing, I was talking to my mom friends, and then my son came running up to me holding his arm. He had been on one of those climbing nets and tried to jump down. Unfortunately, his foot caught when he jumped and he fell face-first to the ground and caught himself with his hands. He was in a lot of pain and couldn’t rotate his arm, so we loaded up in the car and headed to the closest Urgent Care. His x-ray confirmed what I already knew, his arm was broken. He had a buckle fracture to be more specific. This was the first broken bone for either of our kids. Luckily he only has to wear a wrist brace and his pain was handled very well with Tylenol and Advil for the first couple of days. Overall he did really well. As soon as he had that hard wrist brace on and his arm was supported the pain was easier to handle. He was able to sleep the first night, which was a concern, and with a little caution, he was able to go back to doing almost everything he normally does. I think he was pretty bummed that it didn’t get him out of school but by the time Monday rolled around he was pretty much back to normal.

Mom’s sick

Our first week of school went pretty well, even though we did end up having a few commitments in the middle of the day. I was pretty pleased with how the kids handled the start of school even though everyone else is still on summer break. It didn’t really change much about their schedule other than going to bed earlier. Our school days, especially the first couple of weeks, are not very long. All things considered the first week was a success. The second week of school is where we went off track again. I woke up Wednesday with a sore throat and went downhill from there. Luckily we take Fridays off now, so Wednesday and Thursday were the only days affected. However, on those two days, they did very little because it hurt to talk. I had a goal this year to make sure we did our read aloud every day, but my throat hurt too bad to get it done this week. Our other subjects like history and science, where I read to the kids, also got put on hold this week. I may have been the only one upset about that! It’s Saturday now and I still feel terrible but I am hopeful it will be better by Monday. This upcoming week will be week #3 and ideally will be more of what our full school day actually looks like. I would really like to be 100% for that. School days are much smoother when mom is healthy.

Life Happens

Sometimes I get really frustrated with the interruptions to our school day and year, but life happens in the middle of homeschooling. As a homeschool mom, I don’t have a substitute I can pull in when I’m sick, or a building to send my kids to so I have the day to get things done. Homeschooling happens right alongside life. Sometimes that’s hard, but mostly it’s wonderful. I never want to forget that what I get to do is a privilege. Not everyone wants to homeschool, but there are some who want to and can’t. We work hard to make this a reality, but I still want to remember I am very lucky to be able to do this. That doesn’t mean homeschooling is always easy. Things sometimes don’t go smoothly or the way we wanted them to and that’s ok. Life doesn’t always go the way we want it to so why would anything else. Despite all this, I am so very happy to have another year to watch my kids grow and learn. Homeschooling allows me to do life right beside them and I wouldn’t change anything about that.

Year Round Schooling?

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It’s that time of year again. Planning for the upcoming school year is in full swing. I’ve been looking into curriculum for weeks now, but the task at hand is deciding on our schedule for the year. One of the big benefits of homeschooling is you can really make your schedule be whatever you need it to be. In years past I’ve tried the six weeks on and one week off schedule, but that hasn’t really worked for us. We inevitably get off schedule for one reason or another, and end up having to take no breaks in order to finish the school year at a decent time. I don’t like the idea of following the school system schedule either. This has never really appealed to me. I typically like to start sooner than the schools do and finish sooner than the schools do. So this year I am playing around with a few different ideas.

Required number of days

First, let’s talk about what is needed for a school year. I know each state has their own guidelines, some like you to hit a certain amount of hours, but most I have seen recommend 180 days. That is a typical length for an academic year. If you break that down the way the public school system does it equals 36 weeks, or four 9-week semesters. That really makes it easy to plan your year. Breaking down the work to be done for the year becomes pretty simple when you can see the chunks that you have to work with. It also gives you a good idea of where to stop and sort of evaluate everything to see how it’s going. I usually like to do that each semester, and if I miss that mile marker at least at the halfway point. Whatever schedule I use I have that 180-day requirement in the back of my mind. Then I look at a calendar and figure out when I would like to finish and count backward from there. This also includes time off that I would like to take and holiday breaks. We like to finish in mid-May, plus have plenty of breaks, so I typically start school much sooner than the public school system does. This is where I am stuck currently. I have a few ideas playing around in my head and I can’t quite pick which one I want to follow.

(School year calendar https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/2023-2024-School-Year-Calendar-9745675)

Four-day school week?

The idea that I am thinking about this school year is a four-day school week. Monday through Thursday with every Friday off. A couple of programs, including BookShark have schedules for a four-day week. Most of those however still consider Friday a school day, but use it as a make-up day or a “fun Friday”. Meaning you do your co-op, field trips, or fun subjects like art on Friday. We have used that schedule in the past, especially when we used BookShark curriculum, but for me, fun Fridays always ended up being nothing Fridays. I would start the school year off strong but over time we ended up needing the break and sort of let Fridays slip. So, the idea that I am playing with for this year is actually taking every Friday off completely. We wouldn’t use it as anything other than a rest day. Obviously, if we needed to use it as a make-up day we could, or take a field trip, but mostly it would just be a down day. A day during the week to sort of re-group, run errands, put the house back together, or get done anything else that we need for the week. The problem with doing this type of schedule is figuring out how to make it work best. I still need to get those 180 days of school done. In my mind, I have two options to make this work. First, is to make our school days longer. If you get five days of work done, in four days, you have to do more work each day. I don’t love this idea, because who really wants to school longer each day. Our school days are typically done by 2pm and I really like that. I don’t know how well my kids would handle adding another hour or two of school each day. I know that sounds like an early school day if you are used to public school, but homeschooling gets more done in less hours because we don’t have to switch classes, or wait on other people. So, having them school longer would actually be asking quite a bit more of them school work wise. In theory, it would be ok since they would be getting a full week-day off, but I don’t love this option. Where I am leaning is schooling for 45 weeks instead of 36. 180 days divided by 4 means 45 weeks of school. This is quite a bit longer of a school year, and would essentially put us in a year-round school schedule. I like the idea of this, so does my son, but that would mean we have to start school in the next couple of weeks. No-one likes that idea. However, being done by 2pm means they wouldn’t miss much of the summer anyway. There would still be plenty of time to hang out with friends and play outside. If we do decide on this schedule I really need to get in gear with curriculum ordering. We have enough on hand to start the school year and be fine, but I do have a few things I need to order. Typically the media shipping that curriculum uses takes a while to arrive, so I need to get that done now. Either way, whatever we decide, the school year is a lot closer than I am ready for. Like the kids, I also enjoy summer break. It gives my brain time to relax and get re-motivated for the task ahead. That’s where we are at right now. Still enjoying our time off, but getting ready for what’s ahead, whichever schedule we choose.

Required Reading 2023-2024

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

Books are the most important thing in our homeschool. For me raising kids who read well, and love to read, has always been a top priority. I am a firm believer that if you can read, you can learn. Sadly statistics show that most people do not pick up a book again after high school. There are many many adults out there who chose to never read again. This is heartbreaking to me because I LOVE a good book. I have learned so much as an adult from the books I read. When I wanted to homeschool the kids, I read books for homeschoolers. I’ve read parenting books, gardening books, marriage books, all kinds of non-fiction books, and of course fiction. There is so much to learn and reading has helped me get there. This is something I want to instill in my children. Because of this, I try really hard every year to make sure we have really good books on hand. If I know my kids have an interest in a topic, I will spend hours researching books for them that include that topic. I am not always successful, but over the years we have read quite a few books that we still talk about today. Those books will stay with us for a long time, hopefully forever. With that in mind, I have started picking out our required reading for next year. I like to give them a few books that I want them to read over the school year, and then leave room for interest lead reading. I went to my bookshelf this morning and pulled four books each for my kids, as well as four for our read alouds. We will finish quite a few more than that, and I may add more as assigned reading, but this felt like a good place to start.

School Year Read Alouds

There are a few books that I have been wanting to get to for a couple of years and we just haven’t been able to get them read. The problem with great books is there are tons of them and you can’t read them all. So, this year I have added The War that Saved My Life and Esperonza Rising to our required reading lists. I have heard about both these books for the past few years and it’s time we make room for them. Every review I have seen about either of these books has been incredibly positive and they seem to come highly recommended. Thirst and Hello Universe are newer ones to me. I have recently seen both recommended on Booktube videos. Again, they got really great reviews. I have a ton of other books in mind for read alouds, but these four are going to be made a priority for our upcoming school year.

Esperanza Rising https://a.co/d/0goi7tm

The War that Saved My Life . https://a.co/d/caeRQQc

Thirst https://a.co/d/hSHdlFA

Hello Universe https://a.co/d/gniS7uo

7th Grade Required Reading

My son will be going into 7th grade this year. His main interests these days are space and video games. These can be tricky topics to find books on, or at least hard to find good quality books on. I did find a few good ones this past year, but he went through those pretty quickly. I do know he also tends to like things that are more realistic, almost like non-fiction, so I tried to keep that in mind for his choices. I also get suggestions from Read Aloud Revival and their book lists by age and gender. Here are his current four for the upcoming school year.

Edge of Extinction. He tried this once a few years back, but didn’t get into it. I want him to try again. https://a.co/d/dL2t6cL

Gone to the Woods. I read this and it was really good. I think he will enjoy it. https://a.co/d/9wpPyEN

Glitch https://a.co/d/2mSVl2k

The Jupiter Pirates https://a.co/d/49i2fQ2

5th Grade Required Reading

My daugher will be going into 5th grade this year, and she loves books that have animals in them. Last year she read Crenshaw and loved it. One of her other all-time favorites is Mr. Poppers Penguins. I kept that in mind when pulling books for her, but I also chose ones that I want her to read. A few of them are classics that are recommended on every list I have ever seen for children’s literature.

Caddie Woodlawn https://a.co/d/axGDuFk

Song for a Whale https://a.co/d/dk4ZcQS

The Trumpet of the Swan https://a.co/d/aX58sp1

Artermis Fowl (her request) https://a.co/d/0f0NPzy

Sourcing Books

Even though I added Amazon links, I do not tend to buy my books from Amazon. Where we lived previously, we participated in a homeschool program that gave us money each year for supplies, and I used that to fund quite a bit of our homeschool library. A lot of our original books came from our Bookshark curriculum and the others mostly from Barnes and Noble. That program also gave me a card saying I was a homeschool teacher which Barnes and Noble offers a teacher discount for. I no longer have that card, but I have seen that you can make one somehow. I may have to look into that for the future. Currently I order almost all my books from BookOutlet. You can’t always find everything you want, but they do have a really good selection most of the time. I get most of my classic books there, as well as some books that are newer on the recommendation lists. I do have a referal link that will get you $5 off, and me as well, if anyone would like to give them a try. They offer this referral code to everyone with an account. I am not working with them in any way. https://bookoutlet.com/loyalty/referral/N4bee5V5?c=url. Other than that I try and use our local library. I love having a good home library built up, but that can get pretty expensive. The library is a great option to help with that.

Recommendations

There are a few places that I get book recommendations. First is from the lists on Read Aloud Revivlas website https://readaloudrevival.com/recommends/. Sarah Mackenzie is the author of the Read Aloud Handbook and her entire website is dedicated to books. This is a great starting place if you need book options. Second I watch YouTube. My kids are mostly in the middle school years, so the videos about MiddleGrade March are really helpful to me. However, there are homeschool moms who make book videos, book influencers, and all kinds of options. I just find a few people I like and that seem to have similar tastes and values in books, and use those for recommendations. When I see a book recommended in multiple places I tend to try and find that one for our home library.

I hope this helps give you a few ideas for the upcoming school year, and encourages you to read and to get your children reading. It is a game changer for everyone when they find that first book that makes them fall in love with reading.

Science Curriculum

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

Science curriculum seems to be one of the hardest things to choose when it comes to homeschooling. Every page I have ever been part of is full of people looking for a good science curriculum. Maybe it’s because there are so many options for curriculum, but also the tons of options for the kind of science you want to study. Some people swear by nature study, others by unit studies, and some prefer the typical textbook-style learning. I love the idea of nature study, and we have done this to some point just naturally, but for me it isn’t enough for our homeschool. My oldest especially is interested in space, and even more interested in things like black holes. I can’t really teach him that through nature study. He has taught himself quite a bit through youtube videos and what we like to call “smart shows”. I did get to take him this last school year to a talk to a scientist day. He was able to sit and talk to a scientist who fully understood what he was asking and had a conversation with him about all kinds of topics that were a bit over my head. I would love to be able to do that more often, and we will try to get that done, but that also can’t be our main science curriculum. So, once again I am on the hunt for a science curriculum for the upcoming school year. Right now I am looking at Noeo Science https://noeoscience.com/ and Elemental Science https://elementalscience.com/. I have used Elemental Science in the past and didn’t really care for it, but I think that issue has been fixed. One of the main books they were using in previous years was out of print, so I had it on the iPad, and it just didn’t work well at all. With the middle school years all the books look great. My concern with Elemental Science is that it’s a lot of workbooking. I hate anything that feels like busy work. I understand science has a lot of record keeping and you need to know how to fill out a lab report, but I get really nervous when it comes to a lot of note pages and vocabulary forms. Basically when it has a ton of writing. That seems to be the thing that can bog kids down. They don’t mind learning the information but filling out multiple worksheets for every subject gets tedious over time. This was something I wanted to avoid in homeschooling in the first place. There is no real need for busy work in homeschool. We have the time to sit around and chat and really divine into something so there is no need to keep anyone busy. On the other hand, Elemental Science has gotten good reviews in multiple places that I have checked. I even read one page where people said it was better than Noeo in their opinion. So, for now, this is the way I am leaning. We will be getting experiment kits as well, just to add to the whole learning process. Even though I am leaning toward Elemental Science, Noeo is still in the running. Noeo Science has a lot of experiments, which I know my kids will appreciate. It also uses a bunch of books rather than one textbook. I really liked the way it looks online, but I have never been able to see it in person. Both curriculums are on the Cathy Duffy Reviews as recommended options. I don’t think I can really go wrong either way, but I am not sure what’s going to be the better fit for our family. If I am still on the fence I may go with Elemental Science for one simple reason, it’s much more affordable. I just hope whichever one I choose works well for us this upcoming school year.

Summer Break

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

Thank goodness for summer break! I haven’t written in a while because, at the end of the school year, the kids and I were all so burnt out. I was finishing up some college classes, we were finishing up our school year, and we all needed this break desperately. It’s amazing what a little time off can do. I feel excited again for the upcoming school year and truly enjoy the process of researching and planning. Most of what we are doing next year will be the same as this past year but I am looking to make a few changes. I will be researching some new math options for a start. I have decided, my daughter, especially needs a program with more of a hands-off approach for me. We do very well together for every subject except math. I can’t blame her, I always hated math too. So I am in the process of finding something that will work a bit better for us this year. That is something that I love about homeschooling, especially homeschooling now. Every year more and more options become available. It’s almost overwhelming the amount of curriculum choices that are available. However your child learns best there is going to be an option for that. We just have to find it. I’m pretty excited and hopeful that I can find what we need and make this upcoming school year run even smoother than it ever has before.

On the other hand, we are sitting back and enjoying summertime. I have a real garden for the first time in my life and am just thrilled with everything growing in it. My daughter has her own little bed of flowers that are growing and I can’t wait to see them bloom. The sun is out and the weather is getting warm and it feels so good to my soul. I really thrive on sunshine and right now our days are long. I love it. So although I am in planning mode a little, I am in no hurry to get the next school year going. I do try and get our choices made early enough to order before the big school rush, but this year I feel like I may take a little extra time. I want to enjoy this break and take full advantage of the rest time. I want to walk around the garden, breathe the fresh air, and just relax.