Our Homeschool Plan 2016-2017

Linking up with Giving Up on Perfect for Works for Me Wednesday.

It's that time of year again everybody!! School time!

I'm pumped!

I always get pumped.

Deciding on, and starting, the plans for the new school year is probably the one annual decision making process that truly involves all family members for input and ideas. 

Here's what our little family landed on this year!

John (4 years old) is our only child doing anything formal, but 2 year old Therese will be tagging along and participating as she can/desires.

The Books!

It's our first year of formal lesson plans! 4 years is my transition year of sorts between super laid back preschool exploring opportunities and having true "school time" with mom.

We're using Catholic Heritage Curricula (CHC)'s Lesson Plans for Preschool & Kindergarten, I Can Find Letter Sounds, and I Can Find Numbers and Shapes.

John had a lot of fun doing 26 Letters to Heaven last year, and I'm keeping the book in our morning basket for the booklists, activity ideas, and saint coloring pages.

Morning Basket

This is a new addition this year!

Martianne at Training Happy Hearts wrote a post that finally convinced me this might be a homeschooling fad that works for me.

Here's what ours looks like!

Plastic Target bin on the table near the couch. I realized nearly all of my homeschooling is spent within 5 ft of this spot, so it's probably a good idea to put our homeschooling stuff there.

Here's what's in it!

• Golden Children's Bible
• 26 Letters to Heaven 
• Our CHC books
• Little Lambs lessons (I'm just going to put the whole envelope in there when it arrives each month)
• Items from past Little Lambs lessons that I like and continue to use (right now that's the Stations of the Cross for Families and The Holy Rosary booklet with illustrations for each of the mysteries.)
• Our current read aloud chapter book/big book (We just finished the first Harry Potter and Dinotopia. I have not decided on our next one yet.)
• A tote bag in the event school needs to be portable that morning!

Ballet

One big chance this year is John is starting Ballet lessons!

He'll have a 45 minute class once a week at the same studio where I take class.

I view Ballet as the grammar of movement. Just like I plan to have all of my kids learn Latin as a foundation builder for later studies, I plan to have them all take early Ballet to lay solid movement foundations.

And just like I don't expect them to become Latin professors or have full conversations in Latin, I don't expect them to become professional dancers. I do expect them to take in the lessons of reward for hard work and discipline, and the importance of getting the basics down.

Field Trips!

One of the perks of homeschooling is being around during the day to explore places when they're not crazy crowded. I'm aiming for a once a month bigger field trip to encourage us to do the work that it is to pack little kids into a car and drive somewhere out of the ordinary.

Here's our working list.

August	Cal Academy
September	Fire Station
October	Fleet Week SF & Hoe's Down Festival
November	Oakland Museum of California
December	Texas exploring
January	Habitot Children's Museum
February	Marine Mammal Center
March	SF Cable Car Museum
April	Tilden Little Farm
May	Zoo Trip!

As much as possible I selected places that were either free, cheap, or on the library Discover and Go program that lets you get passes to different museums. 

Now that Therese is starting to drop the morning nap (blessed child holding onto that so long!) it'll be easier to do a morning trip and be back for big naptime.

We'll be starting in the coming weeks. Pretty much when our books get here. Because that's how we roll.