Starting Our Homeschool Year
Besides having a crazy split public/online/co-op/home school schedule with a couple of my teenagers, I'm also exclusively homeschooling my 3rd grader this year. I actually homeschooled him for kindergarten and absolutely loathed it. I vowed to never homeschool again after that year. And here we are just a couple years later.... What is that saying about experience being the best teacher?
Yikes. But it's happening anyway.
I feel like I've at least set this year up for less torture than kindergarten was. I did more research, I found some programs I feel more confident about, and I have organized all. the. things.
So, if you've thought of homeschooling and want to see what we have going on, here are some links to the things I've decided to use for 3rd grade this year!
Our homeschool station is set up in the basement. Where the original 80's carpet and the comfy couch live. Because why wouldn't you want to do all your learning on the comfy couch....while you can also day dream about new flooring?
I got the book cart on amazon, I really like it. It's sturdy and holds all of our stuff. What more could you ask for in a cart? I mean, it even has wheels.
I also got a super cute hamburger lap desk on amazon. My son thinks it's the best. And it works great while we lounge and learn at the same time.
I also made him a sticker chart with a billion squares so by the end of the year we can say "WHOA, look at all that stuff we did!!!" And then pat ourselves on the back. I got a super fat pack of stickers for cheap on Amazon.
For science we're using Noeo Physics 1. I love how it's organized, and it looks SUPER easy and fun. And best of all - the whole thing is planned out. Yay for no planning science experiments!!
For math I decided to go with The Good and The Beautiful Math 3. It's a lot, but when I saw how it broke everything down into manageable chunks, and now it seems less overwhelming. (But, I'm not going to lie, the THICK book it comes with is a little intimidating.)
For history/social studies I've decided to read the new Tuttle Twins American History 1 and 2 books with my son and daughter. My daughter is much older and complains about it being little kiddish, but I've read through some of it and thought, "Wow, I didn't know that!" So she'll just have to hold her whining in.
For language arts I'm taking a sort of "Thomas Jefferson Education" approach where we'll read some classic books and then talk and write about it. We're starting with Aesop's Fables. It has awesome pictures and interesting lessons, so a win-win! And when we get done with this one, I've got some other great classics lined up (mostly chapter books, but you never START with the books with no pictures, right?).
Every day, I'll have my son learn one new thing, completely on his own, using one of three books. The Children's Encyclopedia I found at Costco a few months ago. The Highlights Book of How is on their website (along with so much other fun stuff!! I wanted to buy ALL of it). And I got this one from Amazon:
I'm also going to have him read on his own every day. And then after he's done reading, or doing science, or history, or learning a new thing, I'll have him write a couple sentences in some cute little journals I got on Amazon. He can write about what he learned, or what he thought about while learning it.
And that's mostly my plan! I'll probably throw in some art, and field trips, and bible study, and maybe even piano lessons. But I feel like I don't want to overwhelm myself from the start. Especially since I'll be driving a couple teenagers around the world, and keeping up on work, all at the same time.
Although if I could really plan a little something more, I think it would be to have naptime on the comfy couch instead.
I hope this list has been somewhat helpful for someone out there. If not, then at least I can look back on this when my 3rd grader is old and either be like, "That was an awesome year!" Or "Why did I ever think that was a good idea?!"
...either way, HERE WE GO!