Summer break... planning coming year's lesson plans

[southernmommie]

I am almost done with the planning of this coming school year's lesson plans. I want to at least have a guide and direction for the year. I have all of the curriculum that I planned on getting for the kids. DS will be in 4th grade, DD will be in 1st grade and DD 3 1/2 is so ready so we will be dabbling in pre-K for fun. No stress with whether or not she grasps everything with pre-K or not. I'm excited.

Just have a few more decluttering and organizing projects to do around the house before the start of school. How is everyone else doing?

[SamGroom]

I am just starting to really plan out what we would like to do, I am so impressed you are almost done.

I have a "first grader" and a preschooler.

I know we will be doing

Math U See (did it last year and LOVED it)

All About Spelling

handwriting? (we didn't like handwriting without tears)

I plan on doing a letter a week to one set of the grandparents

Lots of reading together (as we always do) maybe a chart to keep track of time she spends reading.  Though I am not sure about it yet.

Researching what I want to do for history/social studies

Signing up for an art class

[Hopefulmama]

DD attends PA Cyber but will not have any classes on-line. I will be receiving the curriculum that we will be using within the next week or so. I was able to preview it online and it looks like a lot of fun. She will be in first grade. She will attend art/ Kinder-music classes one morning/week and take piano lessons one afternoon/week. I am anxious to figure out a bit of structure and routine but will have to wait until I get all of my guidebooks, etc. I declutterd a storage spot for everything and went through last years supplies. DS is older now so I think it will be easier to keep him busy while teaching DD. How I have looked forward to that! We will be using the dining room table because it is larger enough for all of us. I am starting to get excited about the new year, but I don't want to rush the summer away either.

[southernmommie]

I know what you mean about not wanting to rush away summer. I'm hoping to get some summer fun with Daddy before we start up.

[PGTlatte]

June and July have been extremely busy months with summer activities (camps, classes, etc.), a vacation, and a home improvement project.  I did most of the planning back in May and pretty much everything is here.  August will be quieter and I hope to get some decluttering and organizing done

[Paxjourney]

I'm still firming up what we will be using. I'm using August as our planning month and plan to do lesson plans from September to December which knowing us will also take us thru January.

Grades k/1 and 4th.

[limette]

I've been writing our curriculum for the past 2 months. I finally finished it yesterday. I'm taking August off!

[cosmicpuma]

I have ordered about 3/4 of what I want to get. But I can now start planning at least part of our days. One thing I really need to get is a laminator. I have so many things to laminate before school starts. I am making many games and want to be able to keep them for my son when he gets older so a laminator is a must in my book. So I figure August will be planning time while I also declutter so we have room again for all the homeschool paraphernalia that will come out to play this year. :)

[briansmama]

Knee deep in planning here! We're doing 2nd and a light K this year, using Enki for the first time. I'm so excited to begin this program with my boys- I'm really trying to savor summer too though.

Aside from planning for the first half of the year, I've been mostly organizing and ordering supplies. I've really been trying to get organizing projects done in our art area, where we do most of our crafts, main lessons, and painting. I have a shelf to hang and a magnetic board to finish, as well as a dozen math and Lang arts manipulatives/games to make.

August is going to be a busy, fun month getting everything ready.

[AAK]

No real planning here yet aside from ordering materials.  My oldest though is all about planning.  She came up with a "schedule" for us, created "lockers", and more.  I know that we gave her the option of middle school or homeschool; she choose homeschool, but I think that some of the 'excitement' that her friends have regarding the change to middle school is carrying over.  

I will have a 6th and 3rd grader at home this year.  My Kindergartener is currently enrolled for half-day at the ps.  I won't hesitate to pull her out, but right now she gets very jealous/mad when I work one on one with a sister.  I spend LOTS of one on one time with her too. . . but that apparently isn't the point.  I plan on doing the one on one instruction while she is at school.  We will do group stuff/play stuff when she is home.  

History:  Ancient history -- I don't know a thing about ancient history so I am actually using a curriculum for this this year.  I have story of the world w/activity book for the 3rd grader and History Odyssey level 2 Ancients for the 6th grader.  I could have just done one, but I really wanted to compare the two and my 6th grader is capable of so much more than the 3rd grader that I wanted it to be separate programs so she doesn't directly compare herself to her sister.

Science:  Trying out the one from Pandia Press on Earth/Space.  I am using it for all the girls but plan to adjust/tailor it to each child.  My 6th grader also wants to dissect things so we will be ordering kits for that and taking it however far she wants to go.

Math:  Singapore is our math spine.  3A/3B and 6A/6B.  The 6A/B will be a review for my dd -- we will also be using ALEKS math for her.  We have the right start math games kit that we use with everyone.

Language Arts:  MCT was intense so we are still using last years for now.  Also adding a spectrum language arts for each grade for the gaps.  My third grader will use spectrum writing too.  I really like them as a guide more than anything else.  We like to journal, write letters, stories, etc.  HWT for penmanship.  Spelling is AAS.  Reading/comprehension is through quality literature for my 6th grader.  I also use quality literature read alouds for my third grader for comprehension.  We are still working on fluency etc with her.

Spanish:  6th grader will do Rosetta Stone this year.  3rd grader will play with Spanish and see if she is interested.

Arts:  We have Meet the Masters.  We use it on occasion.  We really like experimenting with different mediums and techniques.  The girls take piano and dance.  They participate in community theater. 

Amy

[etsdtm99]

i'm just starting to plan, first year officially homeschooling for my DD who is starting K .. i bought a planner and i'm putting sticky notes in it, 3 for each week - one with math/science goals, one with writing/reading goals, and one with geography/social studies goals (DD's request)  .. i've spent the past few weeks thinking about what i'd like to do and trying to figure out how to organize it all ... i am just kind of feeling like this is too much..  its all very overwhelming with a 3 yr old and a 10 mo old at home..  i know i don't want to over do it on K but i don't want to do nothing either..  i guess we'll see how it goes!

[OkiMom]

Plans.. yea.. need to plan. Honestly I'm glad I have 1 more year of not really worrying. However, DD is anxious to do something since shes starting to feel the pressure of not going to "school" (thanks FIL, appreciate it). So I need to work on some fun "school" activities for her to do. Shes 4 this year and has a lot of interests we can explore. Ideas:

She wants to learn to read, shes been asking since she was 2 for me to teach her. I finally think shes old enough to stick with it so I'm going to start working with her on it. I want to do some activities in her and her sisters areas of interest. Of course lots of play, art and reading. So far I have
Learning to Read: How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

Art- wants to learn to draw so I'm going to start checking out learn to draw books from the library. They have a large section and some seem easy enough for her to do. I want to set up an art supply area that the girls can experiment with different mediums past crayons, pencils and regular paint brushes. Haven't thought of what all I want to put in it yet or where to set it up. My oldest also has a lot of interest in photography so Ill be helping her develop that (or maybe just teaching her how to point the camera so she stops taking pictures of her face).

Areas of interest- focus on one thing at a time since I'm haven't been very focus lately that will be hard for me. The girls soak it up when I manage to pull it off though.

I want to try to set up some activity boxes for the girls to do when I'm busy with other things.. that way maybe my house will survive.. I love this blog http://playathomemom3.blogspot.com/ lots of fun activities I could adapt to use for the girls.

Lots of outside activities. Story time at the local library, hopefully a home school group but that's proving to be hard. I found out that a lot of the museums around the area have free admittance on certain days for family of active duty military so Ill be taking advantage of that. I want to make sure to do one new activity a month at least. There are a few state parks around we can go hiking and a lot of pick your own fruit places I want to take the girls to one of those. I'm sure there is more but my brain is fried.

[southernmommie]

I still need to buy our supplies for the extra activities we have planned, but for the most part, we're done with buying the curriculum. Yay!! I plan on finishing the lesson plans and field trip schedule this weekend. I want to enjoy summer too with fun stuff for the kids.

[Mittsy]

We have a few more supplies to buy, and I have to put together ds(4.5) Activity Bags for this year. I'm starting to plan our year, just got the 1st month of planning done and lots to go!

[konamama]

subbing for inspiration :-)

[ambersrose]

We started 2nd grade last week.  We usually do not start until the beginning of Sept. but I am due with a baby at the very beginning of October and we plan to take a month off so we had to start early.  I picked out curriculum in late spring and I do weekly detailed lesson plans every Sunday for the coming week.  We are doing Reading and Literature (M,W), Science with a local public school textbook (M,W),  MEP math (T, TH, F) , Story of the World-book 1 (T, TH) and Head of the Class online (M-F) for Spelling, Geography, Spanish and Art.  My second grader will also start a local community homeschool PE and Art class twice a week in mid-September. 

[Citymomx3]

I think we're pretty much all set for this year.  Ds is starting 5th grade.  We plan on using:

Ambleside Online Year 3 (history, science, geography, literature, biographies, artist study, composer study, nature study with the Outdoor Hour Challenge blog as inspiration, & poetry)

Teaching Textbooks Math 7 (maybe Life of Fred as well)

ScienceSaurus

Immersion Spanish

Spelling Skills 5

Simply Grammar

Writing Strands (maybe)

[zebra15]

I'm supposed to have a plan? I will have to get back to you on that  ;)