Right now the printer is spitting out pages from homeschoolcreations.net that I am maybe a little too excited to be printing. The TEKS say my 6th grade sons should be learning world cultures this year and I have this grand idea in my mind that we will study different continents and countries each month until we have learned something about most–if not all–of them. I bought some world atlases. I plan to have them journal a few things. And now we will also use these wonderful pages from Jolanthe that I think will really help solidify what they will be learning. I am so excited to see it coming together!
How did I get here?
Let me back up…
A few weeks ago we sat together in yet another family council to talk about our plans for the upcoming school year. We needed to make absolute decisions. But my husband and I didn’t want to make them without involving the kids. So we talked together about the choices. There are still so many unknowns.
My third son was the first to declare, “I want to homeschool.” He was determined. There was no changing his mind–I tried. He is so good at being social. He is great at making friends and looking out for the kids who don’t usually get asked to play. I thought he needed to be at school. But no. He was determined to stay home. We thought the other three would be doing online options through their schools. But my oldest son pointed out that he didn’t feel like he learned well in online classes. Another son said he didn’t want to be sitting in front of the computer all day. Attendance was compulsory, there were no options to work at their own paces. So within a week, all four boys decided they wanted to stay home.
And I did not argue.
I knew there were pros and cons no matter which way we chose and I am not for one second prescribing our solution as your solution because EVERY family will have to make the decision that is right for them. But for us, in this season of life, it felt right.
So, I–being the planner that I am–sat down and read all of the TEKS (for those of you not familiar with Texas Education, they are the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills and they list the curricula each grade should cover each year). I wanted them to be equipped to jump back into public school next year without any gaps because of a year of homeschool–not that I am saying that homeschool is “less than” public school in any way. But I know that sometimes different topics are covered at different times, even across different states. I wanted to make sure I was covering as much of the same content they would be learning if they were sitting in a pre-COVID Texas classroom. I am assuming that planning for one year of homeschooling kids in four different grades looks a bit different from parents who homeschool for the long-haul. I could be wrong–I will not profess to be a homeschool expert. In a lot of ways it felt like uncharted territory. Who pulls their kids out intending to homeschool for just one year?
I guess I do.
The only subjects that I saw enough overlapping in to do together were Science and Physical Education, and even then, there will be modifications to make the science notebooks we keep on-level for my 6th, 5th, 2nd, and Pre-K children. I keep imagining those one-room schoolhouses from the 1800s and before our school year has even started, I have already gained an all-new respect for those amazing teachers who managed to keep so many children of multiple levels learning day after day. I can’t pretend like this is going to be easy.
Once I had a good list of the themes I needed to cover for each subject and grade, I broke things down by month. Once I had a good idea which themes we would focus on each month, I broke down the weeks in each of those months and planned each week (Fun bonus: I declared each of the kids’ birthdays a school holiday!).
I also decided that because I am an experienced reading and writing teacher, we would take this opportunity to do lots of reading. I know that schools have a hard time buying class sets of multiple novels for their students. But I could buy books on a much smaller scale (with no red tape!) to enable my kids to read a new novel each month. I will be sharing those book lists very soon.
I ordered a beautiful custom planner from Plum Paper and I am so happy about it! I might be switching to Plum Paper for my regular planner, too. We’ll see. I’ll explain why in an upcoming planner post. If you are interested in ordering a Plum Paper planner, email me and I can send you a code for 10% off your first purchase. I chose a layout that has enough space that I can plan for all five kids in the same space. Yes, it’s a little cramped (I am planning for four different grades, after all) and I have to be concise in my planning, but it is so convenient to have everyone’s lesson plans for the entire day on one 2-page spread to see at the same time! I am pretty excited. I know it may not seem like a big deal, but imagine trying to alternate between two different planners or multiple pages all day every day while juggling schedules and kids and chaos. No thanks. Any ways I can simplify sound GREAT to me!
If you are new around here, or you just forgot, you should know that I don’t jump into anything blindly. I am a hardcore researcher. So once I was committed to homeschooling my children this year, I took several online courses and read as much as I could. I got some great advice that I implemented right away:
1-figure out their love languages.
There are some great online quizzes and my kids actually had fun answering the questions and were intrigued to find out their results. After learning their results, I listened to the audiobook The Five Love Languages of Children: The Secret to Loving Children Effectively. And I am pretty sure that if my children gain nothing else from this school year, they will at least feel more loved. It was very eye-opening for me and it wasn’t even foreign information, just sometimes I need a gentle reminder, you know? OK, more than sometimes.
2-figure out their learning styles.
As an experienced classroom teacher, I had always been trained to create lessons that appealed to all learning styles since they would probably all be represented in each of my classes. But with homeschool, I just needed to focus my time and energy on the very specific needs of my five learners. That was exciting! And my children will get lessons catered specifically to them and their needs. Scholastic has a good quiz here.
3-have a schedule/routine.
I was already planning on a strick schedule (my kids really thrive on a schedule–and honestly, so do I when it comes to being productive), but I reached out to my kids and asked for their input before I made my final plans. I think they were excited to have some control on how we will do things. I even let them determine when we would start school. I was surprised they all readily agreed on a Wednesday. They like starting mid-week. Me, too!
To get them excited about learning, I created this worksheet. It asks what they would like to learn and what questions they have and I was so thrilled to see their answers. I’ll be sure to implement these items into our curricula. My four-year-old asked “Why does it rain?” for one of her three questions. My 2nd-grader said he wanted to be better at “saying all fifty states.” I am excited to help them reach their personal goals while we spend the year learning together. I have no doubt I’ll learn a thing or two (thousand)! If you want to use the worksheet, too, you can download and print it out here, or just use the questions and record them however you want. I think this could be helpful even if your kids are “going” to school virtually or in person because you can help them learn the things they may not be learning this year in school. It is always fun to get those glimpses into what is going on in our children’s minds. Plus, if we want to keep our kids excited about learning, it definitely helps to know what they want to learn.
Wherever you are on your school decision journey, I wish you all the best. At the end of the day, don’t let anyone else’s decisions or rhetoric make your decision for you. You will know what is right for your family. If you are choosing to do a year of homeschool, too, I’d love to hear what you are doing to prepare.
Use the “Fifty Nifty United States” song on YouTube. Preview because some versions are better than others. I like the ones that show the location/shape of each state. The tune is catchy. My students also loved “Trip around the World” where he draws as he sings. Helps with Geography 🙂 I also like the ” What your ___ grader should know” series. Have fun!
Thanks, Cheri! I will–most definitely!