I recently had a sweet friend and her children over for a lunch & play date.  While the children were occupied playing we were talking about the next school year.  She asked me, "So what are you doing new this school year?"  I proceeded to explain about the TOS Crew and all of the things I was already getting from them that was "new", but I forgot to talk with her about some "new" things that I'd purchased or been inspired to buy at our NICHE Convention in June.

I don't know if I'm more excited to have my children learn these skills or to learn them myself.  Conflict is a major part of life and being a good witness for Christ is difficult when conflicts occur. 

Here is part of page from one of the reproducible workbooks that we will be doing. 

Here's another exciting gem:

This is a nice size, personal whiteboard for the girls to use. These will be so helpful with spelling words, math problems and our Grapevine Bible Studies.

I'm also going to be implementing Sue Patrick's Workbox system with Elizabeth and Grace.
I have purchased the boxes and today I will be rearranging the school room to accommadate the boxes.  We will start school not implementing the system because I am waiting to read the book.  Sue Patrick highly recommends reading the book before implementing the system.  We are scheduled to get the book for review as part of the Crew sometime in September.

Other "new" to us things will be changing Elizabeth from ABeka and Math U See workbooks to Christian Light Education Language Arts 3 and Arthimatic 3.  I've enjoyed both the Abeka and Math U See curriculum, I just decided we were ready for a change. 

I'm also going to implement a new routine in our homeschool days.  Previously I rotated the girls throughout the morning, they would rotate every 40 minutes between working independently or one daughter would spend her 40 minutes with me.  Then after lunch we would work together on our history and character lessons.  With Jennifer moving into 9th grade, most of the history that she will be reading is to mature for Elizabeth and Grace.  So starting this year I will work with Elizabeth and Grace in the morning and Jennifer in the afternoon.  Jennifer can then work through her subjects alone in the morning and we can correct her work together in the afternoon. Jennifer and I will also be able to discuss at a higher level her reading assignments.  I will have the independent items for Elizabeth and Grace scheduled for their afternoon workboxes. 

This is one of my new favorite tools:

I'm sure there are some more "new" things that I've forgotten about, so look for updates to this post.  I am excited to start our new school year.  It is amazing to me that this will be the beginning of our 5th year of home-educating.  Oops, one last new thing, I am being purposeful in not calling it our home-school, although we are an environment of learning much like a school.  I want to distant our thinking from being like a "school".  Our home is a place of education and learning, not a "school" as our current culture would define it. 

~Grateful for His wisdom and guidance,