After six days of
stalking the mailman eager anticipation, our homeschool curricula for the new school year arrived. Words cannot express how eager my children and I were to tear into our packages. We ordered all of our 2012- 2013 curricula from
Timberdoodle and
Christian Book Distributors. I was eager to get everything organized, since May is my planning month, and we are hoping to start our studies in the beginning of June. Last year was my first year homeschooling all summer, and I love it. It makes it a lot less stressful if we miss a day here and there, later on in the school year. My big reason for wanting to start in June, this year, is so we can take a month off in Sept/Oct, whenever the baby comes.
Our 2012-2013 curricula:
The three stacks of schoolwork are for my children, oldest to youngest, my fourth grader, second grader, and kindergartener. The books in the front of the picture are for my oldest two to share.
Our 2012-2013 curricula choices can be found
here. (Side note:
pinterest seriously keeps my brain organized.) My little ones are uber excited about their schoolwork for this upcoming year. I have to keep reminding them that we are off for May, and to wait a couple more weeks.
I am really excited about a couple of new curricula this year. The first is
A Reason For Handwriting. I bought this for all three of my current homeschoolers. Here is a sample pages from it:
I love how
A Reason for Handwriting contains so many great Scriptures for children to copy, and then even discussion questions to make sure that they understand the Biblical application.
Another exciting addition to our homeschooling curricula is
Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy. I ordered the complementary
junior notebooking journals for my eldest two children. We are all really excited about those!
There are so many fun learning activities in the notebooking journal. I love the coloring pages with Scripture. I pray that all of these materials will be a helpful tools in pointing my children towards God.
Homeschool Organization
The Desktop Apprentice Organizer
It has been so great having the whole month of May to get ready for next year. It has given me time to make copies, organize materials, and to work on a making a homeschooling planner.(I still have a lot left to do!) I generally put all of our homeschooling materials in a bookcase in my dining room, but started running out of room in the bookcase. I had seen several homeschooling moms rant and rave over how amazing the
Desktop Apprentice Organizer. Now, for someone like me who just loves to organize, I couldn't wait to get one. But I have to admit that the $45 price tag was too steep for me. Fortunately, if you go to Staples and buy it at the store itself, it is $25. I still hemmed and hawed about that price and the huge size of the organizer, but I am glad I went ahead and bought it. I absolutely love it. All of our current homeschooling materials fit in the Desktop Apprentice. I can stick the whole unit in a closet or on a shelf, if I need to get it out of the way. The only con to it is that it is a behemoth. It takes up at least one place setting at the table. I usually keep it on a tray table beside our school table. I started filling mine with art supplies like
Prismacolor colored pencils and paint brushes.It holds hanging folders, and I have divided them according to months of the year, and I have been busy printing off copies from
Teacher File Box.
Teacher File Box contains printable sections from the Evan Moor books. I knew that I wanted daily math practice and daily writing practice for my eldest two, as well as several other workbooks. By the time I added them up, it was going to be very pricey. So, I was elated that I could just buy a subscription to
Teacher File Box and print out the worksheets themselves. You can get a yearly subscription for even cheaper, via
Homeschool Buyer's Co-op. The kind folks at Teacher File Box let me have a year's subscription for free (for review purposes), but I was seriously considering buying a subscription via the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op, since I easily would have wanted to buy $100 worth of their workbooks for each of my school-aged children.
Some of the copies I have been making from Teacher File Box.
I am hoping to be able to finish all of my homeschool planning within these last two weeks before school starts. I always tend to get a little nervous at the prospect of a new school year. It seems like whenever we have any time off, I worry about getting it all done. (From daily chores, to cooking, to cleaning, to taking care of the littles, etc.) One article that really encouraged me was from HodgePodge:
How to Fit in All the Extras. She wrote a brillant post about just doing the 3 R's in the morning, and then fitting in all the extras, like math and history, one per day, in the afternoon.It was such a simple idea, yet so freeing.
Another concept I want to be more diligent in implementing, this school year, is
Afternoon Quiet Time.
My two-year old generally takes an afternoon nap, but I need to make sure that all of my children have a daily quiet time.
More about the Desktop Apprentice Organizer by Fellow Homeschool Moms:
Planning, Planning, Planning @ Sam's Noggin
Sweet Plans: Homeschool Planning: Gathering Your Tools @ Sweet Phenomena
Our Homeschool Room @ The Crafty Classroom
School Room @ Delightful Learning
I would love to hear about your preparations for the upcoming school year!
Disclosure: I received a year's subscription to Teacher File Box in exchange of an honest review.
