2010 - 2011 School Year

We have officially started our new school year! We really school year round, but we have taken off several weeks due to having company and other things going on.

I'm back to homeschooling only one this year. Dakota was 8 when Elijah was born so it's been about 10 years since I've had only one to focus on. This year is all about Elijah as last year seemed to be about Dakota and his senior year.

I've never been a serious have to do school or we'll be behind kind of teacher. I love homeschooling year round so we can take off when we want to and have family days when Jody is off.

Last year was a pretty bad year for me as I was so sick and most days couldn't even get out of bed. I'm still in that shape, but I've came up with a plan. I am a hands on, unit study, lapbook and notebooking kind of teacher, but with my health problems I'm just not able to school like I want to. At one point last year I really wondered how much longer I was going to be around so I made the decision to get Elijah some Spectrum workbooks from Books A Million. He was able to work in these books even if I couldn't get out of bed. And I felt better knowing he was doing something.

So this year I wanted to have a plan. Plan A for my sick days and plan B for my better days. I asked Elijah to help me come up with school plans.

First we decided our school days will be
Sunday - school
Monday - school
Tuesday - family day
Wednesday - co-op
Thursday - school
Friday - school
Saturday - free day

This schedule will start in August. Even though we have started school this month we have a lot of unusual events going on so we are just schooling on the days we don't have scheduled for other things.

After having a long Wednesday this past week I'm wondering if I should have Thursday as a free day so I can recoop after co-op and have Saturday as a school day. I guess I'll see how it goes, thankfully I can always change things up to what works best for us.

Next we came up with a list of goals for Elijah.
1. learn his multiplication facts better
2. read every day
3. get his formula and hook up to his pump by himself
4. learn cursive
5. memorize 10 Bible verses
6. train his dog, maybe take classes at Pet Smart
7. more art
8. learn to tie shoes
9. practice counting money
10. practice telling time

We came up with a list of FIAR books we want to row.
1. Salamander Room
2. Owl Moon
3. Snowflake Bentley
4. Daniel's Duck
5. Truman's Aunt Farm
6. Follow The Drinking Gourd
7. The Giraffe that Walked to Paris
8. The Glorious Flight
9. Night of the Moon jellies
10. Mailing May
11. Who Owns the Sun
12. Papa Piccolo

Unit Studies
1. Pirates
2. Zoo
3. Magnets
4. Birds
5. Dinosaurs
6. Butterflies
7. Human Body
8. Detectives
9. Night of the Museum

Lapbooks
1. Madagascar Cockroaches
2. Legos
3. Arthur Meets the President
4. snakes
5. worms
6. oil spill
7. astronaut adventures
8. bears
9. mammals
10. frogs
11. soccer
12. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Topics of interest
1. bull sharks and tiger sharks
2 Battle of Vicksburg
3. any war
4. bats

Elijah also decided he wants to learn about American History.

So on the days that I am too sick to do school Elijah can use his Spectrum workbooks and on my better days we will do lapbooks, notebooking and unit studies.