I'm just talking out loud to myself here... maybe if you have any ideas, suggestions, insight... I'm all ears.

Kids will be home full time next year, which I am very excited about.

There are two things on my mind right now as I look forward to preparing and planning for school next year.  We used LLATL in the years previous to this one.  I liked it.  Kids liked it.  This past year, we were in Paces, which I didn't like all that much... nor did my kids. 

1) I need to set up a schedule/plan/daily routine, whatever you want to call it and STICK TO IT.  Right now, they are in school two days a week and they have a start time, a recess time, a lunch time, etc., and I want to have a similar schedule so my kids know what to expect and can be expected to do what needs to be done at the right time.  Plus, I know it will help my ADD child to have a daily routine.  I am SO GOOD at creating a wonderful looking schedule....   but terrible at disciplining myself to follow it.  I'm always full of excuses why it never works.  It needs to work this time!

2) I am trying to figure out what traditional type curriculum to use for language arts.  I'm prayerfully looking into BJUP, Lifepacs, considering continuing with the Paces for this subject, don't know much about Abeka.  I've had lots of homeschoolers say good things about Rod & Staff, but I want to SEE it with my own eyes... I need to see samples, etc., and I can't do that online.    Our local homeschool expo is in a little over a month and I need to know what we are doing by then so I can purchase what we need at that time.  My husband wasn't as impressed with LLATL as I was... thought it was "too easy" or maybe it didn't look traditional enough for him?

I have no idea how I'm going to schedule our time.  I'm really leaning towards BJUP for our language arts, but I understand it's very teacher intensive and I don't know if I will be able to handle it. 

How do those of you who have your kids use traditional curriculum do this with multiple ages?  Do you have a set teaching time with each child and then the child goes and works on own and asks questions as they need to? 

What would be a reasonable amount of time to plan for our school time?

My head is really spinning... I need to just get out a notebook and start writing everything down, because I can't seem to grasp any of it in my mind. 

Dh is fine with me doing what I want for science, history, geography, etc.  I already know what we will do for science.  We will be using Considering God's Creation once again and we will study Human Anatomy and Physiology this year.   We will be using MUS for math.  So, that's set.

I have no idea what to do with history.  I like learning history along with them and doing it all together, but since that is what I will be doing with our science, I'm not sure if that would be wise to do history like that as well... especially since I think the teaching time for the language arts is going to be more than I'm used to.  So... I'm going back and forth between considering something like Mystery of History, which is very appealing to me... or just using something like SOS History/Geography from AOP.  Since that is something they would do on the computer fairly independently that would free up my time a bit more.

 I really don't know. I wish God would just speak to me in a big, booming voice and let me know what I'm supposed to do so I can plan it all out....


That's not going to happen, though, is it?

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So.... I'll quit rambling for now... I'll post more later as my thoughts and plans become more clear.

Thanks for listening