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.

My New Mom's Planner!

So, like a LOT of people, I live on my smartphone. However, I love a good pencil and paper. I still do my budget by hand, with paper and pencil. I use spreadsheets all the time for other things. But certain things just require pencil and paper.

I've made a planner before and failed. I discovered it was too long. I'd get bored and keep forgetting to write in it. The beauty of making a planner as opposed to buying one is that it's completely custom. I can't keep a planner for a whole year so I make one for 3 or 4 months. I don't need school phone numbers or dry cleaner numbers. I don't add them. I DO need a cleaning schedule because I'm a terrible housekeeper and no planners have that.

Insert - I'm bored and like to play with Microsoft Word and print stuff.

I'm left handed so coil binding or Steno-style is pretty much required.

Daily, weekly and monthly cleaning schedule for my lazy house-work-hating self

Full year calendar with days off school

Master Grocery List

It's titled pantry inventory, but really it's my "basement food" inventory

I don't follow meal planning in the sense of this is what we WILL eat this day, but having many meals written out, gives me ideas and prevents too much cereal or take out for supper

Living in an old house, there's always fixing to do

In correlation with my weight loss efforts, I have this tracking page....

And this workout tracking page

In a plea to appeal Brianna to math, I came up with math points in which she can earn Minecraft time or money

In response, she asked to also have to opportunity to earn chore points.

Major school plans

Keeping track of curriculum used

Thus far it's been working well. We've been eating real food and my housework is at least getting done better than before.

I'll be working on sharing the pdf files I make her on the blog. For now though, if you can work simple programs through Word, feel free to copy them :)

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.

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

Weekly Wrap Up

We started something new. One of Brianna's oft excuses are "I didn't know where my work was." So I bought her a planner to write all her assignments in and a file folder system to keep all her work in. She likes this idea for the moment. I figured we'd start while we're still in the slower summer schedule as to ease into it.

It's permanent location will not be over the coat rack lol

Brianna learned to mow the lawn.

Our garden is doing fantastic.

Olivia planned and explained an intricate "secret plan"

The girls and I watched Magic School Bus's Get's a Bright Idea and read MSB's Makes a Rainbow and did some light travelling experiments with a worksheet I found. Going along with the topic of light, Brianna did a little research on Thomas Edison.

Brianna got all of her predictions correct

Olivia was fascinated with how the light bounced with the mirror

Brianna finished up Chapter 2 in math. Chapter 3 is decimals so she should fly through it!

The girls had a movie day and scavenger hunt with their Park Leaders program. Olivia's first all day program away from home!

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Summer Curriculum

Here's a look at our plans over the summer in regards to school.

Because we homeschool I, of course, plan to lock the kids in closets all summer and beat them with books. We can't have them socializing, now can we?! Ok, so maybe I've heard the S word too often lately lol Here's what's really going on.

Brianna has a zillion activities as usual! She's doing a science camp next week and a sewing camp in August. Brianna also goes swimming at a local outdoor pool with friends most afternoons. Olivia would have joined soccer this year, but the only group that allowed 4 year olds was almost an hour away, so we'll wait til next year.

Brianna also does a Park Leaders program at the neighbourhood park Tues-Fri mornings. Olivia even gets to join her this year! Unfortunately this is officially Brianna's last year, but I'm hoping since our park has a small group that she can be allowed to go with Olivia for a couple more years, even if it's only as a "helper".

Brianna and Olivia both joined the Read to Ride program with the library. In exchange for giving weekly oral book reports to the librarians, they get a sticker on their library cards that allows them on the city buses free (with an adult for Olivia!). Brianna loves it because she can go to the library any time without worrying about the heat and humidity (the library is quite a hike away) and Olivia just loves the bus!

Both girls ran a fun run today (which also happens to be Brianna's birthday!). Olivia is over the moon, thrilled for another race! It's all she talked about all week. Brianna has her 4th triathlon next month. She really needs to step up the pace in her training if she wants to beat her time from last year. She has great plans to do training and then forgets them quickly lol We're working on figuring out some kind of schedule for her to follow that works around the heat but still gets her running at least a few times a week.

As for actual school:

Brianna and I are doing a joint writing project. Each day we add to a story. Just 10 minutes of writing for each of us. Brianna thinks it's great both because it's something we're doing together, but also because it only requires 10 minutes of writing (she has a lot of issues putting thoughts to paper so "hates" writing). We've only been at it a few days, but it's fun so far. Sometimes it's hard to figure out what to write after Brianna's sometimes scrambled line of thought, but by reading what I write, she's also (without realizing it) learning proper writing style, grammar, punctuation, ect...

I'm also throwing spelling review at her once a week or so. Which, while I find it tedious, appears to be working as he spelling has *greatly* improved over the last couple of months. What ever works, eh?

Normally we'd slow down drastically in the math department, but Brianna wants to "catch up" her math as she's a year "behind". So we're working our way through Math Mammoth's Gr. 6 curriculum over the summer. I certainly don't expect her to finish it in 2 mths, but by doing a regular amount of pages rather than our summer amount of pages, she'll get a great head start.

We are still doing our country studies but we'll spread it over 2-3 weeks instead of cramming everything into 1 week. I had considered stopping them for the summer but as soon as we were winding down with Iceland, Brianna was harassing me about what our next country was. So we'll continue.

Olivia is in Kindergarten so already has quite the watered down schedule. To be honest, I do school with her whenever she asks for it or I think to ask her if she wants to do some. This works out to be, on average, 1-3 times a week. As she's still technically "ahead" if she was in public school, I'm not worried.

Over the summer, we're working on telling time, calendars, drawing shapes and convincing her to write her name more often. We'll also be working on making sure she's got all of her letters down, capital and lowercase and start working more on letter sounds.

Year-Round Homeschooling

Otherwise known as "OMG! You make your kids do school in the summer!?"

We school year-round. That is, we don't "do" summer break. Sure we may take a few days to a week off here any there, but for the most part we school all summer.

We homeschooled through the summer even when Brianna was still in public school. Summer learning loss is very real and the results of it can be seen every September in public schools (or Aug for my American counterparts). The last year Brianna was in public school she complained daily about the amount of stuff they "taught" in school that she already knew. I brushed it off at first because we had actually moved into the following grade in some of the work we had done over the summer so I figured she had just already learned it. But then, she filled me in. They were doing stuff like counting to 100. She was in Gr. 3. She had learned to count to 100 in Kindergarten/Gr. 1. They were "learning" to add single digit numbers. They were reading through Gr. 1/2 readers. This wasn't simply review, this was over a month of dragging them back a few grades!

This is because of summer learning loss. A lot of parents leave the schooling to the teachers and don't have their kids so much as crack a book for up to 3 mths. This is not to say that they're bad parents! It's just society's norm. And the schools then have to do a month (or more) of review going up to a few years back to make up for it.

Well, I've always been known as a mean mom! So since that first summer between Kindergarten to Gr. 1, I did homeschooling with the kids. Because it was all they ever knew, they didn't complain. Sure there were certain topics that they didn't want to do, but there was never "why do I have to do school when everyone else doesn't".

Once we started homeschooling, I knew we'd be year-rounders. We do a lot more during the summer now than we did when Brianna was in public school, but still on a much lighter schedule than the rest of the year. We also do a lot more interest based stuff that I just sneak English and math into and Brianna thinks it's all great fun.

Brianna doesn't do well with very long breaks any time in the year. We school a lot more than the average homeschooling family simply because Brianna is very routine set. If we take too long of breaks or too often of breaks she tends to get her entire routine upset. So we generally do only 3-4 full weeks off per year and 6-8 long weekends (4-5 days including the weekend) per year. Otherwise, it's just a day here and there and with reason (like a race day or a set field trip).

This year, Brianna will be continuing through her math curriculum though as it's her 2nd round through it after a mix of troubles with the work itself and also not putting any effort into what she could do. But otherwise, we'll be working on our country studies, gardening, doing some household projects and other non-school "like" stuff.

She has a science camp this year that is a week long. She is to the moon and back excited about that. She does "Park Leaders" Tues-Fri mornings and swims most afternoons with friends. I DO want her to enjoy her summers, especially since most of her friends are public schoolers who have the summer off. So I work around her programs/activities as much as possible. We do most of our week's schooling on Monday when there's no Park Leaders. We do a bit when she comes home for lunch. We do some after swimming (or if it rains and swimming is cancelled). We do some after the neighbourhood kids (and herself) are called home for the night. She does complain some days, but for the most part is really quite ok with it.

It may not work for everyone. Hell, I know many homeschoolers who drag their feet through May and sometimes June to just drop everything for the summer. But it's what works for us.

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!

New Schedule!

My niece, Tanya, has left our homeschool earlier than planned so I'll be implementing our new, totally different school plan sooner than July! I will be taking the next week to move stuff around and get prepared, but I'm totally excited to start this new chapter! Watch for a new "Current Curriculum" post soon!

Current Scheduling

Over the summer I introduced Tanya to a way of scheduling Brianna and I had done before. Essentially, I list out the girls' work for the week and they choose what to do when, so long as it's all complete by the end of the week.

Sorry for the poor picture

Brianna was very excited to go back to this schedule. Tanya figured she had discovered a way to get lots of days off. Unfortunately for her, as she discovered since July, choosing to not do a lot of work through the week means a hard, long scramble to get everything done on Friday! But, it's a great lesson in time management, so, as long as they get the work done by Friday night, I'm leaving them in their semi-scramble. Eventually they'll learn to even out the work through-out the week better :)

Apologies and Mini School

Sorry about suddenly disappearing. My Mozilla died and I had to figure out how to get everything working again. But I'm back!!!!

2 weeks ago I launched (locally) my children's accessories business. I have been crazy busy with orders so we have been on a ultra basic school schedule. The first week I damn near killed myself trying to get everything done (work and school). Thankfully I have some great homeschooling friends who had me let myself slack off.

We homeschool year round at a slightly above normal speed. So in a "school year" we've done about a year and a half of school. So we have plenty of "time" to slow down so I can get my customers orders done. I have Brianna doing basics almost everyday, just so she doesn't lose what we've already covered.

Happy Not Back to School!

We had loads of fun at our local homeschool group's Not Back to School picnic. Brianna was especially happy to hear that since we can't do homeschool soccer anymore that we'll be going swimming instead!

Olivia loved helping with the calendar and Brianna is ok with the new vocabulary work. We'll do journaling tonight, but I'm sure she'll enjoy that.

I bought a bunch of new ebooks through Currclick and can't wait to check them out!!!

Here is our *very flexible* schedule:
10am - Calendar time
10:10am - Choose and organize work for the day/vocabulary
10:30am - Brianna's independent work while I work with Olivia
11am - Continued independent work or move onto together work
12pm - lunch
1pm - Olivia down for nap, Brianna finishes any school work then co-operative reading and math quiz
2pm - Olivia's up/free time
8pm - Olivia bed/Brianna journal

Our Calendar Board

Last year I had bought this Calendar set

On Brianna's first day of homeschool

It worked great. Until Olivia was tall/smart enough to reach up and grab the date clings or stand on stuff to pull them down. It's been completely out of commission since May when we lost a couple pieces that Olivia tore off *sigh*

So I saw an idea for mounting Calendar Time stuff on a cork board (sorry for the lack of credit, I can't remember where I saw it and now I've seen it in several places!). I thought, great idea. I can put what I want on it and it can be tucked away and pulled out everyday if I end up needing the wall space it's on.


And so, it was born....

A check-offable chore chart

100 Days of School

Tot School weekly stuff for Olivia

Brianna's vocabulary word of the day

A weather set taken from 1+1+1=1

And a calendar