You guys, it has been a crazy week for me. Last Friday I was sauntering (yes I just used that word!) down my stairs getting ready for another wonderful school day with my children, I guess I got a little too excited for the day and my feet slipped out from under me while going down the stairs and I landed right on the edge of the stair on my tailbone and I slid down the rest of the stairs! It was an ugly sight and I was and still am in so much pain. I thought I had broken my tailbone once before playing musical chairs, but this…this was worse!! It took like two years to completely heal last time, so I am not very excited to see how long it takes for this to heal! To make things even more fun, Sunday morning I woke up and couldn’t get warm, went to the Primary program at church and then had to leave because I was so cold. Ended up being sick for 3 days with a sore throat, body aches and a fever! It was such a fun last 5 days! I’m feeling a whole heck of a lot better now, but man I don’t want to go through all that again! Oh, and I am totally not trying to get sympathy from you, but you can give it to me if you want to! 🙂
Anyway, I will get to the real reason for this post…My 2016 Homeschool curriculum! School has been going on for a little over a month and while we had a slow start we are in full swing. this year we are doing a lot of new things. I was sick of a ton of work book and my kids were also so we are doing new stuff this year. I am also trying to have more of a TJ’ed philosophy of homeschooling in my home where we have more of a self led education going on. I think all people do the TJ’ed thing a little different. I still require my K+ age kids to do stuff each day, but when, where and how long they do it is more up to them, especially for my kindergartener and 3rd grader. Each week they tell me what they want to work on during the week and then we go from there. They have goals to do Language Arts and Math each day along with a Family School lesson from me, plus their extra curricular activities. We will also get out of the house a lot, go to the park, hike, go on vacations and do a lot of learning that way! My main goal for my children this year is to not fight all day about getting stuff done, to enjoy our days of learning, to get them excited about subjects and to enjoy our days together exploring, adventuring and learning!
Today I will share what each of my kids are doing and also what we do as a family! I know a lot of mom’s ask me how I do it and what I use for curriculum. It’s trial and error a lot of year especially with Language Arts stuff, but I have stayed consistent with Math and The Family school for the last 5 years! I’ll start with my oldest who is a girl and then go down from there for all my boys!
Our 2016 Homeschool Curriculum Choices
Lala 7th/8th Grade- I “held my daughter back” when she was little thinking she would want to graduate from high school with her cousins who are born two months after her, but since we don’t live by them anymore and she will probably continue homeschooling. So this year we are trying to catch her up to 8th grade level which will be fine!
- Math– Teaching Textbooks 7 and Pre Algebra
- Language Arts – Easy Grammar, The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting, Journaling, Reading a lot of books, Writing Papers for her Commonwealth, Fun-Schooling Book, Personal scripture study and reading fun books!
- The Family School – All Other Subjects- (Art, Music, History, Science and Geography)
- Dixie Leadership Academy’s Sr. Commonwealth (like a co-op) as a Scholar – Taking Sword of Freedom, a class all about the Civil war. The Hero Project, which is a class all about World War II, a Guitar class and a Shakespeare class.
- Tech Class – Robot Class where I bought my kids different robots to try to figure out how to use each week.
- Extra Curricular – Violin Lessons, Horse Riding Lessons, and Auditioning for a few plays throughout the school year.
Cowboy – 5th Grade
- Math – Right Start Math E & Life of Fred and lots of living math! Games, cooking, entrepreneur stuff
- Language Arts – The Good and the Beautiful Level 3-5 Language Arts & Handwriting Curriculum. We are loving the because it’s simple, it does the spelling, handwriting, grammar, reading comprehension all in one book! Plus a little Art History and Geography mixed in. He will also be writing in his journal, reading a lot of good books and I got also got Fun Schooling Homeschooling Active Boys for him! Personal scripture study and reading of fun books!
- The Family School for all other subjects
- Tech Class – Robot Class
- Dixie Leadership Academy (1 Day a week) – Taking Knights of Freedom – a class where they will focus on the rules of chivalry and becoming the person God wants us to be. They read books about people who have made a difference throughout history along with stories of bravery, courage and freedom. He also gets to take Karate, and Ninja Warrior/Parkour!
- Extra Curricular – Football with a League, Basketball (City), Soccer (City)
JackJack – 3rd Grade
- Math – Right Start Math C, Life of Fred, and lots of Math Games
- Language Arts – The Good and the Beautiful Level 2 Language Arts & Handwriting Curriculum. Personal Scriptures study, Journal Writing and reading of fun books!
- The Family School for all other subjects
- Tech Class – Robot Class
- Dixie Leadership Academy (1 Day a week) – Aviation Fun, Karate and Ninja Warrior/Parkour
- Extra Curricular – Flag Football (City), Soccer (City)
Little Mister – Kindergarten – My main goal for this boy this year is to learn to be happy and be nice to his brother! If I can do that we will have had a successful year!! He is kind of my Glass is Half Empty child and he is always getting mad at everyone. Not all the time, but a lot of the time! He is such a fun kid I just need to help him get over negative thinking. I was a lot like him as a child and I wanted it my way or I would throw huge fits so I feel like I can help him fight this. We are using this great book called “What do Do When You Grumble Too Much“! It’s a great book that is helping me also!
- Math – He is just learning with me and when I feel like he is ready he will start Right Start Math A
- Language Arts – Writing Road to Reading, Spalding’s Phonogram App, Journal Writing, Reading with Mom, and when he is ready he will start The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts and Handwriting for Kindergarten.
- The Family School for all other subjects
- Sports – This consists of me taking him out and teaching him to play different sports with his siblings!
The Baby – Pre-K He mainly just hangs out with us and does what everyone else is doing. We sing songs, read stories and he likes to just play, play, play and make lots of messes!!
