Coming This Fall

We're officially starting our next year of lessons the week of Sept 1st. We have the goal to run Sept-Nov, Jan-Mar, May-July. So, starting Aug 29th our frame work will be:

• prep for day, breakfast, and morning chores done by 9a.
• a short stroll outside at 9a, then our "circle time" to discuss our day, our week, the virtue for the week, and a scripture story.
• at the top of each hour we will start a new bit of lessonwork. Whatever remains of that hour once they complete it is theirs. If they don't complete their assignment by the top of the next hour we'll simply move on to the next task. They have their choice of which "subject" they want to work on when, but all four will be completed each day.
• we're only doing four "subjects" each day: math, lapbook, language arts worksheet (we refer to it as grammar even though that's not fully accurate), and weekly activities.
• our weeklies include language arts folder centers from Take It to Your Seat, SWR/penmanship, science/Outdoor Hour, reading for wee-one and DailySpark:History for eldest.
• Wii Fit after lessons and before lunch.
• the afternoon will be available for free play and/or screentime until afternoon chores at 4:30p. Wii games will be available during dinner prep after their afternoon chores are done.
• other activities for our evenings will include Family Night, Scouts (whether we find a troop or continue to Lone Scout), Correspondence, and Game Night.
• we've scheduled Late Night Playdates and nature study dates with a lovely group we enjoy...we'll see if anybody is able to fit it into their schedules.
• we'll be participating in a frequent Handwork Gathering (fiber arts), a monthly art appreciation class, the free Home Depot builds, and the free Lego builds (we hit a museum beforehand to avoid rush hour traffic). We have to miss out on some nifty enrichment classes and TrackOuts, as well as swim lessons this fall due to life (read: medical and dental bills) but maybe in the spring... There's also a couple of HotWheels shows (racing) and CruiseNights coming up.
• we're members of three homeschooling groups this year. Each one has attributes that are of service to our family and none of them require us to be involved 100% in every.single.activity.
• we have the DVR set to record Wonders of the Solar System (science), Sons of Guns (engineering), Black Ops Brothers (engineering), Mythbusters (science), Cake Boss (engineering, creativity), When Earth Erupts (science, geography), WordGirl (language), Dinosaur Train (social studies, science), Stuck with Hackett (science, engineering), and any intriguing programs involving WWII or volcanoes. We have some other programs already saved for upcoming astronomy studies and Civil War studies.
• eldest will have his choice of a free read to enjoy on his own time. Once completed he'll earn a reward for sending a book report to Grandma.
• we'll be doing our third annual historic gingerbread in November (we actually need to start deciding which historical building we want to do this year)
• thanks to eldest's fascination with Denmark after reading Number the Stars (as part of our WWII studies), we're going to incorporate some of their holiday traditions this year.