First Day of School 2014

It's here! First Day of School!

I'm tired!  Declan nurses constantly and Fiona is sweet and loving with him, but is definitely a little needy nowadays.  But the show must go on and the big kids have been restless and Chandler is so eager to start Kindergarten! 

Claire is finishing up 2nd grade and will be moving to 3rd by the end of the year.

Chandler is now a Kindergartener! 

Group picture including Fiona!

 Notice the 1st day of school crowns they made yesterday?  Yeah, that's homeschoolers for you!  ;)  We started at the table and Fiona had colored pencils and a notepad to entertain her.  She loves drawing and to take the pencils in and out of the box.  It almost made her through all the schoolwork!

The gang hard at work!  Minus the sleeping baby boy in the next room. 

 I never did get a chance to share our homeschool plan this year!  I have a 2nd/3rd grader and a Kindergarten student plus Fiona is 20 months old and Declan will turn 1 month on Wednesday.  Obviously I will need to get my ducks in a row and need to make a plan.

 So this wonderful book comes into play.  This is "A Simple Plan" from Mardel.  This is what I have at the end of our first day:

In the planning section I figured how many lessons I want done in a week.  This is the current week and I wrote what we actually completed today.  The post-it notes are where I broke down what I actually want to read, etc in History and Science each day.

And on that note, our curriculum for this year:

Math is Horizons.  Chandler is starting the Kindergarten book and Claire is actually finishing up the 1st grade book and then will move on to 2nd.  Horizons tends to be a little "ahead" grade level wise so I'm not worried about it.  I would prefer for her to have a good, sturdy math foundation instead of rushing her. 

Language Arts:  Claire is finishing up The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading and Chandler is starting it.  Chandler is doing Language Lessons for Little Ones and Claire will be doing Language Lessons for the Very Young.  So far they both really like it. 

 Handwriting is Handwriting Without Tears for Chandler and New American Cursive for Claire. 

 We will be doing Science and History through our homeschool co-op.  We do the reading at home and meet once a week for two hours with 29 other families to do the activities and experiments.  I love that my children get to see their friends every week and it's a wonderful group of families! 

 Science is Apologia Astronomy and Claire will be adding the Junior Astronomy Notebook as well.

History is the Mystery of History Volume 1.  So far it looks great! 

Well, that's a rundown of our curriculum, plus in the moment learning of course!  We also have monthly P.E. class, Claire is signed up for an art class and they both have a one time Horsekeeping class!  I am also planning on a having a once a week sign language class at home with them.  As long as I can keep Fiona and Declan entertained we should have a great year!

And a super cute picture to end us off with:

My littles on the first day of school!