Homeschool Planning: Preparing my Upcoming Homeschool Year (Part 1)

 

I’m so excited to be kicking off a two part series called, “Homeschool Planning” and it will have two parts!! Part one, will be all about how I prepare for my upcoming homeschool year, so a more broad type of planning and preparation. Part two, will include a much more detailed look at how I plan out my curriculum for a new school year and break things out for each school week.

Let’s jump right in!!

I’m a homeschooling Mom to five girls. I have a 4th grader, 3rd grader, 1st grader, and twin 3 year olds!! I started teaching my oldest in preschool, which means I’ve been homeschooling for 6 years now. The first few years were the hardest, because I was never homeschooled and had a big learning curve. However, God was faithful to patiently teach  me what I needed for each specific year. 

Today, I’m going to share the broad ways I begin to prepare for an upcoming school year. I will be sharing about how I pray for our upcoming school year to begin ready to order new curriculum. My favorite!! These aren’t hard and fast rules about what you need to do, but simply my process. I hope you will find this helpful as you begin to prepare for your own upcoming school year.

5 Ways to Prepare for Your Upcoming Homeschool Year

1. Pray for wisdom. I use the Val Marie Paper Prayer Journal to keep track of my monthly prayer requests. I have one section labeled, “Homeschool” so I can have a place to write down prayer requests for a particular month. My main prayer request is wisdom about our curriculum. Seriously, this is so important!! I also pray to have a zeal and excitement for homeschooling. As I pray, I begin to catch a vision for upcoming homeschool. Our lives are far from perfect, but God has been faithful to answer my prayers!!

2. Write down ideas. I use the notes app on my phone to jot down ideas about our upcoming school year. Currently, I have a note called, “2022-2023 Homeschool”, and I created in back in July 2021 after we began our current school year. This note is very helpful to me, because I can write down ideas for next year without having to commit to anything. Additionally, it helps me remember all my ideas and see what things will work for our upcoming school year. 

3. Choose a curriculum. Typically, around January or February, in a very broad sense, I begin to decide on our main curriculum for the upcoming school year. Both, in my mind and in my notes app. Don’t forget, nothing is set in stone and God might lead you to make some changes down the road. However, making these overall curriculum choices early on helps me to have time to go through my own books to use what I have, order new curriculum and books, and buy other supplies before we start our next school year.

4. Use books you already have. It’s important to go through what I already have and this is a principle I live by in most areas of my life!! Deciding on curriculum early on gives me a chance to go through what I already have to set books and other supplies aside for our upcoming school year. I have a big plastic box full of all my incredible finds sitting in our school room!! Additionally, this process will help you save money!!

5. Order new curriculum. Once I have gone through my own bookshelves, I make a list of the main curriculum and books we will need to order. I also make lists for each of my girls of the individual curriculum each of them will need for the coming year. Again, planning early lets me have time to wait until books or curriculum go on sale to buy them. It also gives me time to order new curriculum, check it out and return it if I don’t like it. Seriously, I love curriculum, so as the boxes of curriculum begin to arrive it feels like Christmas morning to me!! 

I hope this was helpful!! Please let me know if you have any questions. In the near future, I will write the next blog post in this series.

2021-22 Homeschool Curriculum Choices

  

On Monday, July 19, we kicked off our 2021-22 school year. We’ve gotten in the habit of starting school in July and this year wasn’t any different. My husband is training for his new job, so while he was in training we could work on school. As he has breaks, we will be able to take time off as well and enjoy some extra family time. Honestly, this is still one of the main reasons why we homeschool. Every family is different, but this is what is working best for us right now.

As you will see below, we made several changes to our curriculum. I spend a lot of time praying about our curriculum and I consider it a great responsibility to be my children’s educator. I want to honor the Lord and my children in this calling God has placed on my life. Thankfully, we were able to attend a homeschool conference in June and see a lot of these curriculums in person, before making our final decisions. Below you can find links to the different curriculum we’re using this year.

Without further ado, here are our curriculum choices for our brand new school year.

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2020-21 Homeschool Curriculum Choices 

EVERYONE TOGETHER
When it comes to teaching my large family, I try to have as many group subjects as possible. Currently, our family does Family Devotions, Memory Verses, Bible, History, Literature/Read-Alouds, and Science together. We’re not using Sonlight this year and instead God lead us to use Generations curriculum for a lot of our family subjects. Also, we’re using The Good and the Beautiful Geology for one science unit and switching to Generations science.

Family Devotions & Memory Verse: Generations The Book of Proverbs devotional and workbook and memorizing Proverbs 1
Bible: Generations God’s Big Story #2 with student workbook
History: Generations The Story of Jesus’s People, with student workbook
Literature/Read-Alouds: Generations Level 1 Read Alouds, additional read alouds from Sonlight, and picture books
Science: The Good and the Beautiful Geology and Generations God Made Everything with workbook

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4th GRADE: Olivia
How can she already be in 4th grade!? She’s a little bookworm and I can’t wait to see how she does this school year.   

Language Arts: The Good and the Beautiful Level 4
Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting T
Vocabulary: Wordly Wise Book 1
Math: Math-U-See Epsilon and The Good and the Beautiful Musical Multiplication
Typing: The Good and the Beautiful Typing 2
Readers: Sonlight Grade 4 Readers
Other: Victory Drill, Metronome Practice, and Piano Lessons

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3rd GRADE: Sophie
Sophie’s looking forward to starting 3rd grade. She loves building Legos and I’m excited to see her thrive in school this year.

Language Arts: The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level 2 
Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting T
Vocabulary: Wordly Wise Books B & C
Math: Math-U-See Epsilon and The Good and the Beautiful Musical Multiplication
Typing: The Good and the Beautiful Typing 2
Readers: Sonlight Grade 3 Readers
Other: Victory Drill, Metronome Practice, and Piano Lessons

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1st GRADE: Matilda
Last school year, Matilda learned to how to read!! It’s been exciting to watch her take off and become an avid reader.r

Language Arts:The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level 1
Handwriting: The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Level 1
Vocabulary: Wordly Wise Book A
Math: Mat-U-See Beta
Readers: Sonlight Grade 1 Readers 
Phonics: Explode the Code Level 4, 5, and 6

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TODDLER  TWINS: Evelyn & Zoey
Homeschooling with toddler twins is still challenging. I try my best to keep them occupied with a variety of fun activities like puzzles, books, coloring, a cardboard castle, shapes, and so much more! If we don’t complete all of our schoolwork, I wait until the twins nap time to play catch up and get everything else done. Honestly, I could probably do an entire blog post just about this, so let me know if you’re interested.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
For more information, here are the links to the homeschool curriculum we are using this school year.
- Generations
- Sonlight
- The Good and the Beautiful 
- Rainbow Resource
- Read Aloud Revival

Please let me know if you have any other questions about homeschooling.

Quarter 2 Update: Homeschool Year 2020-21

Guess what!? Right before our family took a two week Christmas break, my girls completed their second quarter of homeschool!! I can’t believe we’re already halfway through our entire 2020-21 homeschool year. Honestly, I’m so proud of my girls who have worked very hard this school year. Of course there have been struggles along the way, but I admire their hard work and determination to conquer any challenge which has come their way. I’m truly so blessed to be their Mom and their teacher!!

Curriculum:

As far as our curriculum goes, everything is going well!! Last year, I shared our 2020-21 Homeschool Curriculum Choices for our entire family. I’m thrilled to report, we haven’t needed to make any major, mid-year, curriculum changes. I’m very thankful for this, because I’ve been praying for wisdom regarding our curriculum. It’s amazing to see God answer my prayers and help me know what is best for each of my girls right now. I will continue to pray for my girls, so God can direct our homeschool and make curriculum changes as needed.

For those who are curious, here’s a quick recap regarding my current curriculum choices...

EVERYONE TOGETHER 

Bible time, Memory Verses, History, and Read-Alouds: Sonlight Core K 

Write the Word for Kids: Cultivate What Matters Write the Word for Kids: Plant Seeds of the Word

Science: The Good and the Beautiful Meteorology; Kingdoms and Classifications; Botany; and Energy

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3RD GRADE: Olivia

Language Arts: The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level 3

Handwriting: The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Level 3

Vocabulary: Wordly Wise Level 3000 Book 3

Creative Writing: The Good and the Beautiful Creative Writing Notebook #1

Math: Math-U-See Delta and The Good and the Beautiful Musical Multiplication

Typing: The Good and the Beautiful Typing 1

Readers: Sonlight Grade 4 Readers

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2ND GRADE: Sophie

Language Arts: The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level 2 

Handwriting: The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Level 2

Vocabulary: Wordly Wise Level 3000 Book 2

Creative Writing: The Good and the Beautiful Creative Writing Notebook #1

Math: Math-U-See Gamma and The Good and the Beautiful Musical Multiplication

Typing: The Good and the Beautiful Typing 1

Readers: Sonlight Grade 2 Readers

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KINDERGARTEN: Matilda

Language Arts: Sing Spell Read and Write “Off We Go” and “Raceway Book”

Handwriting: The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting K

Phonics: Explode the Code 1, 2, 3

Math: Math u See Alpha

Enrichment: Developing the Early Learner 1, 2, 3, 4

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SCIENCE

Currently, we’ve already completed our first two The Good and the Beautiful Science Unit Studies, such as Meteorology and Kingdoms and Classifications. We need to wait until spring to do the Botany study, in the meantime we’ve last week we started their Energy Unit Study. Once we’ve completed it, we will wrap up our school year with the Botany study. 

We’ve really enjoyed new Energy Unit Study!! Last week, my husband got home in time to work through some of the energy activities for our new The Good and The Beautiful Energy Unit Study. A few of them included, the exploding bags or bottle (chemical energy), shooting rubber bands (mechanical energy) and also baked Chocolate Chip Bundt Cakes (electrical energy, chemical energy, and heat energy). We all had such a fun time!! I can’t wait to see what other memories are in store for us as we continue to work through this curriculum.

US Elections Unit Study

 

Back in July, I shared our our 2020-21 Homeschool Curriculum Choices with all of you. Unfortunately, I forgot to tell you about the lap book curriculum we bought to work on with the girls this school year. Oops!! As a result, I’ve decided to share how I intend to use this US Elections Lap Book as a “mini” unity study.

Without further ado, our main curriculum for this mini unit study will be the US Elections Lap Book from Sonlight. Lap books are hands-on activities, which give children a fun and creative way to learn about the US Election process. In case you don’t know, Sonlight is a curriculum, whose focus is heavy on books and reading. Several years back, Sonlight debuted a variety of lap books, which pair very well with their curriculums providing more of a well-rounded and balanced teaching for children with a variety of learning styles. 

In total, there are 21 projects for you to finish, so we will be doing these 3 times a week for the next 7 weeks, so we can finish the week after the election. The lap book kit comes with everything you need to complete the lap book project, an instructor booklet, and even the double sided tape. At the beginning of each project, you read an excerpt from the US Elections text booklet and then work on the specific activity.

My girls had fun working on our first few projects together!!

Additionally, there are a lot of ways, I plan to bulk up this lap book curriculum. First, I went on YouTube to find some fun videos for my girls to watch, which will reiterate what I’ve already taught them. So, I searched “elections for kids” into the YouTube search engine and saved some videos for us to watch together like, “Voting for Kids”.

Another way I want to teach my girls about the election process, is by coming together as a family to watch the presidential debates. I’m not here to just tell my kids who to vote for, but I want to let them learn about the process and foster a love for our country in my girls hearts.

Finally, we’re also going to read a book from the Heroes of History series called, “George Washington: True Patriot” by Janet & Geoff Benge. My girls had a lot of questions about voting and our country. I thought it would be helpful to start where it all began with our very first president. 

I hope and pray as we work through this unit study, my girls will see the privilege and responsibility placed on each of us as US citizens. We know so many people around the world who have never been given the opportunity to vote. All that being said, I don’t want my girls to ever take our freedoms for granted.

August 2020 Homeschool Favorites

In celebration of our new homeschool year, I decided to share some homeschool favorites with you. Honestly, I haven’t done this in a while, so I have tons of favorites to share with you all. That being said, I’ll share some now and wait to share more in the coming months. The favorites I will share today are ones I use everyday in our homeschool and I’ve found these to be so helpful this year.

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Booster Bricks Club

All of my girls, love playing with Legos. As a result, this past Christmas we joined the Booster Bricks Club. There is a new theme each month and we work together as a family to complete the corresponding challenges. You read through the theme-based storybook, which tells you when to complete the specific challenges. There’s even a Facebook page you can join, which gives you a chance to upload pictures of your completed challenges. It may not be a curriculum. However, during the pandemic it has been a fun thing for all of us to work on while we’re cooped up inside. I can see us being apart of this club for many more year to come!!

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Homeschool Supplies Caddy 

Over the years, I’ve tried lots of things to store my girls school supplies. I’ve tried giving them their own individual pencil boxes, pretty lunch boxes, and individual bags with different supplies, like markers or crayons. Unfortunately, nothing has worked very well, because by the end of the school year my big girls dumped all the crayons and everything they didn’t want into Matilda’s bag. Oh my. 

That being said, I’ve been on the hunt for a better solution for our family. I was so excited when I found this wire caddy at Ikea in Hong Kong. I liked it some much, I even shipped it home. As a result, I’ve been collecting empty jars and containers, which I could use to hold all of the school supplies on a daily basis. This basket lives on my bookshelf and I pull it down whenever we work on school. We use what we need, clean up, and put it away when we’re done. No fighting over markers or who doesn’t want a certain color in their pencil bag. It’s been such a nice addition to our homeschool room this year.

Currently, I have scissors, rulers, sharpened pencils, crayons, colored pencils, glue, and markers in my supplies caddy.

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Musical Multiplication from The Good and the Beautiful 

My family loves music based curriculum! Which is why I’ve wanted to buy “Musical Multiplication” from The Good and the Beautiful for a while. For that reason, I just had to share this curriculum, because it is so much fun for all of my girls. We got it at the end of our previous school year and have been using it ever since. We started with Olivia and let her work through the first book with corresponding songs. It’s become such a favorite, all my girls want to take turns working through the book and singing the multiplication songs. I highly recommend this curriculum for children struggling to nail down their multiplication factors.

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Plum Paper Planner

Two years ago, when we lived in Hong Kong, my friend Shelli gave a Homeschool Planner. Honestly, it was the first time I had ever used a homeschool planner. Normally, I just used a weekly planner, which I designed and printed out at home. Each week, I would fill in what we needed to get done for school. Unfortunately, we have the worst luck with printers, so the pre-printed homeschool planner was the perfect solution when I didn’t have a printer.

All that being said, last year I couldn’t find the same type of planner, my friend had given me. As a result, I scoured the internet for the perfect planner which would work for homeschooling. After watching tons of YouTube videos and reading recommendations, I finally decided to take the plunge and buy my very first Plum Paper Planner. I loved it, because I can customize each section as needed and add homeschool sections to the back. It’s been one of my favorite homeschooling tools, so this year I bought another one. The one I got this year is a little bigger, so I have more room to write in my planner each week.

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Sonlight Reader Boxes 

 Once our girls learn to read, we transition from Sing, Spell, Read, and Write to The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts program. In addition, we pair individual The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts curriculum with Sonlight Grade Level Readers. For example, this year Olivia is using The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level 3 and Sonlight Grade 4 Readers. Click the link to read more about our 2020-21 Homeschool Curriculum Choices.

As a result, our girls have had stacks of Sonlight Reader books, which they work through each year. In an effort to free up some extra space off of my books shelves, I created Sonlight Reader Boxes for each of my girls. Additionally, I typed up a checklist, so as they read through their books they put a sticker on the chart. Their boxes stay at their spot on our homeschool table, so they can see the progress they’re making each day as they take time to read books out loud. This has been a huge hit with the girls and they’re excited about this fun change to our homeschool room.

What are some of your homeschool favorites this month!?

2020-21 Homeschool Curriculum Choices

On Monday, July 20, we kicked off our 2020-21 school year. We typically start school sometime in July, because it provides us with some much needed structure and routine. Starting early, also always us the flexibility to take off from school when necessary without worrying about not finishing our required 35 weeks of school. On top of everything else, we’re still supposed to be social distancing, which let us to finish our previous school year more quickly than I anticipated, because extended family couldn’t come into town.

Every family is different, but this is what is working best for us right now.

Before I tell you our curriculum choices, I wanted to announce our updated homeschool name. It’s something I have been praying about since last year. Previously we were “The Newsham Academy”, but I wanted something more original that I could use for the theme of our homeschool room. Drumroll please!!

I’m so excited about our new school name “The Storybrooke Schoolhouse”, because everyone in our family loves books and reading stories together. Even my girls like our new homeschool name, so it is a win, win!! Don’t forget to follow our homeschooling adventures at #thestorybrookeschoolhouse

Without further ado, here are our curriculum choices for our brand new school year.

2020-21 Homeschool Curriculum Choices 

EVERYONE TOGETHER
When it comes to teaching my large family, I try to have as many group subjects as possible. Currently, our family does Bible, Memory Verses, History, Read-Alouds, Write the Word, and Science together. We’re excited to use Sonlight’s new Core K curriculum, which is a study of American History. Additionally, we’ve switched science curriculums from Exploring Creation to The Good and the Beautiful. The girls can’t wait to dive into our first unit study of Meteorology.

Bible, Memory Verses, History, and Read-Alouds: Sonlight Core K
Write the Word for Kids: Cultivate What Matters Write the Word for Kids: Plant Seeds of the Word
Science: The Good and the Beautiful Meteorology; Kingdoms and Classifications; and Botany
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3RD GRADE: Olivia
It’s hard to believe my girl is already in 3rd grade. Olivia is an avid reader and you can always find her nose stuck in a book. She just finished reading The Penderwicks series and can’t wait to move onto Ranger’s Apprentice and The Chronicles of Narnia. She has been excited to start her new curriculum and currently her favorite subject of typing, because she gets to work on the computer. 

Language Arts: The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level 3
Handwriting: The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Level 3
Vocabulary: Wordly Wise Level 3000 Book 3
Creative Writing: The Good and the Beautiful Creative Writing Notebook #1
Math: Math-U-See Delta and The Good and the Beautiful Musical Multiplication
Typing: The Good and the Beautiful Typing 1
Readers: Sonlight Grade 4 Readers
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2ND GRADE:
Sophie My precious, Sophie, has such a sweet and gentle spirit. She likes to get her schoolwork work done as quickly as possible, so she can have time to do other things. She enjoys Legos, coloring, painting, reading books, and playing board games like Catan Jr. Whenever I am in the kitchen, she likes to help cook and bake. She’s also very proud of herself, because she taught herself to ride her bike one handed.

Language Arts: The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level 2 
Handwriting: The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Level 2
Vocabulary: Wordly Wise Level 3000 Book 2
Creative Writing: The Good and the Beautiful Creative Writing Notebook #1
Math: Math-U-See Gamma and The Good and the Beautiful Musical Multiplication
Typing: The Good and the Beautiful Typing 1
Readers: Sonlight Grade 2 Readers
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KINDERGARTEN: Matilda
Last year, we started Matilda in Pre-Kindergarten and she passed with flying colors. She has learned so much already from being around Olivia and Sophie. She finished reading her very first book, which is such a great achievement for a young learner. She’s excited to start Kindergarten! Additionally, she wants to do everything just like the big girls like complete her own typing lessons and practice The Good and the Beautiful Multiplication Songs just like her sisters.

Language Arts: Sing Spell Read and Write “Off We Go” and “Raceway Book”
Handwriting: The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting K
Phonics: Explode the Code 1, 2, 3
Math: Math u See Alpha
Enrichment: Developing the Early Learner 1, 2, 3, 4
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TWO YEAR OLD TWINS:
Evelyn and Zoey Homeschooling with toddler twins is hard. I try my best to keep them occupied with a variety of fun activities like puzzles, books, coloring, a cardboard castle, shapes, and so much more! If we don’t complete all of our schoolwork, I wait until the twins nap time to play catch up and get everything else done. Honestly, I could probably do an entire blog post just about this, so let me know if you’re interested.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
For more information, here are the links to the homeschool curriculum we are using this school year.

- Sonlight
- The Good and the Beautiful
- Math-U-See
- Rainbow Resource
- Cultivate What Matters


Please let me know if you have any other questions about homeschooling.

2019-20 Homeschool Year In Review

Our 2019-20 Homeschool Year felt as if we spent the entire year, homeschooling in crisis. First, we were living with my brother, then we moved to our new home, and lived under lockdown throughout the global pandemic. Honestly, my goal was to simply get school done. Don’t get me wrong, we did what was required of us. However, I didn’t elaborate or dive deeper into various topics, because we just didn’t have the time or resources. Trust me, it’s not how I expected this year to turn out.

I’m thankful the Lord allowed my girls the opportunity to work hard and complete our main Sonlight curriculum sooner than I expected, because everything else was removed from our schedule. It wasn’t ideal, but we made the most out of what we had. For this reason, I’m so excited for our upcoming 2020-21 school year and pray we will have more time for extra projects, crafts, field trips, and more!!

Below, I’m going to share some of the curriculum we loved, some of my least favorite curriculum, and our current summer plans.


CURRICULUM WE LOVED
Sing, Spell, Read & Write. Hands down, one of my very favorite curriculums, is Sing, Spell, Read, & Write!! I’m going through it for my 3rd time and I enjoy teaching it so much. This year, Matilda worked through the Kindergarten program which went through the books “All Aboard” and “On Track”. There are six readers and more short books which kids get to color themselves. My daughter is so proud of the fact, she has finished reading her very first books by herself. It’s exciting to watch her love of learning and reading blossom before my eyes. I can’t wait for us to continue to use it next year as Matilda continues to learn to read on her own.

Sonlight. Honestly, working through Sonlight Core C was exactly what I needed this year. There are several reasons why this curriculum was a great fit for us this year. The curriculum is preplanned and comes with a teacher’s guide to help me know what need to be done each day. Also, I was able to order all the books we needed for the entire year. This was very helpful, because even though we moved I already had our books and just brought the with us so we could read no matter what. Finally, it’s a curriculum I have previously used and the familiarity helped me to be able to know what was expected of me and plan accordingly. What a blessing!!


MY LEAST FAVORITE
From the time I started homeschooling my girls five years ago, I have always used “Math-U-See” for our Math curriculum. On the flip side, last year I heard a lot of great things about “Beast Academy” and decided to look into it for the girls as a way to work on mental math. We tried out their online program and my oldest daughter loved it. However, when we implemented the books at the beginning of our school year it didn’t go well at all. After a few frustrating weeks we finally switched back to Math-U-See. Maybe in the future we could use their online math program again, but for now we’ve put it on hold for now.


OUR SUMMER PLANS
We homeschool year round, so we won’t take much time off for “summer”. Last week, we finished our main Sonlight curriculum. We will still need to finish on math, science, and other review books throughout the rest of June. Then my Mom is coming to visit, so we’re going to take ten days off to spend time with her and start our new 2020-21 school year on July 13.

Not to mention, to celebrate our new school year, I’m doing a back to school series throughout the entire month of July!! I have some fun things to share with you, including our new 2020-21 curriculum choices. I’m so excited!!

Now it’s your turn!! Please leave me a comment and let me know:

 What fun activities do you have planned this summer? 

2019-20 Homeschool Curriculum Choices

Honestly, our homeschool year has been crazy! Last year, we moved and traveled quite a bit making it hard to find time to do homeschool. We’ve done our best with what we had as we lived out of our suitcases for months on end. Finally, God answered our prayers and brought together our housing situation, which allowed us to move to Colorado last October. I’m so excited, because since January we’ve finally gotten settled and into a good school routine.

On top of everything else, I have 19 month old twin girls and they’re very busy!! As a result, it is challenging to do our book work while they’re awake. For now, I wait until the twins nap time, so I can work on the big girls language arts, phonics, math, handwriting, and science.

I’m so proud of Olivia, Sophie, and Matilda!! They’ve worked so hard this school year, even as we lived out of our suitcases the girls worked hard each day to get their schoolwork finished. I appreciate their flexibility as we have tried to figure out what will work best for our family this year. I love them so much!!


EVERYONE TOGETHER

Bible, Memory Verse, History, Read-Alouds: Sonlight Core C
Write the Word for Kids: Cultivate What Matters Write the Word for Kids: Fruit of the Spirit Journal
Science: Exploring Creation with Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day
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2ND GRADE: Olivia 
Language Arts: The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level 2
Handwriting: The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Workbook Level 2
Math: Math-U-See Gamma
Readers: Sonlight Grade 3 Readers
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1ST GRADE: Sophie
Language Arts: The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level 1
Handwriting: The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Workbook Level 1
Math: Math-U-See Beta
Readers: Sonlight Grade 1 & 2 Readers
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PREK: Matilda
Phonics: Sing, Spell, Read, & Write “All Aboard” and “On Track”
Handwriting: Handwriting Without Tears: My First School Book
Math: Math-U-See Primer
Read-Alouds: Sonlight Preschool Read-Aloud Books
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
For more information, here are the links to the homeschool curriculum we are using this school year. Sonlight 

The Good & The Beautiful

Rainbow Resource 

Cultivate What Matters

Quarter 1 Update: Homeschool Year 2018-19

We use Sonlight curriculum for many of our subjects so typically, our homeschool year is roughly 36 weeks long. This means, every 9 weeks we finish one quarter of school. I’m excited to say that we have officially finished our first quarter of school!! Honestly, I am very excited about the progress we have already made in our school year. Our original plan for our move to Hong Kong had us not even starting school until November or December.

I am thankful that God changed our plans, so our entire family was able to come straight to Hong Kong in August with my husband. Just one week after our move, we started school. We decided to start school right away, so that our family could begin to get back into some kind of regular routine. We’ve had hard days or days when we took a break from school. However, overall school has provided the structure needed for our family to begin to call Hong Kong home.

In case you are curious, I've included my original 2018-19 Homeschool Curriculum Choices for my girls. Overall, we haven't made any major curriculum changes yet and all of the curriculum choices we made are working for each individual child. I will be sure to let you know if we make any major changes as our school year continues.

One the  biggest changes to our school year, has been that I have 5 kids and two of them are just 4 months old. As a result, our daily homeschool structure has to be very flexible right now. We don't have a rigid daily schedule to follow, because I would get overwhelmed if I wasn't able to stick to it like I planned. We have an overall rhythm to our day, but I have to remain flexible and be willing to change things up incase the babies get fussy.

I am so thankful for my big girls and their willingness to go with the flow. They're diligent to work on school when we have some quiet moments throughout the day and most of the time finish school before I expected them to get done. I am so proud of them!!

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2018-19 Homeschool Curriculum Choices

This year, I have a child in 1st Grade, a child in Kindergarten, and a child in Preschool. I will start by sharing the subjects that everyone is going to work on together.

EVERYONE TOGETHER
Bible, Memory Verse, History, Read-Alouds: Sonlight. This year, we are using Sonlight’s Core B – World History I. We have used Sonlight for the past few years and it really works for our family. We specifically picked this curriculum, because we knew it would be best for us if/when we moved overseas. You see Sonlight mails you a box with all the books you need for the whole year. This is great, especially now that we live in Hong Kong and don’t have the same resources that we did in the States. I have everything I need for the whole year and don’t have to worry about not being able to find a particular book. If you would like to read more about our journey with Sonlight click the link to read my blog post, “Finding Flexibility with Sonlight“.

Science: Exploring Creation with Astronomy (2nd Edition). We used Apologia’s Exploring Creation curriculum last year and really enjoyed it! There was no question about what we would use this year for science. My husband also purchased the complete science kit, so I would have all the resources necessary to complete our activities/experiments in Hong Kong. Initially, I was against this, because I didn’t want to spend money on something like this. However, I’m thankful for my husband’s wisdom. This kit has been a lifesaver! I’ve been able to do school even though we just moved. I don’t have to spend time tracking down our scissors, because there is already a pair in the kit.

1ST GRADE
I’m sure I say this every year, but how do we have a 1st grader!? When we were making our curriculum choices for our 2018-19 school year, Olivia could read some things. However, reading hadn’t come together for her yet and we didn’t want to force her to read if she wasn’t ready. We decided to let Olivia do things at her own pace. As a result, we purchased Sonlight’s Language Arts Grade 1 program, but by the time that curriculum arrived something clicked and our daughter, who started reading everything she could get her hands on. As a result, we struggled to know which curriculum would be best for her upcoming school year. Thankfully, Sonlight has a test kids can take online, which helped us know what level language arts program to buy for Olivia. We exchanged our grade 1 language arts for grade 2 and it’s been the perfect fit!!
Language Arts: Sonlight Language Arts 2
Handwriting: Handwriting without Tears: My Printing Book
Phonics: Explode the Code 4, 5, 6
Math: Math-U-See Beta
Vocabulary: Wordly Wise A

KINDERGARTEN
How can Sophie already be in Kindergarten!! Sophie is a hands-on learner and she remembers things much better when she gets to use a manipulative to help cement different concepts into her brain. For this reason, we are switching from A Reason for Handwriting back to Handwriting without Tears. I think the manipulatives that go along with this program will help both of my girls to have a better understanding of how each letter and humber written.
Language Arts: Sing, Spell, Read, & Write “Off We Go” & “Raceway Book”
Handwriting: Handwriting without Tears: Letters & Number for Me
Phonics: Explode the Code 1, 2, 3
Math: Math-U-See Alpha

PRESCHOOL
Matilda is 2 1/2 years old, but already she wants to be involved in our school day. She has a strong desire to have her own things to “work” on, so that she can do school right along with the big girls. Though her learning will be more informal, I am planning to use ABC Jesus Loves Me, Playing Skillfully, and Sonlight Preschool Readers for Matilda this next year. Our focus will be to learn more through playing, fun activities, and great books. I’ve used these curriculums with my other girls and we loved them, so I hope Matilda enjoys these as well.
Letters, numbers, shapes, and more: ABC Jesus Loves Me
Learning through play and fun activities: Playing Skillfully
Reading great books: Sonlight Preschool Readers

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
This year, we ordered most of our homeschool curriculum online from Sonlight and Rainbow Resource Center. Rainbow Resource is great, because any orders over $50.00 qualify for free shipping.