Checking in...

I've spent my computer time the last couple of days working out some plans for this coming school year. Of course, it is all sounding very schoolish. I hope I've constructed it in a way that is flexible. If we get caught up in one particular area, I am happy to skip over a couple of weeks of planning in order to explore our interest. If we get to a particular topic and noone is enjoying it, we'll strike it from the list and move on. So on one hand, I have an organized, prepared list to guide me and on the other hand, I'm prepared for the flexibility we've enjoyed the last four years of homeschooling. Ask me at Christmastime how that's all working for me.

I've found a set of tables at Little Acorn's Treehouse that I like. I've used Jenny's Scope and Sequence layout. It's a great visual resource for myself. I can see a week at a glance and what's coming up in future weeks.

Yesterday, I finished planning history and science. I used the scope and sequence at K1-12 for science ideas. The kids have said they'd rather skip all over the place instead of focusing on one particular area of study. I was all excited to do a year on Earth Sciences, but it wasn't going to fly. So, lots of experiments and demonstrations while exploring magnetics, matter, motion, energy, light, life cycles, profiling scientists, weather, habitats, forces, sound, measurements, classification and ecosystems. For history, I am planning to get through Story of the World and at the very least, use the maps, review cards (the kids' favorite parts of the SOTW workbook) and the timeline.

I'll let you know how the rest of my planning goes. I've got pretty concrete math, language and music ideas. I'm excited about working in some read alouds. Raiden is uncharacteristically interested in printing, spelling and language arts so I expect we'll need to be doing that come next month. I'm thinking of putting any language arts stuff on the back burner for Kori so she can concentrate on getting her book written. She's been trying for months and she's not accomplishing what she wants so I want to help her with that project.

In other, non-schoolish news, the kids and I are off this morning to meet up with some homeschoolers for a play at the park today. This afternoon there is one of our last library programs. This weekend we're looking forward to the local corn festival.

The dog is going crazy. She's burrowing into some very odd places and is not happy to sleep in her crate at night - something she's done since day one in this house. It's like she's lost something the way she's pacing and sniffing and cramming herself into impossibly tight places...like behind the waterbed and in amongst the basement storage shelves.

So, thanks for stopping by...we're off to get going on our day.