A Mother's Account of Learning to Teach Her Children At Home
I am a SAHM and teacher of six beautiful daughters. I decided to create this blog because I needed somewhere to write down what I was and am going through as I learn about the wide world of homeschooling. I figured why not share that process, in case there was anyone that found it as overwhelming as I did! I hope you enjoy your stay and perhaps find something helpful in your own journey!

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

2013-2014 Curriculum and Schedule Plan

It seems that a LOT of people are considering the jump into homeschool lately.  So I've been

getting a lot of questions about what we're planning for the next school year.  I figured, instead of typing from scratch the answer everytime, I should save it somewhere.  And why not here, where I can just refer people and others that may not know me can get ideas as well!  Our school year is much more structured then the summer, though we do school year round.  I'll post about summer school later.  In our family, we have put in order of importance - spiritual growth, worldly knowledge, and housework.


Each day we start with devotional, all of the children participate regardless of age. We start with prayer and the pledge of allegiance. Then I read aloud from the scriptures for 15 minutes. We rotate through the books (Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, Pearl of GreatPrice, Old Testament, and New Testament). Then we work on their memorizationboxes. To finish out our group part of devotional, I read for 10 minutes from whatever novel we're reading as a family.  Finally, the kids that can read do personal scripture study and record their thoughts in their scripture journal. 
 

Rachel is now five and so excited to officially start school.  The state considers her a Kindergartener. Currently, we're finishing up her alphabet - recognizing the letters and knowing their sounds. We just use flash cards and StarFall.com. Once she has that down, we're going to start using Learning to Read Using the Book ofMormon, Vol. 1 and The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. The BoM teaches by memorizing sight words and Ordinary teaches phonics. BoM will count as her personal scripture time each day at the end of devotional. She'll also be starting Saxon math (grade K).
Rose is ten and considered a 5th grader. This fall she'll be starting Saxon math (6/5) and Learning Language Arts Through Literature (PurpleBook). I like LLATL because it rolls all the L.A. lessons into one course. She's also supposed to take an online tech class called Mobile Apps forBeginners. But she'll only be able to take that if we stay in Utah through an online charter school called My Tech High. If we move to Kansas (waiting to hear back on Dad's application), she won't be able to take that.
Rebekah will be 13 and considered to be in the 7th grade. She will be taking Saxon math ( 8/7 w/ PreAlgebra), LLATL (Green Book), and BYU-Independent Study (US History Part 1 & 2). If we stay in Utah, she'll also be taking a Robotics LEGO course through My Tech High.
All of our school age kids do science and history together.  Science is done 3x a week and history is daily.  We're using Real Science-4-Kids(Astronomy) and Story of the World (Vol. 1, Ancient Times) next year. I really would like to try the Latter Day School's Family School program. But it's a bit spendy ($500 per year) and you still have to purchase Story of the World, math and language arts. But the idea of teaching all of my children together is very appealing. Not to mention it was put together by an LDS group that runs a private school based on gospel principles in the Provo area. And everyone that has used it raves about it.
They also study Mandarin through Rosetta Stone, are learning to play piano with the LDS church's keyboard course, and we have a family pass to the local pool that we frequent several times a week. We have an hour and 15 minutes of reading time each day. Forty-five minutes is spent reading literature that I assign (I use lists from Simply Charlotte Mason, The Well Trained Mind, and Thomas Jefferson Ed). Thirty minutes is free reading.  The girls can do their individual lessons in any order they like.  We typically do the group lessons right before or after lunch.  After lunch and group lessons, we work together to get the house in order.  We also do another quick pick-up right before bed so that everything is ready for the next day.

UPDATE:  Doesn't look like Dad got the job in Kansas, so we'll be sticking with MTH for the school year.  Yay!  We changed Rebekah's history, though.  Instead of using BYU Independent Study for American History, we're going to use a combination of two programs.  We're going to do history through literature with Beautiful Feet's Early American and World History Jr. High Pack in conjunction with lapbooks from Homeschool in the Woods' Time Travelers New World Explorers bundle.

2 comments:

  1. This will be my first year homeschooling 2 of my 3 girls - 4th and 6th - and I'm so happy to find someone else using LLATL and SOTW! I was wondering if you supplement LLATL with anything more than just more literature, or if it's enough? Thanks!

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    1. In addition to the literature we read for LLATL, I also have books that I assign to the girls that they read for 30 minutes a day. As this is our first year using LLATL, I have not decided if we're going to supplement the grammar side of things or not. I may use Spelling City and free worksheets online in any areas I see the girls needing help in.

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