What's on the bookshelf?

We do A LOT of reading each day.  Using Sonlight as our core, which is a literature based program, ensures we'll never be short on books.  We have a book we are going through for our Bible time, we have a literature based science program so there's a book we read for science, usually more than 1 book we're working through for history, and then our read-aloud also ties in with what we are learning for history.  If that's not enough the girls have a book they have to read on their own for history and then they have a fun book of their choosing that they need to spend at least 30 mins each day reading.  We also like to read as a family so we almost always have a read-aloud we are going through together in the evenings and or an audio-book we are listening to.  If you're counting that's upwards at 8+ books at any given time.

I love that reading together and on our own is such a huge part of our family and something we all value.  I'm so thankful that over the last few years the girls have truly developed a love of reading.  We tend to check out library books by the stack and work our way through them each week.  I'm so thankful for an amazing library system that we can utilize to incorporate so many great books into our lives.

For the past two years the girls have really loved American Girl books.  At the start of the summer they had gotten to the place where they had read almost all of them and were ready to move onto something else.  I was excited that they were finally old enough to read well and enjoy the classics so I started ordering a ton of great classics for them to read from the library.

Although we only require 30 mins of reading each day, it's not unusual to find the girls curled up for a few hours getting through their next great adventure.  And drives in the car are usually very silent as they each tend to read everywhere we go.  I can't tell you how happy that makes my heart!

These are a few of the books you could find the girls reading over the summer...

Stuart Little – E.B. White
The Whipping Boy – Sid Fleichman

Emily’s Runaway Imagination – Beverly Cleary

Ginger Pye – Eleanor Estes

Socks – Beverly Cleary

Misty of Chiconteague – Marguerite Henry

Ralph S. Mouse – Beverly Cleary

Island of the Blue Dolphins – Scott O’Dell

The Incredible Journey – Sheila Burnford

Dear Mr. Henshaw – Beverly Cleary

Lumber Camp Library – Natalie Kinsey-Warnock

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne

The Trumpet of the Swan – E.B. White

Number the Stars – Lois Lowry

My Father’s Dragon – Ruth Stiles Garnett

The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Sword in the Stone – T.H. White

The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

Cheaper by the Dozen – Frank B. Gibreth

The Toothpaste Millionaire – Jean Merrill

A Llama in the Family – Johanna Hurwitz

Frindle – Andrew Clements

The Hundred Dresses – Eleanor Estes

The Railway Children – E.Nesbit

Pollyanna – Eleanor H. Porter

The Swiss Family Robinson – Johann Wyss

What was on your bookshelf this summer?

How I Organize Our Schooling | Pt 3

In Part 1 of How I Organize Our Schooling I covered how I create our lesson plans for the year.  In Part 2 I showed how I organize my binder for our daily lesson plans and school records.  Today I plan to show you my favorite part of the whole process... how I got my girls to work independently and stay organized on their own.

I used to use a hybrid workbox method using our Ikea desks and drawers but when we switched to Sonlight in 2nd grade I knew I had done a bad job of loading their desks with their lessons every day and I always felt behind.  I knew we would do more reading with Sonlight and they would only have a few worksheets to do each day but I wanted them to be able to do it and manage it on their own.  I thought long and hard and came up with a system that mirrored what I had already done for my own lesson plans.

I use the girls favorite color to create the cover for their binders.

I have the girls binder setup to contain a weeks worth of work at a time.  Either Friday after school, at some point over the weekend, or sometimes Monday morning if we're being honest... I'll change everything out for the next week.

At the front of the girls binder I have the girls weekly schedule.  This looks a lot like my schedule, except it's only the things the girls need to complete for the day and not any of our together work. If you read Pt 1, you'll see how I setup our lesson plans, which I also created for the girls at the same time I created mine.

The girls have a set of highlighters and they highlight everything they've completed for the day.  At the end of the week I take this schedule along with all their completed work and paperclip it together and file it away.

Right behind the weekly schedule I have a blank pocket folder that I add a Post-It Tab to for their done folder.  This is the folder they put everything they have completed into.  At the end of the day I grade all their work and move it back to the day's folder.  If they have anything that needs to be fixed or re-done I'll note it and put it in the next days folder so it's at the start of their work for that day.

I have tabbed pocket folders (love these!!!) that I use for each day of the week.  In each folder I put all the work they need to do for the week.

Behind the daily folders is a pocket folder I keep extra blank paper in so they always have paper at the ready.

At the very back of their folder are a few page protectors that hold their logic books.  My idea in the past was to have everything they need for school in 1 place so we could do school anywhere and they'd be ready if they grabbed their folder and pencil case.  This year they have a few books which are too thick to slide into a page protector so they have 1 drawer in their desk that has all the extra books they would need.  It holds their Essential in Writing workbook, Wordly Wise, and Science notebook.  They also have another drawer that holds all their bible curriculum and devotional.

I have been so pleased since we started using this notebooking method.  The girls keep track of everything on their own and always know exactly what needs to be done for the week.  They can work ahead if they desire and I can easily see where they are and what they have left to do.

I can't tell you how enjoyable it is to know that they can now manage their own schedule and other than refill their folders each week and correcting their completed work there's nothing I need to do to keep them moving forward.  They've gotten so good at working independently and know when the clock strikes 8am they head upstairs and get started on their bible study and then move right into their school work until I come in and start our together work for the day.  Such a joy!

How I Organize Our Schooling | Pt 2

In the last post How I Organize Our Schooling | Pt 1, I went over how I created my lesson plans for the year.  Today I plan to go over how I organize my binder which keeps everything in one place.

So pretty!

I have a zipper pouch in the front of my binder that has all the discs we use for lessons.  Right behind the DVD's I keep our Sonlight map for the year so it's easily accessible for us to use each day.  We also have a globe we use everyday as well.

Behind our map I have our attendance, and yearly calendar.

After our calendar is our curriculum plan for the year and then after that I'll put a copy of my private school affidavit after I've filed.

I keep 9 weeks worth of lesson plans and reading notes in my binder.  At the top of each week I have my weekly lesson plans and then behind that I have my history, read aloud, and reader notes that we can go over after we've completed the reading for the day.  I love to use my post it tabs to mark each section of notes. 

In the back of the binder I keep my additional Sonlight info as well as a few pocket folders for blank paper, additional curriculum notes, and a page protector with all my receipts for any school supplies for the year.  This makes it easy to file away my binder at the end of the year and all my records required by the state are in one place.

I've found this method to be so easy to keep track of everything and at the end of the year I know exactly what I accomplished and when I accomplished it.

How I Organize Our Schooling | Pt 1

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love organization and planning and all things having to do with charts.  It was only natural that 2 years ago when we decided to switch to Sonlight that I figure out how to organize things and arrange our schedule.  I loved the way Sonlight organized the instructors guide (IG) but I also knew I wanted only 1 place to look at everything we had for the week and I didn't want everything messy and handwritten on the IG.  I also knew that I wanted to move towards teaching the girls to be more independent so I had that in mind with everything I did.

We've had 2 years using this method and now with 2 weeks under our belt this year things are running as seamlessly as ever and it's been a smooth transition which to me means it's working great.

I love having the summer off and being able to enjoy myself without school planning hanging over me.  For this reason I tend to research and then purchase my curriculum in the last month of our school year.  I then spend the last few weeks of school creating all my lesson plans for the coming year.  I love being done at the start and not having to do anything except print our lesson plans and organize our folders the week before school starts.

STEP 1:  Schedule School Weeks
The first thing I do is plan my start date and decide on which weeks we'll take off.  The dates in the right column on the chart below shows each date I plan to do school. I schedule everything into a 36 week year which comes out to 4 quarters of 9 weeks each.

STEP 2: Create Master Lesson Plans by Subject
Once I've filled in all my weeks I create all my lesson plans for each subject.  I take a subject and look at how many lessons it has and then break those down into each week taking holiday's and breaks into consideration.  Depending on the curriculum I have a few flex weeks at the end I'll either schedule in as needed or leave at the end.  If we end up needing more time on anything it's easy enough to move things around otherwise we can finish a subject early which is always a treat.

This is what my master looks like.  I have a tab for each subject on the same excel spreadsheet.

STEP 3:  Create Weekly Lesson Plans

After I have my game plan in place for each subject on my master I get my weekly lesson plans input.  I have a separate excel chart that gets printed with my week's lesson plans.  I have each subject along the left with the days across the top and each of the lessons I plan to complete filled in.  As you can see, we have a 4 day schedule.  I try to only schedule math and spelling tests on Friday.

I tend to only fill in a quarter's worth of lesson plans at a time.  This allows me to change things around on my master if we need more time on something without having to also change my weekly plans.  When I have about 2 weeks left of my quarter I'll go ahead and get the next quarter filled in.

STEP 4: Use Weekly Lesson Plans

As I complete each lesson I highlight it.  I use pretty colors... because I can! ;-)  If I don't get to something I leave it blank so I remember to go back to it later.  If I do something on a different day I'll highlight it in the day's color so I know when it got done. 

Our 4th Grade Curriculum | 2016-2017

We've had such an amazing 2 years doing Sonlight that we couldn't image doing anything else.  We focused on World History for the last 2 years and the girls learned so much.  I love that last year we did geography and the girls learned every country in the world.  It made watching the Olympics last week so much fun because they knew the continent and location of each country as they marched into the Olympic arena.

This year we start our first year of US History and I'm excited for all we'll learn.  We're beginning by understanding all the different native tribes across the continent and then we'll move onto the Europeans settling here.  There are SO many amazing books slated for this year and I know I'll be learning right along with the girls which is why I love homeschooling so much.

Here's what we're doing for our 4^th Grade Curriculum...

• Bible: Sonlight Core D, Bible Study Guide for All Ages
• Devotions: Jesus Calling for Kids, Journaling
• Math: Math U See - Delta
• Language Arts: Essentials in Writing - Level 4 
• Spelling: All About Spelling - Level 4
• Writing: Writing with Ease - Level 3
  
• Grammar: First Language Lessons - Level 3
• Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting - D
• Reading: Library Books & Sonlight Readers
• History: Sonlight Core D (American History 1) 
• Science: - Noeo Physics 1
• Vocabulary:  Wordly Wise 3000 - Level 3
• Logic: Logic Countdown & Logic Safari
• Language: American Sign Language   
• PE: Golf
• Music: Piano Lessons   

Sonlight History, Bible, and Literature - All the amazing books we get to read together this year.

We're sticking with NOEO for science because the girls have loved it.   NOEO is Greek for "To think upon, to understand, to perceive with the mind."

I've always added a variety of language arts curriculum to Sonlight because I never felt that was their strength.  This year we're continuing on with All about Spelling, Writing with Ease, First Language Lessons, A Reason for Handwriting, and Wordly Wise.  Instead of doing the Sonlight Language Arts exercises I decided to switch to Essentials in Writing this year.  It's a video series where we watch a DVD together and then the girls do a writing activity to correlate.  I'm looking forward to this adding an opportunity for the girls to start proofing and revising their work rather than just moving on to a new writing assignment each week.

I can't say enough good things about MathUSee.  We've done this curriculum since Kinder and I feel like it's given the girls a great foundation to truly understanding Math.  They love it and have done well so there's no reason to change.  This year we're doing Delta with is mastering Division and Fractions.  Multiplication went great last year so I don't forsee any bumps to Division.

We're switching up Bible this year.  Last year we did our daily Bible reading through Sonlight as well as our weekly scripture memorization and then the girls learned to have a daily quiet time by starting each morning with a Jesus Calling devotion and writing their thoughts in a prayer journal.  This year I wanted to move towards them learning to study the Bible so 3 days a week they'll be doing a Bible Study Guide for All Ages worksheet and then journaling the application section.  The other 2 days they'll do a Jesus Calling with prayer journal.  Just like last year this will be the first thing they do to start their day.

For our extra's this year we're continuing on with ASL, Logic worksheets 2 days a week and piano practice everyday with lessons on Friday morning.  They started piano at the start of summer and it's been so great for them.  They're having to manage their time and get a good practice in so they're prepared for their lesson each week.  They're already doing so well and have moved up to their next book reading music, keeping time, and playing with both hands.  I'm super impressed!!!

First Day of 4th Grade | 2016-2017

How is it that we're over half way finished with elementary school?  It really doesn't seem possible that it's passing as quickly as it is.  If you had told me 5 years ago that I'd be homeschooling 4th graders and I'd actually be looking forward to it... I don't think I'd have believed you.  The girls are doing so well and are great at independent work, but also bring great conversations to our together time.   They're growing into such beautiful and sweet young ladies!  I'm just loving this age and wish I could freeze them right where they are.