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.
I don’t want to write this.
As I type, next year’s curriculum books are staring at me. “Plan ahead with us!” they beckon.
I just don’t want to spend time looking back when there’s so much to do to prepare for next year! Full speed ahead, I say!
But no. Not yet.
Early in my homeschool mom career, language arts caused a lot of confusion for me. There are so many subcategories within the subject – I just didn’t know where to begin.
Handwriting, reading (including phonics and sight words), spelling, grammar, composition, poetry, literature, public speaking…. What do I teach when? And how? Ahhh! 🤯
Over the years, I’ve been able to make better sense of it all. My curriculum shelves, however, still reveal the winding journey of trial and error I’ve gone through in the search for language arts resources for my kids.
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).
A lot of homeschool bloggers like to post their yearly curriculum choices (like I’ve been doing in this series) for their readers. Over the years, I’ve found it incredibly helpful to see what other families are using.
But sometimes these “what we’re using this year” lists give the impression that choosing curriculum for the year is a once-and-done kind of thing.
Totally not the case!
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If you haven’t done so yet, read the first post in this series here and check out Our Curriculum Choices – Year 1, Year 2, Year 3 and Year 4.
Year 5 Snapshot
If you’ve been following this series of posts, we’ve now caught up to real time. I wrote about the first four years retroactively because I started this blog just before we began our fifth year of homeschooling.
Since I can’t summarize a year that hasn’t happened yet, this snapshot will be a look at how our year has started so far. Later this school year I hope to post about lessons learned during Year 5… but I have to learn them first, so stay tuned.
Home sweet home…
The place we feel warm and cozy and free to be ourselves.
The place we live and laugh and love and create beautiful family memories.
The place where naked toddlers run through the middle of the lesson on the Byzantine Empire singing “I’m a Little Teapot” and throwing Cheerios in the air like confetti.
*sigh*
While there’s a lot to love about the freedoms a home-based learning setting provides, there are definitely some unique challenges that homeschool parents need to navigate. Many of these challenges stem from two fundamental characteristics of a homeschool.
Homeschools are often multi-AGE and multi-USE settings.
These two aspects can equate to high levels of distraction unless some thought is given to managing them well.
