Journey to Excellence

  This calendar is being offered as a FREE download from Joy at Five J's . This will be perfect for me, especially because Dawson will be on a different school schedule than Eli and Brynne. I can use a highlighter for their days of scheduled school and an "x" for his days of scheduled school. It will be an easy way to keep track of our 180 days.

I have been tossing around an idea for next year's schedule, and I think I have come to a decision. Eli and Brynne's school schedule will not coincide with Dawson's. He is insistent that he stick to the public school schedule so that he is out of school at the same time as his public school friends. Makes sense. But I have visions of longer breaks in the school year for Eli and Brynne, and primarily me. And, I would like to start having school on Saturdays for them, as well, with Science Saturdays with their daddy. Then I was looking at the calendar and noticed that the 2012 Summer Olympics are at the end of July, which would be a perfect unit study for them. All of these things combined helped me to come up with the following schedule for next year. We will have school Monday through Friday , as "normal", and Science Saturdays , having lessons and doing projects with their daddy. (I love the idea of including him in their schooling and in him sharing his pa...

I have to admit, I was dreading starting back to school today. I thoroughly enjoyed our two week break, and I know the kids did, too. We enjoyed sleeping in late, sitting in bed drinking coffee (me, not the kids), playing video games in our pjs (the kids, not me), and leisurely going about our days. This morning when the alarm went off at 6 a.m., it actually scared me! I woke up wondering what the heck it was! But, I drug myself up, had my quiet time, went for a walk, came home and showered and got ready for the day, and just got right to it. Eli DID NOT want to go back to school. In fact, he cried and I had to walk him in to his class. I thought, "Uh oh. This day is going to be tough." But, when I got home, Dawson immediately came downstairs and was ready to get started. And he kicked it all day! We started reading our current read-a-loud, then he watched the next episode of his history dvd. He answered the questions and did vocabulary. Then he went upstairs and did...

I have to admit ... I have been enticed by all the pretty planners that are out there! I have visions of going to our weekly Co-op meeting/activity with my pretty planner looking as though I have it all together, in the prettiest way possible. I highly considered purchasing The Well-Planned Day spiral planner. I poured over it on the website and got out my credit card. But, then I really thought about what works for me. And I decided not to fix what's not broken, even if it's not the prettiest thing on the outside. My system works for me, and for my kids. So, I'm going to stick with it. Here's what I do ... I am a wall-calendar freak fanatic. I always have been. In fact, I have the wall calendars stored from the past 10-12 years, just in case. My wall calendar is above my desk in the kitchen and contains every single thing we are doing. I used to have a separate meal calendar, but my husband designed me a calendar that is all-inclusive and he prints it out for ...

I had fun yesterday with Brynne's Co-op Playgroup moms discussing the differences in how we schedule our homeschool days. All of these moms have early elementary, and mostly kindergarten, aged children. Their days aren't quite as scheduled as mine is. If I was just schooling Brynne, mine would probably be a little more lax, too. (Or maybe not, because I am a schedule freak). But, having a high school student tends to kick you in the rear when it comes to getting everything done every day. Based on what we realistically did last year (it being our rookie homeschooling year), what we have to accomplish this year (from a high school perspective), and the priority of our reading goals, here is what I have come up with for a schedule: I feel like this is a very doable (and necessary) schedule. I do plan to have Dawson participating in "school" from 9:00-3:00 (or until his work is all done) every day. If he completes an assignment set before the next scheduled block, h...