Gearing Up for Next Year

We are about 4 weeks away from finishing our "school year"!  This is so exciting for us, I can now say that we finished one year of homeschooling, and that I plan to continue!  This is a big deal considering I wasn't thinking I could do it at this time last year.  Now I wouldn't have it any other way.

We are also finalizing our curriculum for next year.  After attending our homeschool convention over the weekend I was able to find a few extra things to round out our curriculum.  I will be writing a separate post about what we will be using later on.

Right now I want to share something that really stuck out to me while listening to a seminar at our convention.  I actually went to two seminars about basically the same thing, one was about occupying little ones while homeschooling older children, and the other one was about homeschooling multiple age children.  Both of them said the same thing... spend undivided time each day with your little one!  That hit home to me, that I need to make sure Zach is given his time with me to learn.  So in our schedule next year I will have to make sure that I schedule 15-30 minutes each day just for him!

Anther tip that I received was to include the littles in as much as possible.  So when the big kids get their new supplies, make sure the littles get some new things as well.  When the big kids are doing worksheets or coloring pages make sure the littles have one as well.  These are all awesome ideas that definitely need to be implemented into our homeschool.  They are also things that I know, but struggle to actually do on a daily basis.

Anybody have other tips for me for homeschooling multiple ages of children?  I am always open to new ideas!

Week in Review

I meant to post this last weekend, but it got extremely busy!!  I am telling you soccer is going to be the end of me!!  Thankfully this is the last week for soccer and hopefully our lives can get back some more rest!  Anyway here is what we have been working on over the past few weeks.


In Second grade we have been working with time and money in math. We finished up talking about Day 2 of creation for Science.  In History we have been talking about the settling of America, which has lead us to read some amazing books about Pocahontas and the Pilgrims.  You can find the books we read here , here and here.  For reading Elijah has been going through Robinson Crusoe and he is really enjoying it, we should be finishing up that book in the next few weeks and moving on to something else.

Reading  Robinson Crusoe

Snack and school work, a good combination.

Big brother, little brother playing together.

A rare brotherly love moment, reading together!

A little Math on the floor, we love homeschooling!

Playdough mat time!

He was so proud of his word he made!

In Pre-K 4 we have been working on "Unit Studies" more like "packet work".  I had hopes that workbooks would be the way to go with Noah but he just isn't into it as much as Elijah was.  So we changed course and are taking on a more hands on approach to our learning.  Last week we did a unit on The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  I got the pack from 1+1+1=1, she is AMAZING!!  I love the way she puts stuff together.  Noah really took to it and had so much fun with all the activities.  This week we are doing a Fall Unit which I also got from 1+1+1=1.  Along with those units we are adding lots of find motor activities, such as button threading, bean scooping, and Lego play time!

Working on his 3 Part Cards

He made a Caterpillar

I made this cool mat with our names on it for him to use.  

Having a little iPad time, one of his favorite apps is Rocket Speller!

Write the room cards, he was so cute walking around with that clipboard!

Playdough mats, another new favorite!

For our Tot, Zach, who is 13 months, its all about what he can get into!  This is a new challenge that we are facing, as he is really fighting the morning nap. So what used to be a good 2 hours is now about half an hour or 45 minutes if we are lucky!  So trying to keep him busy with activities and not grabbing at things the other two are doing is getting very tiring.  Yet he is not quite at the age where I can sit him down and he will do an activity for an extended period of time.  This has lead to us extending our school day into the afternoon a little.

Playing with letter magnets.

"Picking up the letter magnets.

Marble tower, a favorite toy with him!

Barrel of Monkeys, he loves them!

His first experience with dried beans, he had a lot of fun!

Ahh, yes the angst of a toddler!


That sums up our week last week.