How We Came to Homeshooling and What We are Using this Year

A Little Bit of History

 

The 2013-2014 school year is underway here in our school room. Let me say that his is only my third year homeschooling- my second doing it the traditional way. Three years ago I decided it was time to keep the kids home and away from the junk going on in public schools. I came across Connections Academy. I thought that was a great alternative to regular brick and mortar schools. It worked wonderfully for the first year, however, in that year, I had another baby. So, I now had a one year old and a new born. We tried to do it again the following year but it just didn't work. Trying to keep up with other people's schedules and deadlines on a daily basis wasn't practical anymore. I knew it was time to traditionally homeschool. Two months into the school year, I withdrew them from Connections Academy. I was scared, so scared. I had no idea what I was doing. Thankfully, I knew a few people who homeschooled so I was able to glean enough knowledge to get us started. Last year (2012-2013) was the first year I homeschooled "the real way". I spend a lot of money on curriculum we never used. I frustrated my children as I hopped from one book to another, changed their routine, schedule, and workloads weekly. It took me a while to work out the bugs. And by “a while” I mean months. It was definitely a process… I am so thankful for a husband, children, family and friends who put up with me during that frantic time. Anyway... I am now confident in what we are doing, how we are doing it and what directions we are headed in!

 

What We Are Doing This Year

 

With Julia in fifth grade and Oscar starting freshman year, I had a lot of planning to do. I knew high school required a lot of record keeping. Thanks to The HomeScholar, Upper Level, Donna Young and a lot of blog searching I've got a great system!! My records are kept electronically and hard copy. They consist of Donna Young printable sheets, Upper Level sheets (you have access to these when you sign up, it's only $30 total- and well worth it), and some of my own sheets I've made. The free electronic grade/record keeping software came from here. I love this. It keeps attendance, grades, weighs the grades for you, and it even has a place for course of study outlines. I love the simplicity, the completeness, everything. And the fact that it's free? Well, it's one of my best finds!

I had a hard time finding a complete curriculum for my high school kid. He is a kinesthetic learner and it sometimes takes him a bit longer to grasp things. I really wanted to focus on his writing abilities (building good paragraphs and stuff like that). I noticed that even though he’s 14, he couldn’t write a good solid paragraph to save his life! We are also working on his test taking skills this year. He has always had test anxiety. He can know the material inside and out but when it came time for the test (in public school, I don’t test and grade under high school level in our homeschool) he would bomb. So, this year his focus is developing his writing and test taking skills.

This year, his work load looks like this…

Algebra

Oscar has always struggled with math, however, with this program, he loves it! Really, it's the first thing he does in the morning. He actually came to me the other morning and said, "Mom, I feel so smart when I do algebra."

I never thought I would hear that.

 

English

I settled on Bob Jones Grammar for first semester and Literature for second semester.  It gives a great review of what they should know up to this point and moves swiftly yet efficiently through the concepts.

History

 

I really wanted to start at the beginning for him... the very beginning. :) So, we opted for MOH. It is full of hands-on projects and not a whole lot of read-answer, read-answer ( I detest that). Actually, there are less than 10 test in the book. There are pre-tests, but those aren't meant to be graded. He will be completing book 1 and half of book 2. Next year he will finish book two and do book 3.

Chemistry

 

Our coop is offering this class this year so I jumped on it! He will go every Friday for this and another class. This way he can do all the labs- and not in my kitchen! 

 

Bible

I found this gem at convention in Cincinnati this year. It's a credited high school course that really makes the kids think about God and their personal relationship with him. It's amazing. Check it out here.

 

Finances

This is the other class our coop is offering. Dave Ramsey's Foundations in Personal Finance. This is just like the adult class but on a teenage level. This course does qualify as an elective credit

 

Latin and Greek Roots

I was really surprised by how much he enjoys doing this. Not only does he enjoy it, it is sticking with him! He will randomly tell me what different roots mean. It's great! There are no tests in his, however, I plan to give quizzes after each 6 weeks.

 

Writing

This is actually part of Julia's Heart of Dakota curriculum but it will work for grades 3-12. I read through it when I first got it for Julia and realized I could make this work for Oscar too! Yea! This book also starts with the fundamentals of grammar and writing. With this and the BJU, Oscar is getting a great foundation in grammar and writing.

 

 

Well, that's it for him. I know, it seems like a lot but they way I have scheduled it, it's really not. He has coop every Friday. That and English are the only school work he does on Friday. Everything else is done Monday- Thursday.

 

Because I knew Oscar and his work would be time consuming for me, I wanted something somewhat independent for Julia. She’s super bright and can usually get most of her work done on her own. For her, I settled on Heart of Dakota. I couldn’t be happier with it. I will be blogging a lot about her different books, projects and things she does with it. She is doing the Creation to Christ program. I highly recommend it!