This is a very exciting year for us.  We now have two official children in "school" and one that is unofficial.  I'll explain the unofficial child in a moment.  This is our 3rd year of homeschooling.  We actually started our new school year at the beginning of July.  I have a new baby due in January and we wanted to get a good portion of the year done.  This is also signifcantly different than how we started the year out.  But we're having a whole lot more fun and less stress with school now. 

We do school 4 days a week.  That leaves me one day to run errands, visit the library every other week, appointments, and make up days for sickness.  We also take one week off every 6 six weeks to organize around the house, plan our next six weeks, go on family field trips or vacations, field trips, and other activities that we can't normally do during the school weeks.  We have about 4-6 weeks off in the summer.  I start mid summer with our school year because TX summers are very hot.  Our family doesn't swim so just assume stay inside the air conditioning.  Our summers start mid-May and run through June.  This also provides me an opportunity to plan for the coming year.   And we do lots of playing. 

We also attempt to follow the Christian Classical style of home education as written Teaching the Trivium by Harvey and Laurie Bludorn. 

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Jenny - 7 1/2 yod 

Josh - 5 1/2 yod

Ally - 3 1/2 yod

Andrew  - 1 1/2 yod

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Bible

Read Bible and pray with Daddy before work

Leading Little Ones to God

Bible Memory

Memorize Shorter Catechisms

Ruby study with Jenny from Doorposts

Phonics/Reading

Learn/Review Phonics Song (MFW) - (All)

Go through phonics flashcards (All)

Alphaphonics (Josh)

Read books of choice to mom (Jenny, Josh on Thursday)

Handwriting

Ally - practice writing her name (Handwriting Worksheets)

Joshua - A Reason for Handwriting:  Book K

Jenny - A Reason for Handwriting: Transition Book

copywork

Grammar

First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind (orally - Jen is struggling with this so I am taking it very slow.) 

Spelling 

Spelling for Sound and Structure - 2nd Grade (Rod and Staff) 

Science (this is where we changed directions)

Exploring Creation with Astronomy (Apologia) - link leads to authors blog

Math

Math U See - Primer and Alpha (I am also taking this very slow.)

Mommy's Bean Counter - Ally

History

Adventures in My Father's World (My Father's World) - history only

*** I was originally doing the full curriculum but alot of it didn't fit either my teaching style or their learning interests so I have changed to other things except history.

Read alouds

Most of these come from our History curriculum right now.  Daddy reads to them for 45 minutes in the evening. 

Presently - The Secret Garden

Language

La Classe Divertida

Greek - Little Bitty Baby learns Greek (by Johannah Bluedorn)

Art

I Can Do All Things  (We are having trouble working this in.  But I hit on something this afternoon that may change all that. :)

Preschool

Picture Book Preschool

Miscellaneous

Daily Calendar - Made by Mom

Hundreds Chart (Ally)

Later this week I will post our daily schedule. 

God Bless!!!