My Disorganized But Organized Homeschool

Week 2 of iHomeschool Network's Back to School Blog Hop is School Room Week. We show off our work spaces, our storage, our school rooms (if we have them). This is my favorite week of the Blog Hop. I love snooping in other people's school rooms and gathering ideas for our own. Especially people who, like us, do not have a dedicated school room.

I live in organized chaos.

We have a fair sized home. But no where to really call a school room. Most of our schooling happens at the kitchen table, the couch or the front porch. Most of our supplies and curriculum are stored in our over-sized (for it's purpose) laundry room.

This is my pile. Multiple weeks of work printed, my read alouds, Olivia's readers and Brianna's Biology text for me to put comprehension questions out of. The pile and the binder cubby is on/in my desk. My computer holds a world of carefully organized bookmarks to about a million sites and a folder of precisely organized ebooks. I'm slightly crazy.

These are the girls daily work folders. Most of Brianna's schoolwork is on the computer now, but her folder holds her notebooks and Pathfinder journal and notes. Olivia's holds her current math, English, reading words, spelling books and Brownie journal.

This is the school closet in the laundry room. The top shelf is board games. The 2 other shelves are various art supplies, small kits and manipulatives. One the left set of drawers is my photocopier and for some reason, our flute. In the drawers are various art supplies and school dvds. On the middle tower is completed work that I need to sort into their kept-work binders and our globe. In those drawers are various often used supplies (glue sticks, craft paper, ect...).  On the 3rd tower is Brianna's French knitter. In the drawers are a zillion supplies - pencils, staples, post it note, blank notebooks, manila folders, ect... Almost everything we need outside of curriculum is found in this closet.

Our very picked through bookshelf (most books are in the kids rooms or in current use) and our guitar. To the side is a bin of books that are between the girls' reading levels.

This pantry holds the curriculum for the grades we are not currently using as well as our science kits. The top shelf is zip binders of the kids completed work that we've decided to keep.

Our main work area, the kitchen table. On it is Brianna's laptop, the school bin (a bin of pencils, a math kit, glue sticks, calculator, ect...), the marker tower, Joshua's preschool bin (laminated printables), and our teaching clock. On the wall we have the lyrics to O' Canada, maps of Canada and the world and a cursive writing chart.

Current Curriculum - September 2016

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Previous post from last July here.

This post coincides with iHomeschool Network's Annual Blog Hop. This week (which I'm late on!) is Curriculum Week. Check next week for School Room Week.

We school year round and don't really follow grades. Brianna started Nov 15, 2010 coming from 3rd grade in public school and will go until whenever of whatever year. Olivia started "Preschool" on Feb 6, 2012. Joshua started "Preschool" on Sept 6, 2016. We don't follow specific grades but Brianna is anywhere from Gr. 6-10, Olivia is anywhere from Gr. 1-3, Joshua is preschool/Kindy. 

So, since we don't have set grades or set school years, I figure every 6 mths-ish I'll post what we are currently working on. We use a mishmash of traditional homeschool curriculum, workbooks bought at teacher supply stores, stuff made up completely in my head and most subjects are supplemented by printed worksheets from various sites and of course, library books. In a nut shell, we're eclectic homeschoolers.

Joshua:

He's juuuust starting out so is mostly using left overs from Olivia as we see what he like/works well for him. Some of the more common printables that we're grabbing are from 1+1+1=1, Our Little Monkeys, Homeschool Creations, Confessions of a Homeschooler and Teachers Pay Teachers.

He's still working on speech with his speech therapist. At the time of this writing, he is approx 1 year "behind" in his speech for the typical 3 yr 3 mth old child. This is WAY better than his completely non verbal-ness from a few months ago, so we'll take it! We still make use of sign language. He still uses it for words he doesn't know and we'll use it when we are trying to figure out his gibberish.

Once he has a better grasp on constant language we'll start ABCMouse with him. Olivia really liked it and he loved watching her when she did her lessons so is already familiar with it.

Olivia:

English:

We're playing around in Brave Writer's "Jot it Down" program which focuses on dictation for Olivia's age group. We do dictations for Brave Writer's Friday Freewrite and to write her Brownie Journal (basically, what she did at Brownies on a given day).

We're almost done 1+1+1=1's You Can Read program. Olivia picked up a lot of the more "sight" words with that. We feel that phonetic learning is highly important over memorizing sight words so we're spending a lot of effort on letter sounds, blending sounds and sounding out short words. We have oodles of early readers that we share in reading and Olivia is reading more and more of the words in each book. 

In the spring started Reading Eggs, an online program like ABC Mouse, but instead of learning sounds, she's now using it to read. She loves it and asks to work on it even on the weekends.

Math:
Olivia is almost done Early Math on Khan Academy. Her main curriculum is Math Mammoth, in which she just started the Gr. 2 level. It worked well for her for Gr. 1, so I hope it continues to!

With our ReadingEggs subscription came a subscription to MathSeeds which is meant for 3-8 year olds. MathSeeds starts out really young (Olivia was being made to identify numbers), but she doesn't seem to care. I'm not sure (since she didn't care) if there is a test out area to start at a higher level.

Extra Curricular:
Olivia just finished her 2nd year of soccer. She has grown so much in it since last year. Last year she would pick grass and stare off into space. This year she actively took part in drills, actually went after the ball on the field and even scored 2 goals!

Olivia joined Brownies this year. I was a Brownie as a girl, so was super excited for her to start. For some reason, she's picking up on Brianna's "I can't sleep away" and is nervous about the possibility of camps. She's slept at a friend's house several times with no issue, so I don't think it'll be a problem, but she sure thinks it will be!

Brianna: 

Math: 
We really like Math Mammoth. It's almost self-teaching once a kid can read. It breaks the new concepts down into step by step instructions. However, she's been struggling so much with math that we're trying something new altogether. We've started Time4Learning. She responds really well to "computer school work" so I'm hoping this helps with her math. We're also slowly working our way through Khan Academy. Brianna really likes the videos explaining new concepts. 

Brianna struggles a lot with math so she's "behind", only doing Gr. 6. But that's the beauty of homeschooling. She can be working on Gr. 10/11 science while being years behind in math. Math is something that we spend a lot of time trying out different things for.

English: 
We're semi-using Brave Writer's "Writer's Jungle" (bits and pieces, at least) Brianna especially enjoys their Poetry Teatimes. For spelling, as always, we don't do a lot of focus on spelling because of Brianna's Dysgraphia. Her spelling HAS improved on it's own through the use of texting, social media and using spell check on her typed work. We'll be doing NaNoWriMo for the 3rd time. The first year, she struggled to hit 12,000 words. Last year she did an impressive 20,000 and wasn't even done her story! We use CNN's Student News for daily writing (we watch the clip and she picks one topic to write a summary about).

French: 
Brianna is almost done her first year of Rosetta Stone. My grandma bought the kids the full 5 year lesson set, so she'll be good through high school. Duolingo has an app for her phone for extra, on-the-go practice. One of our neighbours tests Brianna's French periodically.

Arts: 
Brianna wants to learn guitar and we have a child's guitar and a great book - The Complete Guitar Manual, hopefully we can get around to that. She also wants to get back into playing the flute (which is currently under repairs). Hopefully she can be encouraged to put in a stronger, more frequent effort this time.

She has expressed interest in learning about some Shakespeare, so we'll  learn about him and read/watch some plays. 

She wants to do some basic art lessons to improve her drawing, so I'm looking into some good lessons for that. She also wants to learn to sew. She took a crochet class in the winter and will hopefully look to improve further in that.

Phys Ed/Health: 
Brianna normally runs with the Cornwall MultiSport Club. This year I had back to back surgeries, one being major abdominal surgery, so her coach was out of commission for the summer. Brianna is very much not self-motivating, but we hope to get her back into basic training now that I'm almost 100%. She is still walking/running/biking 10k for Terry Fox this year. She does youth yoga classes a couple times a month and yoga videos at home. Because she is overly flexible, she loves it and it greatly improves her balance and fidgeting.

Civics:
We took part in our town's first Pride parade this year, so there will be a lot of diversity learning going on in the near future. 

Life Skills: 
Brianna babysits and does random jobs for neighbours. Because of the sudden influx of money, she's learning about comparing prices and smart spending. She's looking forward to being able to get a "real" job in a couple years. She's also becoming more responsible for getting her schoolwork and chores done with less interference from us. 

Extra Curriculars:
Like Olivia, Brianna is signed up for Girl Guides this year. For her age group, she will be in PathFinders. As she has anxieties about sleeping away from home, she is super nervous about camps, but we will be trying to get her to sleepover more in the coming months at various friends' so she can try to get used to it. She also joined a Teen Tuesday program through the library where she gets to hang out with kids her age and do various activities. 


Both Girls:

History/Geography: 
We're are going to start doing Country Studies again. The kids really enjoyed them. We read about the countries, find them on maps, watch videos about them and make a bunch of food from that country. I made both Brianna and Olivia's country reports on Microsoft Word because I couldn't find anything I liked that wouldn't cost me an arm and a leg. If I can figure out how to share them here, I will. We'll be reading through History of the World and Geography of the World as our his/geo base outside of the Country Studies. 

Science:
We're currently finishing up on our Biology course. After that, we'll be taking a break from a set topic while I can put together a Weather unit. Since we live in Canada and winter is coming, it works lol Both girls went to science camp over the summer and had a blast. 

Arts:
I want to work on art some more. Brianna loves it but is fairly terrible lol So she wants to learn little ways to make her art better. Olivia on the other hand, has this idea that her drawings aren't good enough. No telling her otherwise changes her mind :( So for both girls, we'll be doing some basic art lessons, using a variety of mediums and styles.

Reading:
I made a post here about our reading plans for the year, with book titles and links.

Weekly Wrap Up - 9/9/16

We school year round but this was our first week back on full schedule. This was also Joshua's first week of school ever!

I started using a paper agenda for Brianna this summer. It's really benefited her. Olivia insisted on having a paper schedule too. There aren't agendas meant for lower elementary, so I just bought her a plain notebook and hand wrote her agenda.

We had a bit of a rough time with Olivia. A lot more writing work is expected of her this year and she is not a fan.

Brianna has started Time4Learning and she loves it! We are using it as her full math curriculum in place of Math Mammoth as she is struggling hard. I am hoping that something new will kick start her brain a bit. We're also using the English, Science and Social Studies parts of it, but more as a supplement to the stuff we already do.

Olivia started Brownies this week and absolutely loves it! She can't wait to get her uniform and go back every week.

Learning her Brownie Promise

Joshua had a good week. I'll have a full Tot School blog post in a couple days, but it's safe to say he's enjoying himself!

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and Hip Homeschool Moms

 

Current Curriculum July 2015

This post contains NO affiliate links

Previous post from last Sept here.

We school year round and don't really follow grades. Brianna started Nov 15, 2010 coming from 3rd grade in public school and will go until whenever of whatever year. Olivia started "Preschool" on Feb 6, 2012. We don't follow specific grades but Brianna is anywhere from Gr. 6-10 and Olivia is mostly Gr 1, a little Kindy and some Gr. 2. 

So, since we don't have set grades or set school years, I figure every 6 mths-ish I'll post what we are currently working on. We use a mishmash of traditional homeschool curriculum, workbooks bought at teacher supply stores, stuff made up completely in my head and most subjects are supplemented by printed worksheets from various sites and of course, library books. In a nut shell, we're eclectic homeschoolers.

Olivia:

We have a subscription to ABCMouse.com and Olivia really likes it! It has all the way from Toddlers to the end of Kindergarten. This program added on a couple more levels, but only lists levels not grades, so I don't know where the program ends after Kindergarten. Olivia is still learning to control the computer so she's a little slower going here than in her paper school work.

For printables we mostly use 1+1+1=1 (there's also great tot school and preschool printables here!). Confessions of a Homeschooler also has great printables. I love 1+1+1=1 as they have a lot of themed units. They cover a wide variety of skills but under one theme (Olivia has done cats, pizza, Octonauts and more). Even though most of them are below her skill levels, she really enjoys them so we keep doing them. 1+1+1=1 now has literature units as well.

English:

We'll start dabbling in Brave Writer's "Jot it Down" program which focuses on dictation for Olivia's age group. We'll start up 1+1+1=1's You Can Read program once Olivia is more comfortable in phonics. We feel that phonetic learning is highly important over memorizing sight words so we're spending a lot of effort on letter sounds, blending sounds and sounding out short words.


Math:
Olivia has started Early Math on Khan Academy. She is super proud to be doing Khan just like Brianna. Her computer skills are still lacking, so Khan is definitely something that we do together, though she is getting better at navigating. 

Olivia loves to help take care of Joshua, cooking and household chores. We, of course, encourage her as much as possible!

Phys Ed./Health:
Olivia has started running like Brianna. This year, like last, she ran in the fun run this month and will be taking part in the Cornwall Triathlon, doing a duathlon, next month. She's also in U7 Soccer this year. The kids play weekly and Olivia seems to really enjoy it.

Brianna: 

Math: 
We really like Math Mammoth. It's almost self-teaching once a kid can read. It breaks the new concepts down into step by step instructions in a way that really gets through to Brianna. Math Mammoth goes only to Gr. 7, so once she's done that, I'll be looking for a new curriculum for Algebra and the like. We're also slowly working our way through Khan Academy. Brianna really likes the videos explaining new concepts. 

English: 
We're using Brave Writer's "Writer's Jungle" again this year. Brianna's especially enjoys their Poetry Teatimes, which we'll be starting again in the fall. For spelling, I keep track of words she has spelled wrong in her general school work and base spelling practice off of that. We'll be doing NaNoWriMo again this year. She took part last year and wrote an impressive 12,000+ words. Amazing who someone who often struggles with writing a few pages. This year, we'll be starting early with NaNoWriMo's educator's lesson plans.

French: 
We will be doing Rosetta Stone now that Brianna has her own laptop to install it on. Brianna already knows more French than I do, so thankfully Rosetta Stone is a self-teaching course! We'll be using Living Languages for extra activities. Duolingo has an app for her phone for extra, on-the-go practice. One of our neighbours has offered to test Brianna's French periodically.

Arts: 
Brianna wants to learn guitar and we have a child's guitar and a great book - The Complete Guitar Manual, hopefully we can get around to that. She also wants to get back into playing the flute (which is currently under repairs). Hopefully she can be encouraged to put in a stronger, more frequent effort this time.

She has expressed interest in learning about some Shakespeare, so we'll  learn about him and read/watch some plays. 

Phys Ed/Health: 
Brianna runs with a local MultiSport club. Her last run of the year is her Terry Fox run on Sept 14th. She actually bikes the Terry Fox run, but as she chooses to do the biggest route (10km), it's certainly nothing to laugh at! Once that is done, she's done until May. She'll spend that time doing training at least twice a week (running, yoga, strength training, cardio) and of course, we live in Canada, so there's always snow to shovel! 

Computer: 
Brianna and Olivia both have Minecraft accounts. I'm currently looking for cool educational ideas for it as I know many are out there. But for now, both girls are just working on computer skills and building. Brianna is learning to use the MinecraftWiki to research how to do or use various aspects of the game.

Civics:
This fall we're doing a study on Canadian government and our Prime Ministers from Confederation to present. We have a federal election this fall and will be tracking the candidates and their platforms. We're using various books and sites like Canada Votes, Exploring Canada and a cool Prime Ministers of Canada set that I got from the Library and Archives of Canada

Life Skills: 
Brianna has taken on babysitting and dog poop scooping jobs from our neighbours. This is teaching her a great deal about responsibility and money. Because of the sudden influx of money, she's learning about comparing prices and smart spending. She's also becoming more responsible for getting her schoolwork and chores done with less interference from us. 


Both:

History/Geography: 
Lee and I are driving across country at the end of August and the girls will be tracking us and learning about various places as we go.

We're continuing to do Country Studies. The kids have really enjoyed them so far. We read about the countries, find them on maps, watch videos about them and make a bunch of food from that country. We'll be using History of the World and Geography of the World at home and whatever oodles of books we can snag from the library. World Atlas is fantastic for maps and National Geographic Kids has a bunch of videos and articles I made both Brianna and Olivia's country reports on Microsoft Word because I couldn't find anything I liked that wouldn't cost me an arm and a leg. If I can figure out how to share them here, I will.

Science:
For the most part, science is done through day to day life with no set curriculum. We'll be doing a lot of interest based topics. Both girls want to do the human body. We'll have to do a refresher in a few years for Olivia, but with the random stuff she picks up on of Brianna's school work, I'm not worried about doing a joint class with them. Brianna got an ant farm for her birthday and the girls are fascinated with watching it.  

Arts:
I want to work on art some more. Brianna loves it but is fairly terrible lol So she wants to learn little ways to make her art better. Olivia on the other hand, has this idea that her drawings aren't good enough. No telling her otherwise changes her mind :( So for both girls, we'll be doing some basic art lessons, using a variety of mediums and styles.

Joshua:

He will to continue to be cute and get into stuff and steal school work *wink*


Linking up with the iHomeschool Network

Current Curriculum - September 2014

This post contains NO affiliate links

We school year round and don't really follow grades. Brianna started Nov 15, 2010 coming from 3rd grade in public school and will go until whenever of whatever year. Olivia started "Preschool" on Feb 6, 2012. We don't follow specific grades but Brianna is anywhere from Gr. 6-9 and Olivia is generally Kindergarten, some Gr 1. 

So, since we don't have set grades or set school years, I figure every 4-6 mths I'll post what we are currently working on. We use a mishmash of traditional homeschool curriculum, workbooks bought at teacher supply stores, stuff made up completely in my head and most subjects are supplemented by printed worksheets from various sites and of course, library books. In a nut shell, we're eclectic homeschoolers.

Olivia:

Olivia will now start daily school work. Previously we did school work whenever I thought to ask her if she'd like to, or if she asked for it. Now, we will do something every day. Certainly not 6-8 hours of school, but at least one worksheet or game or project or craft every day.

We bought a subscription to ABCMouse.com and Olivia loves it! It has all the way from Toddlers to the end of Kindergarten. We started from the pre-school path, only because Olivia has had very little use of the computer mouse before. She knows most of the activities they show her, but she's also learning how to control the mouse, so it's a win-win. She's roughly half way through the pre-school program right now.

For printables we mostly use 1+1+1=1 (there's also great tot school and preschool printables here!). Confessions of a Homeschooler also has great printables. I love 1+1+1=1 as they have a lot of themed units. They cover a wide variety of skills but under one theme (Olivia has done cats, pizza, Octonauts and more).

We'll start dabbling in Brave Writer's "Jot it Down" program which focuses on dictation for Olivia's age group. And we'll pick up 1+1+1=1's You Can Read program again later in the fall.

We have a stack of assorted workbooks but those are on a "if Olivia feels like it" basis. Some weeks she'll do 20+ pages, other weeks she'll do zero. As she's only "supposed to be" (by her age in public school) in Kindergarten, I don't feel the need to focus on so much seat work. I do, however, encourage her any time she's in the mood for it!

These are the items left on her "needs to know" by the end of Kindergarten list:

* Identifying all upper case and lower case letters (she knows approx 90% of upper case and 50% of lower case)
* Cuts simple shapes
* Phonics
* Beginning writing process
* Meaning of addition and subtraction
* Introduction to number line
* Calendar (I'll be doing a calendar board with her each day, full blog post later about it)
* Denominations of money (she's already very interested in what the coins are called so I don't see this being an issue)
* Basic chart and graph concepts

Olivia loves to help take care of Joshua, cooking and household chores (unless it involves cleaning up her toys lol). We, of course, encourage her as much as possible!


Brianna: 

Math: 
We really Math Mammoth. It's almost self-teaching once a kid can read. It breaks the new concepts down into step by step instructions in a way that really gets through to Brianna. Sadly we're on our last year and will have to find a new regular math curriculum. We're also slowly working our way through Khan Academy. Brianna really likes the videos explaining new concepts. Also, the math review in her daily binder. 

English: 
We jump into Brave Writer's "Writer's Jungle" this year! Brianna's especially looking forward to their Poetry Teatimes. We were using McGraw-Hill's spelling, but the site is currently down and there's no indication of when it will be back up. Brianna enjoys the curriculum though and it has greatly improved her poor spelling in the last few months, so I hope to be able to use it again. Generally though, I keep track of words she has spelled wrong in her general school work and base spelling practise off of that.

Daily Binders: 
Each day she has a math review (5 questions of varying math problems/vocabulary), handwriting practice, vocabulary (words that she has misread/mispronounced have to be looked up in the dictionary for their definition and a sentence with the word made), and journal (with various quick writing prompts).

French: 
We will FINALLY be doing Rosetta Stone! Life has just gotten in the way of using it previously but now Brianna is flat out asking to do it, so I know I need to *make* time for it. We'll be using Living Languages for extra activities. Brianna already knows more French than I do, so thankfully Rosetta Stone is a self-teaching course!

Arts: 
Brianna wants to learn guitar and we have a child's guitar and a great book - The Complete Guitar Manual, hopefully we can get around to that. She has also expressed interest in learning about some Shakespeare, so we'll  learn about him and read/watch some plays.

Phys Ed/Health: 
Brianna runs with a local MultiSport club. Her last run of the year is her Terry Fox run on Sept 14th. She actually bikes the Terry Fox run, but as she chooses to do the biggest route (10km), it's certainly nothing to laugh at! Once that is done, she's done until May. She'll spend that time doing training at least twice a week (running, yoga, strength training, cardio) and of course, we live in Canada, so there's always snow to shovel! We'll also be going over substance abuse and sexually transmitted diseases. 

Computer: 
Brianna was using Garfield's Typing Pals which focuses on speed and accuracy. Now that she has a cell and texts, her speed has gone up drastically, but her accuracy needs some work, so we'll go back to using that. She's also been champing at the bit for a Minecraft account, which is currently up for discussion, depending on work ethic of her school work. Up for discussion (between Lee and I, not Brianna yet) is Brianna getting her own laptop (that isn't older than her like her current one). As she gets older, especially her English work is getting to be more research intensive and she does much better "long" assignments on the computer as opposed to writing by hand.

Life Skills: 
Brianna is learning more and more grown-up tasks, like mowing the lawn and trimming shrubs/brush. We're working on her being more responsible for her time in order to get the stuff that she needs and wants to do done. She's starting to do more cooking/baking from scratch (great-grandma even pays her to make her favorite oatmeal cookies) but we're going to work on her doing some meal planning as right now it's just me telling her what to cook. She really wants to learn to sew. I am up to my ears in sewing for customers, I just don't want to look at my machine if I don't have to lol So we've signed her up for a pre-teen sewing class this fall/winter. We didn't get her basement room drywalled, re-ceiling-ed and insulated, but it *needs* to be done before my basement turns into an ice cube for the winter, so more learning there!


Both:

History/Geography: 
We're continuing to do Country Studies. The kids have really enjoyed them so far. We read about the countries, find them on maps, watch videos about them and make a bunch of food from that country. We'll be using History of the World and Geography of the World at home and whatever oodles of books we can snag from the library. World Atlas is fantastic for maps and National Geographic Kids has a bunch of videos and articles I made both Brianna and Olivia's country reports on Microsoft Word because I couldn't find anything I liked that wouldn't cost me an arm and a leg. If I can figure out how to share them here, I will.

Science:
For the most part, science is done through day to day life with no set curriculum. We'll be doing a lot of interest based topics. One thing we'll be doing is identifying everything in the yard. Plants, animals, bugs, rocks. It'll take us a few weeks, but with the help of the library and internet, we should be able to identify everything! Both girls want to do the human body. We'll have to do a refresher in a few years for Olivia, but with the random stuff she picks up on of Brianna's school work, I'm not worried about doing a joint class with them.

Arts:
I want to work on art some more. Brianna loves it but is fairly terrible lol So she wants to learn little ways to make her art better. Olivia on the other hand, has this idea that her drawings aren't good enough. No telling her otherwise changes her mind :( So for both girls, we'll be going over simple art techniques.

Joshua:

He will to continue to be cute and get into stuff and steal school work *wink*


Linking up with the iHomeschool Network