I’m so excited for the upcoming 2012-2013 school year for my family!
With two years of homeschool under my belt, I am feeling a little more prepared and a lot more realistic as far as my expectations for the year go.
This year I will have two second graders and a kindergartener officially doing school with their two-year old in the middle of it all.
We took about six weeks off for our move and we’re all anxious to get back into the schedule and routine of doing school. Will, my kindergartener, asked me just this weekend when we were going to do homeschool again.
I’ve set next Monday as the date of our first day of school.
That means that this week I have spent lots of time preparing and getting ready for our new year.
Here are some things I have been doing and I would suggest that are helpful for all homeschoolers to do in preparation for a new year.
1. Prepare your school space.
We are using the front room in our house and the dining room as our school space this year. I was afraid that with a smaller house we would be confined to just the dining room table, but we found a house that is has a perfect amount of space for our school room. The children were excited that they got to keep their little desks, too!
The homeschool room was the last room of our house that I unpacked. I finished it up early last week and have been adding extra touches to it.
2. Select and Order Your Curriculum
I decided about half-way through last year’s school year that we would be returning to Sonlight this year. I could kick myself in the pants for bailing on them last year because I am missing parts of Core B, but I am so happy with our decision to return to something that works for us!
I’ll go into more detail in a couple of weeks (I’ll be joining in the Not Back to School Blog Hop in August) as to everything that we will be doing as far as curriculum goes for this year, but making curriculum choices is critical to prepping for a new year.
I ordered our new materials the first week of July and I am happy to announce that it has {mostly} all arrived! We celebrated when our huge box full of books from Sonlight arrived!!
The kids even made a dragon out of the packing paper.
3. Begin Organizing Your Materials
This has been my focus this week. I’m working on organizing our binders of lesson plans and materials. I’m also organizing the books in the order that we will be reading them and studying the guides for all of our new curriculum. You can go into as much detail as you need here.
Some homeschoolers go ahead and make all the copies they will need for the year and organize them by weeks. I think this is a great idea…I’m just not quite that on top of things!
If you use work boxes this would be a great time to get those organized.
Source: mamajenn.com via Monica on Pinterest
I have decided on a new calendar board this year and I’ll be spending some time getting that all ready to go as well.
4. Decide on a School Year Schedule
This will be the first year that I have actually mapped out a school year schedule, but I think it’s going to help in so many ways. First of all, I will need to track our attendance as part of our state requirements. But, it’s also going to help me to know exactly how our year is going and how we’re tracking along. Without having an idea of how your time is spent on a daily, weekly, monthly and even yearly basis, it can be so easy to feel completely lost. I don’t want to feel lost this year.
5. Pray
Okay, this really should have been listed as number one, but there’s no way I can make it through another homeschool year without it being covered in prayer. I love, love, love homeschooling my children, but it is a lot of work. This year is going to be no exception to that. In fact, I think this year may be one of my hardest with two-year-old-and-into-every-single-thing-Jenny in the mix along with really teaching two separate levels for the first time.
As I’ve made each decision and spent time preparing for our year, I have prayed and I will continue to do so. I’m also going to set aside some focused time to pray for this year and hand it over to the capable hands of God to lead and direct.
Luke Holzmann says
I’m thrilled you’re coming back to Sonlight this year. Looking forward to continuing to follow along with your adventures [smile].
~Luke
Beth says
This reminds me of my school years! My mom was very good about organizing our school curriculum and preparing lesson plans, and we were always so excited to look at our new books when they arrived!
shirley says
just wondering why you are home schooling. i am new to your blog.
Nancy M. says
I love your homeschool room! It’s so cute! Glad y’all have found something that works well for your family. I just mix things together, lol! Welcome to homeschooling in SC!