The holidays have come and gone, and I have mixed feelings about starting up our homeschool again. First, I’m anxious to get back into our groove. I’m just craving the routine that provides a peace of mind for me and everyone else in my home. Second, I’m having a hard time letting go of the slow, easy-going days we spent together in December. I’ll miss that, and I’m so thankful for the time we spent doing it.
So, here I am knowing I need to plan and really kick things into gear. The day before we started school my husband and I decided to move our homeschool room (again!), so that was an unexpected but exciting change. Now, it’s a matter of figuring out how I want our days to play out and what my goals are.
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Morning Time/Morning Basket
We did a Christmas study for or morning time in December, and I loved it so much I purchased another curriculum from the same creator. We had such great conversations, and I learned so much with the kids that I was eager to do more like it.
We are going to try Foundations of the Bible by Driven by Grace. If you aren’t familiar with it, she created the program to go along with the Classical Conversations cycles. Now, we are no longer in CC, but the content is great for anyone! I’m so excited to get started.
I’m curious to see how we will work through it, since we are not bound to a week-by-week schedule through CC. We can move through it as quick or slow as we like, so I can keep you posted on how that goes for us. She lists many other sources to learn from (books, movies, children’s bibles) so I imagine I may look into that as well.
For our other Morning basket items, we will continue with our poetry book. (“Poems to Learn by Heart” by Caroline Kennedy) It’s not my favorite, but we all do really enjoy hearing what our poem of the day is. I really want to find something like we read last year, Sing a Song of Seasons. That book is so beautiful and we loved it! For now, we will stick with what we have.
Most days I throw in something related to our unit studies during our morning time. This is a picture book most of the time, and that has really been a great addition, so we will continue to do that. This is all based on what we find at our library.
Math/ Language Arts Curriculum Changes
I shared all of our curriculum choices for the year in a YouTube video, and we have made some changes here and there throughout the first half of our school year.
My third grader is now using Christian Light Education for math, and we love it! (We stopped Horizons math after 3 years of using it) Read more about that journey in my blog post.
She continues to use Learning Language Arts through Literature, but I’ve also added in a grammar practice workbook to help review different skills. It’s not spectacular, but it’s accomplishing what I want. Every once in a while I take a step away from the workbooks and do something different – like a lesson related to our current unit or something random, like diagramming, because I think it’s fun to spice things up here and there!
My first grader continues to use Christian Light Education for math. She worked hard to complete the Foundations A program from Logic of English, so we will be starting the Foundations B after the holidays (Read about Foundations A here) I’ve also purchased the handwriting book from Logic of English, Rhythm of Handwriting. I don’t think we will do this every day, but I noticed she was ready to start writing more, so we are going to try it.
History/Science
Looking back it’s so interesting to see how my teaching style has changed and adjusted this last year. For a brief background, we were in Classical Conversations for two years prior to this one, so this was my first time in a while to do my own History and Science choices.
I had an idea of what I wanted at the beginning, and we loved it, but as we have done more and more unit studies I am really discovering what I love doing and reading for our units.
If you haven’t seen any of our unit studies, check out a few of the ones below:
I am loving the unit study model for us, so we will kick off the year with a Vikings unit that I’m really looking forward to and I’m thinking the Middle Ages after that. Looking ahead into the spring, I have an idea of a couple more history units I may want to do, but I’m open to making changes as needed.
For science, I’m still deciding. Our first one won’t be until March, and we will be studying CHICKENS! We are planning to add more chicks to our flock, and I’m super pumped to get the kids more involved now that this is my second time around. Last year was our first time raising chicks and it was quite the learning experience.
So, technically I only have a loose plan until the start of April, and as we get closer I’ll plan more. I just don’t like to plan too far ahead because we change! Our interests change, our schedules change, the weather changes. I like to get closer to the Spring before I plan through the end of the year. I have possibilities in my head that I’ll be praying about but my final decision will come later.
Daily Routine
I’m not going to lie, after being out of routine for so long I really have to think about how we ended before break…Our schedule is not based off the time. It’s more of a loose rhythm. However, our routine changes with the seasons we are in whether that’s the ACTUAL season (winter to spring) or a season in our family (birthdays, napping schedules, health). Below is what has worked for us lately.
- Wake-up
- Breakfast
- Morning Checklist/Chores
- Independent Work
- Morning Time
- Outside
- Math
- Language Arts
- Lunch
- Catch-up/Extra Activity
We school four days a week and meet with a nature/adventure group on Fridays, and we plan to continue with that through the end of the year.
Slow Start
My plan is not to jump into everything at once. Honestly, after Christmas my brain just wasn’t quite ready to get into full swing with a unit study and all the planning that goes with that.
For the last few days I’ve been more strict about my kids’ chores and morning checklist so that we can get that situated before we start. (I’m hoping to get a post soon about our checklist.) Over Christmas break that kind of just washed away – which is fine! – but we know everything runs better when we all work together to take care of our home, and that’s an easy thing for me to work back in before we start.
Then, we will have a slow first week completing only our Morning Time, Math, and Language Arts. This will also be a great opportunity for me to get a feel for how our rhythm is working and if I need to make any changes.
My goal is to make a trip to the library at some point during our first week back so that we can collect the books for our upcoming Vikings unit which we will begin the following week.
Happy New Year!
Have you started planning ahead? Do you have any new goals? I’m not a resolution kind of girl, but I do love setting some new goals!
I have a few, and one of them is to write more blog posts! I have loved sharing more of our homeschool with you guys this last month, and I’m hoping to continue that through the start of this year.
I’m so happy you are following along with us and I wish you a happy new year! May 2023 be filled with beautiful memories with your family!
