I would say that our first week of school went very well. Toward the end of last year I finally felt like I had gotten a handle on teaching three instead of two. It really did take that long for me to feel like I knew what I was doing. #1 and #2 are close enough in age that a lot of their subjects can be taught together. Also, they had both gotten to where after the initial lesson was taught they could do the work on their own for the most part. With #3 in Kindergarten again it was back to having to sit next to her for everything she did and help her with it. It was much harder to get used to than I thought it would be. However, I felt much better prepared this year.
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| Wall Map and Timeline for use with Bible/History |
I have a flow chart that I make up every year so that I have a loose schedule already written down for me to use. Basically I make a list of which subject I am teaching which child and what order we are going to do it in. I knew after the first day that I was going to need to do some tweaking, but I waiting until the end of the week. I did change something for every day, but I think I have a pretty good idea now of how things are going to go and I don't think I'll have to change it very much more.
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This was the extent of "special stuff" I did for the first day. What can I say? I'm not that kind of Mom!
One major thing we're doing differently this year is that #1 and #2 are going to be responsible for many of their lessons on their own. I have a list of what they need to get accomplished each week and they are responsible for finishing it all on their own. This includes 3 lessons and a test for history, 2-3 science lessons, handwriting or typing, and 2 lessons in geography. We have audio CDs that they listen to and follow along in the book for History, they have worksheets they work off of in geography, and science is set up where they read a lesson and answer questions on their lesson. They can see on the flow chart how much free time they have before I'll be working with them one on one and can choose what they use that free time to get accomplished. It actually worked very well this last week. I was watching #2 carefully because I wasn't sure she would be able to handle the responsibility of getting it all done without me constantly reminding her. However, seeing #1 working on her work made #2 work on hers as well. They both were done with all of their alone work by Wednesday. I don't know that it will be that way every week, but for now it seems to be working. Hooray for teaching my students to work independently!
We also joined a group called the Institute for Cultural Communications, also know as Communicators for Christ. The idea behind this group is to teach young people to be comfortable speaking in front of a group of people so that they will always be prepared to tell others about Christ, and be comfortable doing so. Hubby and I love that thought process. We've always wanted our children to be comfortable speaking in front of others simply because that is a good life skill to have. But we love that this group is geared towards teaching public speaking so that you can be comfortable telling others about Christ. We've only been to one meeting so far, but I think this is going to be a great thing for our family this year.
We're still waiting to hear about the Choir we want #1 to be in this year. They were supposed to have auditions this week, but I think they are having some issues finding a venue for this year. So we're just hanging out until we hear from them about that.
So those are the big things we're doing this year. We are becoming more involved in the homeschool groups we're a part of and just generally branching out more and getting to know the area even better. I'm looking forward to this being our best homeschool year yet. But only for another 35 weeks!
I found a great Tennis for homeschoolers if you are interests in PE once a week.
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