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

This post contains NO affiliate links

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.

Totally Flipping Brianna's Math

Brianna has several issues that are just part of her life. She has Sensory Processing Disorder, Central Auditory Processing Disorder and probable Dysgraphia. Such is life. We deal with it. Now, however, we are looking at the probability of Dyscalculia.

Brianna is a smart child. Regardless of her alphabet soup of letters between her diagnosed disorders and her probable ones, she still excels in many areas of life. Except math. Math has always been her sore spot. In a sea of straight As in everything else, the highest grade she's ever gotten in math is a C, but most often it's a D or (currently) an F.

While she seemingly has no issues with grades 1 through 4, grade 5 hit her like a lead balloon. It took her 3 tries to make it through Gr. 5 math. She is now on her 2nd try through Gr. 6 math. And yet, she's doing Gr. 8-10 in most other subjects.

Going into the high school years and the fact that she needs at least Gr. 11 math for the college course she wants to take, we obviously need to figure something out.

What we're going to do first is have her do almost all of the chapter tests (thankfully no test anxiety here) from grade 2 to 5. That will hopefully pin point the specific areas she's struggling with.

From there, we're going to spend extra time with Khan Academy, drills and randomized math questions in problem areas. Hopefully we will go back with Math Mammoth in a few months as both she and I enjoy it. We are also looking into Life of Fred and MobyMax.

Weekly Wrap Up - Feb 26th

I'm testing out a new format for Weekly Wrap Up, so bear with me. I'm going to list out our activities per subject to get a better understanding of what we may be missing. This is more for me lol

We got a new computer this week so probably did less schoolwork than we should have while I figured out Windows 10.

It was my birthday on Thursday, so no school (we take off all household birthdays), so we played 3 way Minecraft almost all day. Productive? No. But it was fun lol

Math: Brianna is working on percents. I love that discounts and taxes is a big part of this chapter as it has almost daily real life aspect to it. Olivia is speeding through her adding and subtracting review chapter.

English: Olivia's copy writing this week is writing out O Canada. She's taken to singing it often and almost knows all of it. She's also working through a quick phonics book to review some of the letter sounds she has issues with

Science: Olivia finished up her Senses unit, covering smell and taste this week. We also read The Senses that we got from the library. She was not a fan of the smell of most of my essential oils and was not a fan of the taste challenge at all (not surprisingly with how picky she is).

Geography/History: Brianna looked up and drew a picture of our "latitude twin", Bordeaux, France. She remembered how to tell if a location was north or south of us, just by looking at her daylight graphs.

Olivia told us about the tundra and permafrost at the poles. Then decided she was going to watch Happy Feet and March of the Penguins to remember more about the South Pole

French: Brianna has been really excelling at French, coming up with her own sentences with words she's learned. Olivia is busy absorbing and questioning (which helps Brianna since she can't just spew out French words, she has to know the English translation to answer Olivia's questions)

Health/Phys Ed.: We got snow and ice this week, so me and the girls worked together to shovel ours and our neighbour's walkways and driveways. Brianna did her cardio workout twice and ran on the treadmill once for her running training.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

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

6 Tips for the Budget Conscious Homeschooler

I don't hide it, I'm poor. According to the Canadian Government, my family lives below the poverty line. Honestly, I'm ok with this. Suuuuure, it would make life easier to have more money, but I make do with what we've got to work with.

Of course, being poor translates into cheap frugal homeschooling. You can homeschool with loads of money to spend or zero money to spend. I could easily (well easily in my opinion cause I'm a little nuts about my love of researching stuff) homeschool all of my kids without spending anything more than ink, paper and pencils. Some people don't even do the ink and paper part! But, while I'm poor, I like to shop. I am cheap frugal though. I look for free stuff, awesome sales and used curriculum.

There's a zillion ideas for homeschoolers to save money, but here's my top 6 that I used most frequently.

1. Don't buy a several items of a new curriculum choice.

When I first started homeschooling Brianna, I went with Complete Canadian Curriculum books that I purchased from the book store. I figured they'd be perfect for us! As it turned out, I didn't like these, Brianna didn't like these, and it ended up being a waste of money. Now these books were only around the $20 mark each, but when we had several of them, it adds up.The Complete *individual subject* Smart books were better as we could use whatever grade level we needed and they were more in depth. We still didn't enjoy them a lot. They went into too much busy work but not enough detail for the stuff Brianna wanted to learn or do. Again, only $15 books, but when you have several.... (if you're just looking at a cheap supplement though, they can work)

2. The library is your best friend.

The library, provided it has a good children's department, will provide you and your kid(s) with oodles of books on a gazillion topics. Sure the internet can provide you with a lot of the same research material, but there's just something about laying out the table with a fat stack of books.

Some libraries also have free (and sometimes cheap pay) programs which you can use to your homeschool's advantage. Brianna does a Read to Ride program each summer which gives children a free bus pass for the summer in exchange for giving oral book reports to the librarians. Brianna's also done a yoga program and a movie program at the library.

3. Look for used curriculum sales.

They can be found online (facebook is my "dealer" of choice), they can be found at homeschool conventions. You can find stuff that's super cheap and even "free for shipping" and you can find more expensive stuff for a heck of a lot less than the company sells them for new. Some stuff people list are brand new (curriculum hoarders lol this will be me once all 3 kids are out of the lower grades).

4. Curriculum co-ops or just co-ops in general.

Homeschool Buyers Coop is fantastic. They offer a HUGE variety of curriculum at great discounts. I've gotten deals as high as 80% off. They also offer some free gems for members. My favorite is the Homeschooler ID cards. We're cheap so we print out the free ones and laminate our own, but for a small fee HBC will mail you hard laminated ID cards.

Local homeschool co-ops can be a great source as well. Chances are, *someone* is going to have kids older than yours. Maybe they used a re-usable curriculum that they are done with and are happy to give you or sell to you for cheap. Ya never know unless you ask! These are also great people to ask for reviews on curriculum you are considering. If they still use it/own it, you could even ask to get a hands-on look through (something I prefer over seeing a "preview" online).

5. Find and bookmark great free sites.

As is pretty obvious in my blog, 1+1+1=1 is hands down my favorite preschool/Kindergarten printables site. While she does have some printables that cost money, they are all very reasonable costs and majority of her content is completely free.

Khan Academy is a glorious free site. It mostly focuses on math, but also has some science, arts, economics and test prep. We love it because I can assign topics to Brianna and every one of them has a teaching video (or several) to go with it.

6. Don't be afraid to make your own curriculum.

With a little research and effort, you can make a lot of your own curriculum out of your own imagination. Before we settled on Math Mammoth we used a variety of math curriculum. They either didn't come with year end tests or I didn't like them. So I made my own. Going through the book, I gathered all of the main topics learned and made up my own math problems.

Another (that I'm in the middle of working on right now) is how to effectively grocery shop to get the best bang for your buck. I constantly see people saying they spend many hundreds of dollars on groceries in a month. I spend roughly $400-450 a month for a family of 6 in Canada (where our grocery prices can be double what they are n the US). I want to teach Brianna how I do it in great detail. I want her to put what I teach her into practice shopping for the family. No such curriculum for that exists. I make my own.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and Real Life at Home.

Current Curriculum May 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 officially started "Preschool" on Feb 6, 2012. We don't follow specific grades but Brianna is anywhere from Gr. 5-8 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:

We've just bought a subscription to ABCMouse.com and Olivia's loving it so far! It has all the way from Toddlers to the end of Kindergarten. We're starting 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. 

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.

We have a stack of assorted workbooks but those are totally 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 Junior (or 4 yr old) Kindergarten, I don't feel the need to focus on seat work. I do, however, encourage her any time she's in the mood for it!

Olivia will also be running in the kids fun run again this year. She loved doing it last year and was soooo happy to hear that I would "let" her do it again! She keeps wanting to do Brianna's training runs with her, so I've made a *much* smaller route for her that Brianna runs with her. She thinks it's just great!

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!

We're going to be reading through the Little House series (and probably again in a few years) along with repetitively reading through her first readers.


Brianna: 

Math: 
We're really liking Math Mammoth. It's almost self-teaching once a kid can read. I like it so much I've actually bought every grade from 1 through 6 of it! Hopefully it works well for Olivia and Joshua! We're also working our way through Khan Academy. Brianna really likes the videos explaining new concepts. And of course, the math review in her daily binder. She is currently doing Gr. 5 math, again, as she had a long period of shoddy work ethic going on. I've heard a few people sarcastically state that the reason why homeschoolers score higher than public schoolers is because mom would of course give top grades. Not here! Brianna'll tell you how mean I am lol

English: 
We're using Scott Foresman English for Gr. 6, but it ends there so we're in search of a new English curriculum. We're running through McGraw-Hill's spelling just to get back into it, but otherwise, for spelling I just follow her work. 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 (10 questions of varying math problems/vocabulary), penmanship and 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 writing prompts).

History/Geography: 
We're going to do a quick review on Canada and general mapping then move on to Country Weeks! We're going to pick a new country each week and learn all about them. Some of what we're using are History of the World, Geography of the World and Animals of the World. We'll also be using a print out from Scholastic called Cool Country Report. 

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. Human biology and natural disasters being two of them. She will also be doing a week long science camp in July, which is is over the moon excited for!

French: 
We will be doing Rosetta Stone and using Living Languages for extra activities. Rosetta Stone is a new one for us, but I've heard rave reviews from many people on it. She's done Living Languages with my sister before, but due to extenuating circumstances has not been for the last year. Now, we'll be getting back into it.

Art/Music: 
Brianna wants to learn guitar and we have a child's guitar and a great book - The Complete Guitar Manual so we'll give it a shot. I also need to fix my flute as Brianna was learning to play that. Later this month, she'll be taking an all day class (or two) on stained glass making.

Phys Ed/Health: 
Brianna runs with a local MultiSport club. I posted about her running season for the year. We'll be hitting the public pool during off hours to work on her laps as that is her sore spot for her triathlon. Grandma is also doing a Nutrition class.

Computer: 
Brianna loves Garfield's Typing Pals which focuses on speed and accuracy, so we'll be continuing with that. She's also be champing at the bit for a Minecraft account, which is currently up for discussion.

Life Skills: 
The garden is going in in the next couple weeks, so Brianna will be doing a large part of that. She's also cooking more and more, learning new recipes and techniques. It helps that Grandma recently graduated culinary school (with honours!), so she is the main teacher there. Brianna is still working on her cross stitching and knitting, but is also starting to learn to crochet and sew. We'll be replacing the walkway this year, so she'll help and learn how to do that properly. It is hopefully in our plans as well, to wall off her play room in the basement to turn it into a bedroom for her. She'll help with the drywalling and such there.

Adding this to Weird Unsocialized Homeschooler's Weekly Wrap Up and planning is what I've been doing all week!