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.
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.
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.
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).
In the first post in this series, I focused on subjects that are going well. I do love it when a plan comes together!
But that was the easy part. Now we come to the part that can get really discouraging really fast if we’re not careful…
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.
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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 and Year 3.
While we were (and still are) far from having it all figured out, Year 4 was the first year I felt noticeably more confident in our homeschooling.
After several years of educating our kids at home, I now had some data to work with – some proof that this was working. We could look back on work from the years past and see tangible evidence that growth and learning were taking place. Phew!
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.
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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 and Year 2.
Each year seems to bring something new and Year 3 was no exception. It was the first time I was homeschooling with an infant and without the support and encouragement of my dear mother-in-law who passed away only a few weeks after I had our third baby.
But God has always been our Provider, whether it’s in the form of new insights, tangible resources, or help from friends and family. He’s consistently given us hope and a way through difficult seasons, both in homeschooling and life in general.
