Homeschooling

This year I began my fifth year of homeschooling, 

We’ve completed 4 weeks already this year, and once again it’s been a tremendous blessing to all of us.

For the first time ever I’ve mixed up my homeschool materials.

Till this point I had only been using solely BJU Press materials ~ which have been great!
Although, we decided to try a new program for 2 subjects this year for our Grade 3, and 4 students.

After weeks of searching, we decided on SOS by AOP, and so far have been greatly impressed.  I’ve been amazed at how   straightforward these two subjects (History & Science) have been for me to supervise and teach ~ I’ve had to ask myself “why didn’t I think of using a computer based homeschool method before?” 

One of my favourite times of year has become “homeschool set up time” during this crazily busy time; I thrive on the excitement of the upcoming year!   I love researching what to purchase and planning each subject out.  Once the materials arrive in the mail from CBD ~ I quickly open the boxes, and flip through new materials (mmm ~ there is nothing quite like the smell of new books).   I then spend days, and days (sometimes weeks), organizing, hole punching, color coordinating, printing, scheduling, programming ect... and then of course cleaning up the mess of it all ~although we always find “dots” from hole punching for months later in the living room (kinda like Christmas pine needles) that seem to show up at random times despite meticulous cleaning. 
Here’s a quick look at our classroom set up this year.  These pictures were taken the day before classes actually began ~ so over the course of the last month, a few smaller things have been “reorganized” for convince of teaching, and learning.

This year’s additions included:

• Computer lab ~ where all 4 kids have their own accounts and privacy settings.  Adding a 6^th desk to the room, made things fit bit tighter, but so far it has worked great!
• Children’s mailboxes ~ here they can leave assignments to be marked, their agendas, and notes to and from me.
• 2 scrapbook paper decorated clip boards ($2.00 from the dollar store) above each of their desks, 1 to hold Math Visual Packets, and 1 for Phonic/English Visual Packets
• Library Return system ~ behind the child’s computer (a 4 slot wire rack ~ $2.00 from the dollar store)~ here the children each have a slot to return books, when the slots are full, I update their reading logs
• Agendas ~ this year I decided to purchase ($2.00 each @ dollar store), and organize agendas for the children ~ each day I’ve pre-filled out for them each subject, and lesson plan number/name that they need to complete that day.  I find these have helped the kids get excited about completing each subject...they are constantly asking each other “how many assignments do you have left?”
• 2 Medical wall charts ~ I found these at our local dollar store for $1.25 each

This is the view looking out from my desk:  Note I labeled the scented markers ~ I found last year that such a simple thing adds pleasure to the marking of school assignments :-)

This is beside my desk ~ please ignore the chalkboard art that my son did :-)  And the sticky notes on the chalk board ~ were my summer to-do-list.

So here is where I spend from 8:30-1:00 everyday (The older kids then compete their workbooks that don't require teachers instruction till about 3:00)

Joyfully Serving the Lord ~ Melodiejoy