Wrapping Up A Year....

Sunday night I sat down and updated our hour log. In Missouri, you are to record hours of instruction, and to complete 1,000 hours in the calendar year. Our year runs July 1 to June 30. As of April 30, one child had 955 hours and one had 959. Could that be right? I expected that we'd need to push through into June, and it looks like we'll have our 1,000 next week. So, we are wrapping up the year. We'll finish science this week, and just do a final review next. B. finished math last month and T. will work until this unit is complete. And we'll stop the last day of May. Over the summer we'll still do daily Bible reading and I'll read aloud to everyone, but I am not going to have them do their independent history reading (we use living books for history and they read on their own every day). We will participate in the library reading program, and they can choose their own books for that.

July will be a very busy month, with VBS and Art Camp at church, and visiting family. There will always be park days, going to the pool, activities at the library, family trips, etc. But I have no obligations outside of my for the entire 2nd half of May and all of June. Nothing. Okay, I teach Sunday School. But no big activities to plan, nothing to host, nothing. What am I going to do with myself?

Get a tan?

Okay, probably not that. But I know that I am going to work on my outline and get my planning done for J. and H. for next year - 1st grade and kindergarten. We are going to do 100 Easy Lessons for H. and move into easy readers for J. We are doing Singapore math and Getty Dubay handwriting and Art With a Purpose (ArtPac 2). But I think our overall "theme" this year will be Children Around the World. We'll do geography and stories of other countries, some crafts and foods, missionary stories, etc. Just sort of weave that into everything. And my goal is to NOT buy much - almost everything can come from the library.

T. and B. are pretty much covered. We are switching to BJU grammar this year, continuing with Singapore math, and starting Christian Kids Explore Biology. For Bible, they do daily readings and they participate in Awana, so they work on their books in that every day. In history we started US history last fall, and we are on a 3 year course, based loosely on Sonlight. We are at the beginning of the American Revolution right now, so hopefully we will finish that up this month and be ready to move into the Constitution in August. We are doing art/art appreciation with Great American Artists for Kids, and also Art With a Purpose (ArtPac 4).

That seems like a lot to try to cover with four children. Fortunately, T and B can do most of their work independently. I just need to answer questions, and we'll do science together. I read aloud part of their history, and will work on art with them (but that's just once a week).

I started using Homeschool Tracker last week for their scheduling and recording, and I think this is going to work very well for us. I was reaching a point where I was writing down what to do, then writing down what we did, and there was a whole lot of duplication. This is much easier. I'd like to upgrade to the deluxe version - I have the free version, which is fine, but I'm finding other things already that I'd like to do (like save a reading log) that are not done (or at least not done easily!) in the standard version. But - it is $49 and I am trying to be frugal.

But that is another post.

For now, it is a beautiful day, and the future looks good!