It’s that time again…
Yep, back to school. We actually started back in early August, so we have been at it for about 6 weeks now. I think we’ve finally gotten our feet under us. We changed quite a few things this year – the biggest being our start time. Extra curricular activities have been keeping us out in the evenings more and more, so we gave in and moved bedtime back to 9:45. Of course that means wake up time gets moved back too (necessary to minimize grumpiness, trust me). So this year instead of starting school work at 8:30, we are starting at 10.
It isn’t as lackadaisical as it sounds. We do chores before school starts, and chores have expanded this year. We now have a mini farm on our property (more about that in another post) so chores include feeding all the animals. And feeding ourselves, getting dressed, brushing teeth, etc.
Anyway, on to curricula! We added Latin this year, and started a new spelling program as well as a new logic program. Oh, and another big change – we are using an online math program! So far everything is going well, and we stuck with a few favorites from last year too so we have some familiar items. Here’s our list:
- math – EPGY online
- spelling – Megawords and Spellquizzer
- language arts – MCT island level
- science – living books, Education Exploration, and The Happy Scientist
- history – Story of the World 4
- logic – Logic Countdown
- latin – Songschool Latin and Latin for Children A
- piano – lessons with dad
- ag – swine, poultry, and rabbit study guides (borrowed from 4H)
- pe – karate
We are really enjoying the online aspect of school this year. EPGY has a great interactive math program. Spellquizzer gives me the freedom to customize spelling word lists, even to record my own sentences to go with them, without all the games and extras of SpellingCity that were sometimes too distracting for my little guy. Exploration Education is a series of dvds with experiment pack, so all the lessons are done on the computer, and The Happy Scientist is a website with awesome science videos that we use to supplement lessons (and sometimes just for fun 🙂 ) Our ag study guides were downloaded from the 4H site, so we view them online as well. It has really helped reduce our paper waste, plus the little guy likes using the computer – his non school screen time is restricted – so he is more enthusiastic about a lot of his lessons this way.
Overall we are really enjoying school so far this year. As we progress through the year I plan to review the different programs we’re using too, so stay tuned!
Adventures At Home 
Hey I understand adapting~>This year we also have been Super busy and have exstended bed time and and wake times 😉
Our curriculum has pretty much stayed the same except we have added some free sites like Spelling City and some unit studys.
Happy homeschooling!
Keri
September 25, 2011