2020.
What. A. Year.
And we’re not even three-quarters of the way through it yet!
Even though I can’t seem to keep track of what day it is right now, I’m at least aware that it’s August. And August in our homeschool means it’s time to finalize and share our curriculum plans for the year ahead.
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I’m so glad I found The Story of the World (SotW) curriculum for history! So far we’ve used and loved Volumes 1 through 3, and I just finished planning Volume 4 for the upcoming school year.
* 2023 Update: I’ve now used all 4 volumes and still highly recommend this curriculum! This year I’m starting again in Volume 1 with my middle and youngest kids!
I’ve already talked about how we customize SotW in our homeschool. In this post, I’ll show you how I tackle planning it.
2020. What a doozy!
Most of us are still reeling from the unexpected spin COVID-19 put on the last few months of this school year. And just when we thought things were looking up, we find ourselves in the midst of another set of trials and civil unrest.
It seems like a lifetime ago that I was planning out our curricula and wondering what the year would bring. I definitely didn’t expect all this!
In the previous post in this series, I introduced you to the curriculum shelves in our homeschool area. Now let’s zoom in and see what’s filling up those shelves.
Note: If you missed the first couple posts in this Tour of Our Homeschool series, start here to get caught up. (There may be affiliate links in this post – click here to learn more. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)
Right now, it seems to work for us to have a shelf (or two) for each main subject area and a coordinating bin for the non-book materials for that subject. So, for example, here are the math shelves and the storage cube drawer where I keep the curricula and math supplements we aren’t using this year.
Asking what a homeschool room should look like is like asking what someone’s backyard should look like. That is, there’s no one right answer. It totally depends on the needs, desires, resources, and situation of each unique family.
So far, in this Tour of Our Homeschool series, I’ve shared about the desks and tables we use for homeschooling all over our house. Now I’d like to focus in on the corner of our lower level that we call our “school room”.
I’ve mentioned the SchoolhouseTeachers.com website here and there on this blog in the past. Last year (2018), I won a year’s membership to the site and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by it. In fact, I think it will be a staple in our homeschool from now on!
Someday I plan on writing a full, detailed review but, until “someday” comes, I wanted to fill you in on our experience with it so far.
Homeschoolers have gained back a lot of time with their kids by keeping them home. But it still seems like it’s never enough! So, in the spirit of not wasting any more of this precious commodity, let’s get right to the tips!
The list below includes the top ten ways I’ve learned to save time in our homeschool. It’s organized from very general to very specific – hopefully there’s an idea for everyone!
One of the things that helped me the most in my transition from “What is homeschooling?” to “Let’s homeschool!” was reading about what homeschoolers actually do all day. Reading “a day in the life” blog posts about actual, real-life, home educating families doing actual, real-life homeschool-y things opened my eyes to the limitless variety of ways learning can (and does) happen.
I’ve been wanting to write my own “Day in the Life…” post for a long time and here it finally is!
I can’t believe it’s August again!
That means it’s time to share our homeschool plans for the year ahead. (If you’re curious about what we’ve used in the past, check out this post which has links to all the previous years.)
We’re really in the thick of it now. I’ll be homeschooling my fifth and second grade boys and their three year old sister (whose unreliable, dwindling naps should make for a crazy-making an interesting year).
Is it just me or has our society overcomplicated things that should be fairly straightforward?
Take food, for example. The overall process seems like it should be pretty simple. Grow or buy food. Cook food. Eat food. Done.
But when you get to the grocery store and spend the first 15 minutes just trying to pick a breakfast cereal from the 129 choices available, you quickly realize this might be harder than you thought.
