Reflecting On Our Last Two Years of Homeschool

We finished our 5th-grade year and now we are in between grades. At the end of the school year I like to reflect on how that year went for us. I thought I would share my top three reflections.

1. Breaks are a necessity. 

Not only would I get burnt out having school every day but so would my child. I didn't realize it in the first year. I wanted to keep going on the same days that public schools were in session. Now I realized that those kids and teachers are probably burnt out before they get a winter or spring break. The winter break where I live is only 2 weeks and the spring break, if they are lucky is 3 days. They do get off federal holiday's and once a month there is an in-service day. That was just not long enough for us. It is okay to take breaks to avoid that oh so wonderful burnt out feeling. 

When we would take a nice break, my kiddo was able to refocus. That is why this year we are implementing year-long schooling, starting July 6th. I am hoping this will help us spread it out more evenly. 

2. You are home, not in a classroom. 

The first year and for the first half of this year I still acted like we needed to be in a classroom. We are at home, so the rules are probably more relaxed than they are in a classroom. Once I started to relax and go at our own pace everything went much more smoothly. We would even take our schoolwork outside just to change up the scenery on nicer days. 

3. Find the curriculum that works for you. 

Oh, this one I am still struggling with. It is okay to change your curriculum. If it doesn't work, try something else. We still have yet to find a writing/grammar curriculum that my son likes. We have tried two so far. I probably should have switched in the middle of the year when he would complain because he hated writing so much. This year we are trying our third. I am hoping doing a video/online program as we do for math will help. I am crossing my fingers and dotting my I's that we finally found a curriculum that he likes. Also, if you have a curriculum that works, I say stick with it and don't branch out. "Why break what doesn't need to be fixed," is what my Grandma has always said. 

What are some of the changes you are making to your 2020-21 school year? How has your homeschooling changed over the years?

Keeping My Home School 6th Grader Organized

We will be starting our third year homeschooling this July. This past year we lost papers and our list of assignments that we wrote down. Thankfully, I also keep digital copies or our plans.

Since we are having a break between 5th and 6th grade, I brainstormed ideas that I hope will help keep everything together and organized. My plan is also to help give him more independence by giving him his assignments for the entire week instead of the day.

I have my planner that I will share at another time that is now planned out till September.

I purchased him a planner from Target. It is a 2020-21 Weekly/Monthly Planner from Blue Sky. It starts in July, which is perfect.

The monthly part of his calendar I have added important dates and figured he can go in and add anything he wants with it.

In the weekly part, I listed his assignments for the week on the correct day. We are only going to home school Monday - Thursday, leaving Friday's open for co-op, trips to visit family, field trips, or catch up days. Every Sunday or Monday morning I will update his planner with the new assignments.

I do not have his language arts in his planner yet, I need to dive more into the curriculum calendar for that before I add it. (You can read more about our curriculum choice for 6th grade HERE)

Another way I am helping him stay organized is he will have a folder system that has all the papers he needs for the week in their assigned day. I did a post yesterday on how I created this folder system.

I didn't take any photos, but his completed work will go into a regular 3 ring binder to make setting up his portfolio at the end of the year. I will add his work to that just to help keep myself organized and less work at the end of the year.

How do you keep your family organized? I am always looking for more ideas!

DIY Folder Organzier for Homeschool

My soon to be 6th grader has trouble keeping track of papers that he needs to for the day. I tend to hand him his papers first thing in the morning with his list of assignments. Since he is older, I wanted to give him more responsibility. He will be getting his assignments for the whole week every Monday. I will be posting tomorrow about my plans for keeping him organized.

Today, I wanted to share this super easy and affordable DIY Folder Organizer.

I remember one of my teachers having something very similar to this in case we lost assignments and I wanted to recreate my own. Do you ever remember anything from your childhood that is so ordinary but clever? This was one of those moments.

What you'll need:

File Folders
Tape

Yarn (not pictured)

Directions:

Line up your folders.

Tape your folders together -- I wished I had colorful duck tape or folders to make it more personal but this is what we have on hand.

Add a loop of yarn on the back with tape.

Hang.

I did add the days of the weeks to the top of the folders to coordinate with the papers he will need for that day. You can personalize this however you want. Again, I wished I had some different color folders or duck tape.

What is your tip for keeping your kiddo organized?

Our 6th Grade Curriculum at a Glance

We haven't started 6th grade yet. We will start in July! However, I have taken this mini-break from school to focus on what curriculum we have decided to go with for 6th grade.

Please note, there are no affiliate or referral links in this post. This is just the choice we are using.

I have decided to do Level 6 of Build Your Library. We really like this curriculum. However, I wish it was slightly meatier so I will be creating mini unit studies on the books, interactive notebooks, and note booking. We haven't done any official type of note booking in our home school yet but I do want to include more writing. I will be either creating my own, using teachers pay teachers, or finding free resources online from other wonderful families. I read Emily is going to be updating level 6 and that should be out by the fall time. We will be using the current version just because it aligns well with the older version of level 5. I do want to do a weekly update when we start school, so you can follow along with what we are doing and what I added.

We also will be using Teaching Textbooks for math. My son and I both really enjoy the online set up of it.

We have yet to find a writing/grammar curriculum that we like, so this year we are trying Essentials in Writing.

We are not a real fan of the Real Science Odyssey, so this year we are going to try something new. My son wants to learn about Earth and Space. I have heard good things about this curriculum so I thought we would try it out. We decided on Elemental Science: Earth Science & Astronomy for the Logic Stage.

I am also going to add TeaTime. My goal is once a week in some sort of variety to fun to basic. He will also be doing a free typing program I found. Watching that boy type hurts my soul, so I would like him to have some basic typing skills.

This is our 6th-grade choice in a nutshell.

What curriculum will you be using this year? What is your child's favorite book? (I am always looking for new books to give to my kiddo to read)

Why We Homeschool

"Why do we homeschool?" is a question that I often receive. The short answer is we enjoy the freedom that homeschooling provides for us.

 

The freedom I mentioned is that we can take family vacations when it is right for my family. When my son was in the public school system I would have to get "approval" from the school district that he would miss a period of school.

I have always had this urge to homeschool. I wanted to badly but believed that I wasn't capable of teaching my child. How wrong was I to believe that? I would take my youngest to the playground or on mini hiking trips during the spring and fall days. I kept thinking about how I wished my oldest was here, being outdoor, not stuck in a classroom, and spending time with us on these beautiful days.

With those thoughts in my mind almost every day three years ago, I finally took the plunge and pulled him out of public school at the end of his 3rd-grade year. I have enjoyed almost every minute of it.

So I homeschool because I like being around my children and the freedom that comes with being able to go outdoors on beautiful days to when we can go on vacation.

Pumpkin Pie PlayDough Recipe

During October, we had a pumpkin theme for my preschooler. We set up a pumpkin patch play area, read books about pumpkins, and did some fun pumpkin activities. 

One of those activities we made pumpkin pie playdough. The photos do have Halloween cookie cutters in them but swap those out for some pumpkin shapes or thanksgiving theme ones and it would still work today.

After we made the playdough I gave him some items to use to create pumpkins or to let his imagination run wild

The recipe I used was found on DIY Natural and I added pumpkin spice to the recipe. 

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of flour
• ¼ cup of salt
• 1 Tbsp cream of tartar
• ½ cup of warm water
• 5 drops of orange food coloring
• Pumpkin pie spice

Directions:

1. Mix together the flour, salt, cream of tartar, and pumpkin pie spice.
2. Mix together ½ cup of warm water with a few drops of food coloring.
3. Slowly pour the water into the flour mixture, stirring as you pour. Stir until combined, then knead with your hands until the flour is completely absorbed. If the dough is too sticky, add more flour until it doesn’t stick at all.

** For the pumpkin pie spice, I did not measure it, I just went by smell. It is really up to how much you want to use. I would say  I probably used 1 tablespoon but give or take.

Book of the Week: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Book of the Week: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

 

 

 

Last week, with my toddler we dived into the world of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. 

 

He has been obsessed with butterflies lately. They feature a butterfly at the very end but it was fun to talk about the many types of foods while counting. The pictures kept him interested in his reading. Here are some of the activities that we did. I also share these on Instagram, if you would like to follow us there. 

I put red and green paint on paper plates and handed him a potato masher. We created the body and head by dipping the masher into the paint and placing it onto the paper. We also did this with the head. I let him dip his fingers into the red paint to create fingerprint feet for the caterpillar. Once the paint dried I drew a face.

 

 

The day we did this activity we focused on circles. I cut out a couple of green circles and one red one from construction paper. I had him glue them onto a piece of paper in a wavy line like a caterpillar. Afterward, I had him practice drawing lines for legs. He also drew eyes onto the caterpillar. He is three and is finally attempting to draw facial features. It is an exciting milestone for me.

Here is our final caterpillar activity for the week. I cut out strips of green and red construction paper. I helped him create a chain link caterpillar by creating rings and gluing them into each other. Again, he drew eyes onto the caterpillar.

Since the book ends with the caterpillar turning into a butterfly, we ended up creating a clothespin butterfly, at the end of the week. To do this we took a coffee filter and painted it with watercolor paint. Once it dried we accordion file folded the filter and clipped it into the clothespin. I did glue a small magnet on one side to create a magnet that he plays with the refrigerator or he can use to hang up some of his art.

This week we are doing a dinosaur book, check back next week for those activities.