Next Year Starts Now

We homeschool. If you follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or know me personally you know this. I am not shy about it. What you may not know is what actually goes into our homeschool planning.

A Good Planner

I am CRAZY organized. Everything I do is organized. It drives my son and husband batty. I do this though to make sure everyone stays on track, target, and ready for what lies ahead. This includes our homeschool. My planner allows me to plan for chores, reading, projects, field trips, educational goals, lessons, meals, to-dos and self-care for me. This is HUGE! This is the only planner I have found to be so all-encompassing. The provider even has a digital version (but I am partial to paper). Well Planned Gal has thought of it all. They have planners for the kids too!

Solid Curriculum

Finding Solid curriculum is hard. A lot of what I have found is read this book and answer this question and my kid with a 142 IQ just needs more meat. We ended up landing on Bob Jones University Press and Abeka for most of our stuff for next year and here is why. Their curriculum dives deeper than any other I have found. It is seriously reminiscent of my college textbooks.

This year’s focus is on ancient worlds. We will be going through ancient history, Latin, Algebra (renaissance math) and studying the origins of Life in science. This will be an interesting 8th-grade year. I am so excited about Latin as I studied it for 4 years myself.

Firm Schedule

This does not apply to all families, but it does ours. We have a hard and fast no wiggle room schedule. This is to prep him for college, and work. I say not all families need this because most kids are so flexible in their thinking they will easily transition into those settings. With our kiddo having Aspergers we understand that is not the case. We do take time off for Field Trips, travel and appointments, but no more than the public schools. We just take different days so we can still enjoy the areas we are going to without it being bombarded with kids on Spring Break.

Grading Papers

My friends are teachers and they have said I grade way more harshly then they do. GOOD! My job here is not to scoot my kids way through school so he can get a piece of paper and do nothing. My job is to make sure he gets a good education, push his boundaries, and make him into a model citizen. Nothing less is okay. So yes, I grade firmly some would even say harshly, but it pushes him to do better next time.

Have Fun

If you are not making time for fun, true fun. Then you need to. We have Disney passes, travel, and do science experiments. Make your school experience fun. Go to the science center, museum, theme park. Get out of the house and take time as a family. You will be surprised what all you can learn there.

Next year is going to be a blast from the past (the ancient past)! But we are going to rock it. Curriculum arrived last week and I start planning in May! I plan early and reevaluate often to make sure we stay on schedule.

What fun thing are you doing this year?