We haven't totally quit schooling this summer. I am having the boys do a summer refresher series and read a bit each day. With my DD, we are working on 100 Easy Lessons. Other then those things, there really isn't alot. It is mostly just to keep them from being bored, not to mention it is just review. However, we got our new curriculum last week and I can't stop myself from looking at it each day. I really want to get started. It is driving me nuts! I promised the kids August off if they finished up this review series. The plan was to start schooling after our trip to DC over Labor Day. The school year will start with an awesome field trip. Yay! I know I am going to start on this curriculum much earlier. I really want to be organized this year and just can't wait to start. Am I the only freak? :lol:
I don't think you're a freak. It sounds like you love learning and you love your children. If your kids aren't pitching a fit about doing reviews or still schooling, then go for it! I have to be honest, and say that I technically don't start homeschooling until this August. At that time, I will be working with my son with preschool. My DD7 will be homeschooled the following year. I have however, already accumulated a HUGE box spilling over of hs stuff (books, workbooks, TE's, etc.) and I am constantly in thought over which curric to use for which subject. We are going eclectic as of now. I think you sound very much like me. Enthusiastic for teaching your children. Best of luck!
I am enjoying my break. I bet the kids are too. I will be ready to start back up in August, I had planned on the 4th, but might push it a week or two more. This is our first real break since we started on our home educating journey in Feb 2007. We have taken a week here and there, but haven't stopped like we did this year. (June 13 was our last day) Sorry for the ramble.....And I did not even answer your question. Oh, on another note how do you like 100 easy lessons?
DD is picking up on the lessons pretty easily (100 Easy Lessons). However, she doesn't really like it. I am not so sure it is the actual material that she doesn't like or that reading/sounds in general are hard for her. She has CAPD (central auditory processing disorder). Since she is getting the material, I am sticking with it. But she really dislikes the rhymning parts of the lesson. I think she doesn't like to concentrate that intensely to figure it out. We only have been doing 2-3 lessons per week so it isn't too stressful for her.
Have you used ETC? I will be using this next year with my youngest and was wondering if it would mesh well with 100 EZ. I will stop high jacking your thread now!!
Nope your not the only one. I got the rest of our in the mail the other day and I've been eyeballing them constantly since. We're planning on starting back up on the 4th of August so I don't have that long to wait. The only thing that I'm working on now is putting my binder (resources, grade book, lesson plans, etc...) together.
I am ready to start back, but the girls want to wait and start back closer to when their public school friends go back. We will see what happens. I think I am really going to enjoy our school year. It will be our first year since the boys graduated. We won't be tied down to their schedule any longer. I can't wait.
We had three weeks off for camp, etc. and I plan on starting a light day on Monday. Rachael needs to finish science, we're not done with history, and there's math. I just got TWO innerlibrary loans in today, and they are due back on the 28th (can't renew, $2.50/day late charge), so I need to get through them. One is on the Louisiana Purchase, and one about Lafitte and the Battle of New Orleans.
We won't be starting back until the day after Labor Day. Grace has actually started her Kindy MUS and done a few lessons and I will continue to do that with her when she asks. With her never having been in ps it is much easier to do summer work than with Samantha. Samantha still has 3 lessons to complete in her MUS book from this past year. She and I had issues with math and we backed off. Now we have to "summer school" math so she can be on track in September. During the summer we are focusing on other things. Today we are going to HOme Depot and get some things for the kids to begin their own herb gardens. We are also doing some home improvement.
IM still ordering! But.. I am as of today starting to reorganise our school area/room and planning for English 6 already started.. I am looking at the furniture and deciding what I can do with it to make it real schoolish and organized and everything.. not sure if its good or bad to be schoolish but I think it will help my kids with thier work.
We're enjoying our break but we have done math at least once per week (or so) and the kids are doing the Summer Reading program at the library (5 books or 5 hours per week). We're off to visit family in St. Louis and IL next week so I didn't want to start all our new stuff before then. Hoping to start some of it when we get back and before the girls & I go on our week long Girl Scout trip to PA (Lancaster, Gettysburg, Hershey).....figure we'll be ready for a "field trip" by then :lol: We like to school Aug-May like their old school did even though Virginia schools go Sept-June. I don't think it's weird to want to get started. If we didn't have these 2 weeks of travel planned, we would probably have started a bit more than just math and reading for pleasure.....although we did make clay sculptures this week for Zoology (shh!!! they didn't really think of it as school as I read to them about toothed whales before we got out the clay :lol
I have next Monday down as our start date. But a lot of that is for ulterior reasons . See, when I told DH that was our start back date, he knew he only had until then to finish the projects needed, he would get on the ball doing them. And I was right. I love my DH dearly, but he quite the procrastinator. So, now he's gotten many of the projects done needed to get the classroom in working order. If he gets them all done in time, we'll start Monday. If not, I'm ok with starting later.
we are starting back up the first week of Aug. so we can have more time off around holidays and with dd in a big play this year we need it.
I'd love to get started, but we have VBS coming up in 2 weeks and then dad's vacation. After that we're off to visit a friend in Ill. for a few days. So, it looks like we won't get going until the end of Aug.
Our summer break runs differently because of the heat here so we just started in May and will continue through probably February. Though the past week or so we've really backed off a bit because the boys have been itching for a break and we've been doing a lot of swimming.
We are taking a break now because the kids from Ireland are here. But I do expect to add 1 lesson per day back in real soon. I'm hoping to hit the convention this coming week to grab a couple of things so I don't have to pay shipping. Sad thing is that I HAD the Rod & Staff stuff and returned it thinking I was going to do something else..... but oh well - live and learn
We have totally revamped our school schedule this year. We are going more for a very relaxed approach.. meaning the day itself will have very little schedule.. only a list of topics to try to cover. We will be starting our "next year" on the 14th.. yep that's right in just a week. We will focus on learning for 9 weeks, then we will take a week off. Then we will focus on learning again for another 9 weeks. That takes us up to the Friday before Thanksgiving. We will have off the week of Thanksgiving all the way through the beginning of January. We will start back up the Monday after New Years, learn for 9 weeks and take another week long break. We will finish our final 9 week session May 15th. Then it's a 2 month break for summer. I went to a year around school when I lived in Nevada.. and as a kid, I loved it. I do feel that kids need a break to deschool themselves and do some living.. so we will still institue a summer break.. it just won't be 3 months long. My kids are always learning anyway... they use math skills every day in the things they do, and living on a farm science (and life skills as well) is more than abundant.
Glad I am not the only one! Our curriculum is scheduled by weeks rather then days. So it has 36 weeks fit into it. I am going to be working on a check list for the kids to have things done during the week, with a recommended of things to do in a particular day. We have co-op on Thursdays. So they have an incentive to finish up by Wednesday so they can have Friday off. We shall see hwo it goes and if I can get it all wrapped up for them.
We are going to start back August 4th. That will give me few weeks before public school. We have all our curriculum stuff. I will get stuff on our tax free weekend. We can get school stuff and clothes with no tax. I love that weekend. They also have good sales.
Ask Sheila about putting your binder together, she does great at that kind of organization! I wanted to sort of school over the summer, but as usual, things come up. In a way we are schooling, just VERY relaxed right now. DD is doing math and piano practice, DS14 is doing math and some science, ds17 is doing some Spanish and is taking Driver's Training classes. But it's not even every day that it's all getting done, but we're not worrying too much about it. They're getting the math in at least 2-3 times a week, which is fine to keep up with where they're at and not regress--that's my goal! My parents came to visit for a week, a few days later my in-laws came to visit, now in less than 10 days ds14 will go on his mission trip (leaves the 15th). He'll get back on the 29th, and I know he'll be very tired and need to recuperate (he requires a large amount of sleep, and any time he's gone to summer camp for a week or something, he comes back very happy, but exhausted. It takes him awhile to get back to normal). Then the registration and dropping ds17 off at school is August 17. The week before that we'll be washing, cleaning,organizing, and packing his stuff! The week after that I will need to use for final preparations, then we'll probably start school on August 25th. We may have our little K friend starting the week of August 18. Her dad will be on a business trip that week, and her mom will be in a special training class that week and the next. So we'll probably have her there to get used to us, and without having to school her, then we'll all be more comfortable, possibly, the next week. THere, long answer to short question!
