I'm going to leave this on the top until the 16th when the open house ends.  Scroll down for current entries. Thanks.

Tiany is hosting a Homeschool Open House.  I really enjoyed reading the other homeschool open houses so I thought I’d join in.

Hello!  Welcome to our Open House!  My name is JoAnn.  I’m a mom to 4 kids 3 boys and 1 girl, Pumpkin 13 (almost 14), Peewee 8, Peanut 4, and Princess 2.  I started homeschooling when my oldest was entering 2^nd grade.  I homeschooled him for 2^nd and 3^rd grades, I then put him back in public school for 4^th and 5^th.  I know, what was I thinking.  But now he’s home and well be homeschooled with the others until they graduate.  My husband is a wonderful father and husband.  He helps out when he can but with school and work he’s not around much.  We approach school with a very relaxed schedule and very eclectic approach.

So what does our days look like?  Well we don’t really have a schedule more of a flow.  None of us are morning people, well except for dh so we just get up when were ready.  I usually have coffee and check my email and do a few other computer things.  The kids eat breakfast, make their beds, brush their teeth, and take the time to get cheerful.  Then we’ll usually do a few chores to get us into the work frame of mind.  Our school day usually starts with Bible, that is about the only consistent thing.  What I do is on Monday I give the kids a list of goals to accomplish for the week and when the projects are due.  Some lessons we do together as a group so those are usually scheduled for after lunch.  The kids just pick the lessons they do on their own and work through them until the weeks goals are met.  I help out with any questions they may have.  They all work pretty well independently.  So why the older ones are doing their independent work I do preschool stuff with the littles.  After lunch we’ll do our read alouds for science or history and then start working on our notebooks.  I also try to have activities that the littles can participate in.  If I don’t have something to include them in I get out the preschool activities for them.  I do try to keep craft activities and other potentially messy things to the same time frame.  This way I’m not cleaning up several projects through the day.  Our days have no particular ending time, they just work until they want to quit.  Which works fine for us as long as they meet the due dates.

I should also mention that we have another boy that comes over and does his schoolwork here.  He’s in 7^th grade and I refer to him as C.  He’s homeschooled but his mother works nights.  So while she’s sleeping he comes and does some classes with my guys.  It’s like our own mini co-op.  Though sometimes I get the feeling he thinks he lives here too. LOL

 Here some pictures of what our days look like.

So what kind of curriculum do I use for the kids?  Well I think the easiest thing to do is to break it down by kid.

All of them

Editor in Chief

Winston Grammar

Speedy Spanish

Mavis Beacon Typing

Bible Lessons (this coming years are posted on the sidebar)

History – I make these units using All Through the Ages as a guide for books.  Here are some of units we’ll be doing this year – The American Revolution, Ancient Rome, and Native Americans.

The Usborne Complete book of Art Ideas

Various Artist – I’ve haven’t made these yet but they’ll be internet and library

Recorder Fun

Keyboarding – dh is going to teach them

P.E. co-op

Pumpkin

Lightning Literature and Composition 8^th grade

UCSMP Algebra

Apologia Physical Science

Wordsmith

Vocabulary Cartoons

Zaner-Bloser spelling – I got these off the internet and used a vocabulary worksheet generator to create a few extra worksheets to go with the spelling list.

Peewee

Math – I get various lessons and worksheets off the internet for him.  You can find various links on the sidebar by concept.

Reading – Here is the list of his reading lessons

Zaner-Bloser Spelling – made the same way as Pumpkin’s

Scott Foresman Grammar and Writing – This is also off the internet

Explode the Code books 6&7 – this covers some rules that I want him to practice some more.

Science – science lessons I put together using the internet and library.  Here are some topics we’ll be doing this year – The Scientific Method, Weather, Chemistry, and Electricity

Peanut and Princess

They’ll be doing stuff like the Apple Unit and Balloons Unit.  Princess will probably float in and out of the lessons.  I don’t really expect either one of them to sit still and do the whole lot at once.  But I like to be ready for when they are in “school” mode.

I think that pretty much covers it.  Boy, looking at the list it looks like a lot but it doesn’t feel that way during the school year.

As for where we do school, that could be anywhere.  I do have a “school room” but it is more for when we do group study and holding all the stuff.  Pumpkin has a desk in his room that he works at and Peewee seems to enjoy laying on the living room floor to do his.  Here are some photos of our school room.

How do I keep track of lessons?  Well I use Homeschool Tracker Plus, a few record sheets from the internet, and my blog.  With my blog I post the lesson plans with the links so they can just hop on the computer and pull up the lesson on my blog.  This way I don’t have to worry about what them stumbling across something.  The links they are allowed to use are in the lesson.  I have been blessed with a computer geek dh who has pieced together 3 computers for us to use.  This way makes it a little easier for me to keep track of the boys when their working on the computer because I’ve already viewed the sites.

At the end of the year I put together a little scrapbook portfolio for them to keep as a yearbook.  You can view a sample of Peewee’s here.

My best advice for homeschoolers is in a post I wrote a couple of months ago.  You can read it here.  And just so you know there are days that are totally chaos and days I feel like I’m losing control.  But tomorrow is another day and we just start over.  I enjoy having them home and can’t imagine ever sending them away everyday.

Glad you stopped by.  Hope you have a great year!

JoAnn