Getting Ready For Homeschool

I have had a couple of sick kids this week, so I have used this down time to begin preparing for homeschool. We have talked a lot about how we are going to set things up and what we want for curriculum and such. This week we have finally gotten serious about getting things together. One of our problems was how to set up our learning space. Ruth, Kate, and Johnny are enrolled in an online charter school. We had to have a space where several family members could use the internet at the same time. We talked about buying a number of cheap laptops and sitting them at the dining room table-- a good solution, but a costly one. We looked at larger computer desks. We have two old computers that more than fit the minimum requirements for the school. The problem with computer desks is no matter how large they are, they only allow room for one chair. The extra space is filled with drawers and things. We then talked about buying one of those large, long, plastic Costco tables. The problem is they are very ugly and I do need to feel happy in my home. Then I went to Shopko (a local department store) for school supplies. Without little hope of finding anything, I thought I'd look at their dining room tables for our computer space. They had a very large table the very same color of wood as our banisters, bookshelves, and kitchen cabinets (our dining room table doesn't even match that.) The table was on sale for $150. I told John about it, but we never got back to look at it, and we had the big car bill. On Tuesday when I had to go buy crackers and soda for the stomach flu, I thought I would look and see if the table was still on sale. It was. Not as good. It was $20 more. I made a snap decision (I never do this with anything above $10) and bought the table. To my great joy, John was pleased at worst, and excited at best. He got the table set up right away. John has always wanted a line of computers. He collects old computers for me to throw away ;-). Since I had not thrown out the last two yet, and they are better than his normal finds this has worked out very well.

I have also been addressing the subject of curriculum for my kindergartener and first grader. I have always home schooled pre-school. I have also been the main person to teach my children how to read. But I know that I need to broaden what I do. Here is a sample of what I have always done.

My homemade flashcards. These are letter combinations that usually make a certain sound when found together in a word. I have a lot of these

These are some of Adam's high frequency words. I found a nice list of first grade high frequency words here. I will be doing one list a week.

These are a sample of some of my pre-preschool flash cards. Right now Joseph is using these.

 

 

 

 

 I have also used this website for math papers since about 2006 for my kids. They have worksheets up through algebra and a small amount of geometry. I like the five minute drills for teaching my kids to do their math facts quickly.

So now I need to add upon what I do. I bought a workbook (it hasn't arrived in the mail yet). I found it on Amazon.

Looking at the reviews of this particular workbook, I think I will need to have the kindergarten, 2 first grade and the second grade workbooks for kindergarten and first grade. I only bought the first grade book because I wanted to look it through and I did not want to be stuck with a whole curriculum that I do not like. (This is also due to my inability to spend money on anything besides food.) I will still use my homemade flash cards, and the math worksheet site. I will have Adam and Rachel each spend a half hour reading from the Book of Mormon Stories to me, and another half hour reading to me from the easy reader books we already have and what we can get from the library.

At this point I have no idea what we will do for science or history. I want to cover the classical composers and some of the Impressionists artist. Does anyone know of a curriculum for classical composers or is this something you just make up on your own? Also I quite welcome other suggestions for reading, math, science, and history curriculums.

I have a tentative schedule written out. I am not sure how this will work. (I post that in hopes of better suggestions later.) The online school begins Aug 29th, the public schools begin Aug 22, so I think we will take the week the kids friends start school as a before homeschool vacation week where we will not do any school stuff at all, and then we will begin full swing. Until Aug 22, we will continue our summer schedule of 2 days a week field trips, and 3 days a week with 2 hours spent on education-- that is math and typing for the older kids and reading and math for the younger kids.

I am feeling both excited and apprehensive. This will be a big change for our family.