Getting Started

I thought I knew all summer what we were going to do for homeschool this fall. So, I didn't worry about it too much when everyone else was scurrying around making a plan. But, as luck (and newness to homeschool) would have it, my best laid plan didn't go so well.

I found a book at half price books called Learn at home. This is the book that we used this summer, but we didn't get very far. I discovered that she should be studying post Civil War United States this year (according to this curriculum) The problem is that she has only ever studied up to the 13 colonies, several times. None of her school work has ever taken her into the Revolutionary war...so scratch that. I did find a history book series called The History of the United States. I got it from the library and we read some of it over the summer, but I really need to purchase it.

After floundering for a couple weeks, I decided on a more formal plan. I ordered Switched on Schoolhouse so Maggie can do much of her work independently on the computer, which she loves. I have the Bible, History and Language Arts curriculm from there. I also ordered 2 science teacher's manuals from Songlight. We are catching up her literature, which has been sorely neglected (no one ever made her read the Little House series) and I'm choosing vocab words from those books and testing her weekly. I have sets of spelling words from my Learn at home book. I still need to find a way to get her spelling better b/c it's her weakest area. Math is going to be the Math U See workbook series, which she loves from Flint. She understands how the math is laid out and really enjoys working the problems in the book.

So far, so good. We're off to a start.

Our weekly schedule looks like this so far:
Monday, all the subjects and assign work for her to do with her dad
Tuesday she is with her dad and will be working on projects with him.
Wednesday she goes to a riding apprentice program from 1:30-5:30, after which she is home and she and Peter will do math.
Thursdays we hit all the subjects again, grade papers from the earlier days in the week.
Friday, catch up on anything we left out

If necessary, we also do school work on Saturdays and Sundays. She probably will have to some to stay on track since I'm sure her dad will be doing more project type learning than actual book work. Last week they worked on teaching navigation and and she learned about longitude and latitude.

She has some volunteer opportunities during the week as well, going with me to the nursing home as well as seeing one client who enjoys Maggie's company.

We did look at a 2 day per week school, but it didn't pan out for us at this time. I just didn't have the money.

Today I have to go see a client in the morning (getting ready to leave shortly) and Maggie will be doing math and reading another chapter in Little House in the Big Woods as well as studying vocabulary while I'm gone. She has a vocab and spelling test when I get home and we'll do some catch up history when I get back.