Homeschool :: 2012/2013 School Year Plan
I am so very excited about this upcoming homeschool year. After careful consideration of the boys learning styles and our family goals, reading through some thought provoking books, and talking to some older homeschool moms we have decided on what will be the best fit for our family – and I am so excited!
I have worked out three different lists for our homeschool year – Math Skills, Life Skills and Reading List.
The idea is to work through these skills one by one until they have mastered it. The skills will be exercised in real life situations as opposed to being taught from a text book. Lots of books will be read and we will pursue the list of skills until all are mastered – if it takes us well beyond a year then so be it. We are seeking excellence, not simply seeking to check the items off the list.
The math skills are from An Easy Start in Arithmetic by Ruth Beechick (I mentioned her book in this post about counting to 100.)
Our reading list for the year is really just the very basics of the books we will be reading – I wanted to have in place the backbones for a reading list and we will springboard from this, especially around events (elections, Thanksgiving, etc) and as interests come up using books from the homeschool bookshelf. Included on the list are two things the boys have asked me if we could research (vultures and germs) and the rest are ones I want to be sure to read this year to introduce them to a variety of subjects.
Our life skills list is just that – skills we think are important for the boys to learn. Paul was a huge asset in helping with this!! Some skills will be easier for one boy to master than the other due to personalities. Some skills will be picked up quicker than others. Some skills will take months of practice to master – that was the goal. Have just enough simple skills to learn that they are encouraged to work hard at the more challenging ones.
Download the Skills Lists Here
All of the above lists plus a blank one are available for a free download via Scribd right here in my Homeschool Skills Lists Kindergarten folder.
In addition to working our way through these lists of skills in our homeschool year we will also be attempting nature journals and memory work and continuing in our pursuit of intentional habit building in the laid back, few minutes a day regime we’ve been following all year.
So – any fabulous ideas to celebrate the start of the homeschool year? We’ve done little bits of “school” throughout the summer and I want something special to start off the beginning of the homeschool year and I would love to hear your ideas!!
