HOMESCHOOL PLANS | Next Year's Homeschool (Brain Dump)
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- Опубліковано 30 бер 2023
- Let's chat about next year's homeschool plans! I've been thinking through next year's homeschool plans, and this chat is a bit of a homeschool brain dump as I go through the homeschool planning process. Our 2023-2024 homeschool curriculum has been on my mind, but there are several things I'm processing through. Rather than only sharing our finalized homeschool curriculum choices for next year, I thought I'd give a peek into what's happening inside my brain as I think about homeschool curriculum planning.
What stage of homeschool planning for 2023 are you currently in? Do you have all your curriculum chosen, are you still processing through your homeschool options, or have you not even started thinking about it yet? Let's talk about 2024-2024 homeschool planning in the comments!
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I'm Jess, a homeschool mom raising three awesome girls. I'm a reluctant homeschooler turned full-blown homeschool convert! Now, my girls and I love being a homeschooling family! I've embraced my love for Charlotte Mason and running an eclectic homeschool. I'm so thrilled to be part the homeschool community here on UA-cam and enjoy getting to know other homeschoolers. Whether you're a fellow homeschooling mom or are just interested in learning more about home education, I'm so glad you're here! Subscribe to follow along as I share our homeschooling journey and my family's experience living, loving, and learning at home. Introduce yourself in the comments so I can say hello!
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Love this!
Biblioplan sounds like a good fit for you guys.
I’ve heard good things! I just wasn’t sure if they have a dedicated American History year. I’ll look into it.
@@TheHomeschoolConvert It mixes American and World. I think it's difficult to completely separate the two because of the relationship of the world as a whole (French and British involvement with Revolutionary war, why people immigrated to America, Benjamin Franklin and all his time in France, etc.) Our family is using the 4th section next year. It also includes Christian history. My daughter actually said this year, "I used to think Bible history was sort of a different land until we began putting them on the timeline together. Now I see that Bible history and history like wars and kings are the same!" I love that it gives a full well-rounded perspective. The curriculum has a high school credit guide on the website. :)
Your plan sounds so wonderful! Thanks for sharing your brain dump and thought processing for planning and choosing for the upcoming year.
All Anout Spelling and All About Reading
Love videos like this! I would definitely wait with latin etc. 4th grade is still so young, especially if there are other struggles and things to tend to. She still has time.
Family learning is so fun! We love tying our learning in with places we travel. It really helps the kiddos get excited about learning the information when they can experience the places for themselves. Can't wait to hear what you finally decide on. Thanks for sharing.
Yes, it’s so great! We’ve done a lot of National Parks travel this year so have read and learned a lot about those.
Something to consider if you can. Spelling You See can be wonderful for dyslexics in the sense of just letting them chunk the words down (you can even place the total number of each chunk their searching for on the page so there’s no guessing of what’s expected) this helps the right brain picture memory. Then also using it for the copy work which exposes them for sheets A-C and let D be just for them to explore getting their ideas out of their head which can take a lot of practice but by being a free day it helps them relax. No rule and no testing of the text. This would be fully independent work which also can boost their self-esteem, or as we’ve seen. Then what add in do the all about spelling for the 10-15 minutes she can handle to solidify those phonics principles and the oral/auditory processing side by you doing dictation. If she shows dyslexic tendencies multiple ways of approaching all things can be a fabulous as well as repetition and just moving on. Truly a juggling act but so rewarding when they say oh i see now! It’s not always easy for them to have rote memory but exposure and practice and honest trying goes ALONG way.
Can I just say, I just love your personality 😃. You are a joy to watch. Thanks for all the great info!
Oh, thank you! 🥰 What a sweet compliment.
We absolutely loved the field trips associated with US history. I'm so glad that we did those! My daughter enjoyed the American Spelling You See when we were studying American history. She didn't like the other Spelling You See books.
I have planned out next year already. Lol Always good to get a head in planning so we can enjoy our summer a bit more.
Yes, I agree! Trying to get there. 😆
I’ve already planned next year too! It feels so good to get it all out of my brain!! I thrifted as much as possible and printed as many free resources as I could. This past school year was our first year homeschooling and we intended to continue indefinitely. We love it! By month two we found what really worked for us and what we loved using, so that’s when I started sourcing stuff for the 2023-2024 school year. Within the last two weeks I just placed my last two ThriftBooks orders and we have all of our workbook resources good to go! I still need to plan out book lists for the library, crafts, and experiments as we go, but otherwise the loose plans are “set.”
That’s so great! It always feels so good to have plans finalized. Hope y’all have a fantastic school year!
I would wait on the Latin, I am going to be starting all about spelling level 1 , so in the reading and spelling stage wait. Ppl at the bookstore i consign with are experienced homeschoolers as well, and they said with what our season is and the curriculum, just wait a little on the grammar and even foreign language.
Williamsburg and places like Mount Vernon have homeschool days, so keep that in mind when scheduling your trips. The Homeschool discount for Williamsburg was way better than even their normal military discount.
Ooh, good to know! Thank you! We're pretty far away (Texas), but we are talking about doing an American history road trip next summer.
Love hearing your thoughts on planning next year. Possibly using Sonlights History 100 might be a good fit. It uses a new one volume edition of America The Last Best Hope as the spine. Even using that book to build your year around might work well. We've used the lengthier original volumes 1 and 2 for American history and they are fantastic!! ❤ We used them with Heart of Dakota, but even pulling readers and lit book ideas from their guides at your younger daughters level would be an idea, as well. Anyway, great video....looking forward to see how your plans come together! Blessings! ❤
Thank you for the recommendation! 😁
Hello! I have not started homeschooling yet, I am still in the research part of it. We have suspected my daughter having dyslexia but when we checked out testing, it was 3k here. So we did not. Her teacher at the time had a son who was diagnosed dyslexic and she recommended Orton Gillingham structured curriculum. The spelling and reading curriculum with a bee on it, I think it is called All about spelling, is structured the Orton Gillingham method. Not sure if you have looked into it, but I thought I would mention.
I have not dealt with a dyslexic student yet however I know the thinking tree funschooling journals have quite a few dyslexic options.
I was thinking Biblioplan when you were explaining your goals for History. 😊
I’ve heard good things! I just wasn’t sure if they have a dedicated American History year. I’ll look into it.
We're in South Africa and also started home educating in 2020, although it was planned and not because of the pandemic. My son is also 4th grade this year.
Enjoyed
🫶
Yes to family style learning - I’ve found that the younger kids just pick up information as we go. TGTB and Gather round History works really well for this. I always tweak every curriculum we use and just skip things. We homeschool because we have the freedom to choose 🙌 Love your plans ❤
I actually looked at Gather around for US history! I think we’re going a different direction, but it looked great.
HI, finishing our 3rd year of homeschooling. I have four sons. My son has a hard time with spelling too. It seems like you are on a good thought path. We had so much going on last year, it took up our time to go places and even do our own curriculum. This year I am trying to stick to after school activities and maybe a half day of fine arts somewhere, but all academics at home because it was a mess doing classes outside the home, just didn't work. I would say do as much or little as you feel you can handle and meet your children where they are.
Thanks for the encouragement. ♥️
I'm going to try it next year but with a charter school just so I can access funds. I might get the book The Well Trained Mind for some ideas for a curriculum. I'm going to be attempting teach while working full time but trying to telework as much as possible. Your channel is wonderful.
Thank you for such a sweet compliment! I’ve worked it varying capacities, although never full time, while homeschooling. Primarily it’s been work from home. It can be a juggling act at times, but it’s totally possible!
I love your US history idea and hope you can make it what you’re imagining! I’m in the midst of figuring out what I want for next year as I’ll add my third student to the mix and have a 3rd, 1st, and Kindergartener 😮 (💗💗💙). We already do Classical Conversations and love that and I especially love that it’s all the same material between us! I’m now trying to find something for language arts that we could maybe do all together as well - curious if you would have any ideas!
You could do literature together through family read alouds with oral narrations after from your kiddos, and you could even pull copywork from whatever you’re reading together. Primary Language Lessons or Language Lessons for Today could probably be used with your older two. I’d personally focus on reading and phonics with the youngest.
I highly recommend listening to the delectable education podcast. One of the members has a child with severe dyslexia. My son also has dyslexia, adhd and dysgraphia and cm method has been a huge blessing
Thanks for the recommendation! I’ve listened to a handful of episodes, but I’ll and see if there are any episodes that speak directly to this.
I planned out everything in November but now I am making changes to tailor more to our lifestyle. I have a fear of adding more to our plate too. The accountability of a group too but like the freedom. Wait a year bridge the gap between your youngest
Thanks for the feedback!
I’m not sure of what exactly you are noticing with dyslexia, but look into cursive vs manuscript. My oldest is 7 and we started with cursive first and spell to write and read for our formal lessons. Cursive first is by Elizabeth FitzGerald and Spell to Write and Read is by Wanda Sanseri. It sounds similar to what you’re using so you may just only want to add Cursive first. I noticed with my daughter she showed a few dyslexic tendencies when we started with manuscript and there is a lot of research that cursive first helps reverse or avoid dyslexic tendencies for children that might not actually have dyslexia. I hope this was helpful. Love your videos. Recent subscriber.
Thank you so much for sharing that tip! Kennedy has been learning cursive this year and is enjoying it. I’ll have to pay attention to how it affects her spelling as she gets more consistent with it.
Sonlight has A, D+E, and 100- all American History programs at different levels. Might be a good place to find ideas at all your levels. (Or teach D+E, oldest does 100 on her own along side, and grab some A books as desired to read with the youngest.)
For a one-year overview of American history that works well as a family morning time, you might want to check out Mission Lasting Liberty from Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood!
Thanks for the recommendation!
Also, we have dyslexia in our house. I see a lot of other mamas in dyslexia circles say not to bother bringing in foreign language unless it is by immersion. Use that time to hit dyslexia intervention. For us, we are still working through all about reading, sight word memorization, spelling of the most common words in the English language…. I feel like that is most important.
Thanks for the insight. Kennedy is definitely a stronger reader than she is a speller.
Momdelights talks about some great (free) American history resources in some of her older videos and blog posts. 😊 she also has a new spelling curriculum that I’m considering for next year, I wonder if this would be something that could work for your girls.
I am seriously considering using her spelling curriculum after looking at it a couple weeks ago!
Have you looked into All About Spelling? I've heard the All About Learning Press is great for kids that are struggling. I hope you find a fit for your daughter. This is a great video!
We did AAS when Kennedy was in first grade. It worked really well at the time and helped to build the most foundational skills, but we dropped it her second grade year because it was a bit much for how her brain works.
I found I had to seriously curate for US history, as you said. I am a Christian but really don’t like most Christian history curriculum on US history. I ended up using a lot of Classical Conversations memory work from their app, we watched Liberty’s kids on UA-cam, we got most of the books from the US history booklist from what is now Sonlight Core A US History, and I made up my own map work and US history timeline. I added in Brighty of the Grand Canyon, Paddle to the Sea, and The Birchbark House, and we did a lot of mapping with those.
I feel the same way!
I've never had him tested, but I'm 99% sure my son has dyslexia. I've tried a bunch of different spelling curricula. I think we're having our best success using a mix of Simply Charlotte Mason's Spelling Wisdom with additional copywork, and explicit phonics and syllable review. We do copywork every day and alternate between Spelling Wisdom and phonics review. So far, this approach has been working well for him.
I've personally had to stop our Spanish lessons because the similarities and differences to English were really confusing him. I think we may have better success with a language that doesn't use the Roman alphabet. If your daughter has the same issues as my son, Latin may not be the best choice.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Feeling confident we won’t reuse Spelling You See because I’m just not seeing the payoff. Ironically, we have Spelling Wisdom, and I’m thinking of doing a very similar approach to what you’re doing. (This was filmed a couple weeks ago, so I’ve had some time to sit on things and think about them more.)
For Latin, I’m considering to more of a Latin “primer” of sorts with word roots instead of a straight-up Latin curriculum. I think that may be a hood starting place. I may even have younger sis join in because she’s a gifted learner and is definitely advanced for her age. I’m having to find a balance of pacing her and allowing her to blossom and learn at the speed she’s comfortable with.
@@TheHomeschoolConvert Teaching Latin root words sounds like a great idea for any age! I've been thinking about adding something similar to our vocab exercises next year. I can definitely see the benefit.
I wish you all the best in balancing the learning needs of your girls. I can tell that it is something that you think about a lot. I'm sending positive thoughts your way. 😊❤️
It might be too easy but I like how treasure hunt reading journey 2 & 3 explain the different spelling rules.
And I am dyslexic.
Thanks for the recommendation!
I would say notgrass history, it lists the grade levels and it’s fairly broad. We recently went to colonial Williamsburg and somehow got a combo for that and Busch Gardens which was cheaper than the Busch Gardens for one day, we did a week pass and we could go more than one time in that week to both places.
That sounds awesome! I’d love to visit colonial Williamsburg!
So at the Break this year I COMPLETELY changed our entire spine and curriculum focus.....bc, why not?!😬
We have fallen in love with Heart of Dakota. I'm using it with my 3rd, 2nd and K/1st graders all together. Right now the particular level we're doing is focused on Early American history and I can easily adapt the short lessons to keep my littlest's attention while also challenging my oldest. I'm wondering if their spines can be adapted enough for your 11th grader while also teaching your littles? Or maybe doing the grade level spine for the younger ones all together and letting the High Schooler work through her grade level spine independently to get the challenge needed. Idk! Something to look at. HOD has great customer service and I have found phone convos with them to be VERY helpful when I'm thinking through all these things out loud.🥰
Thanks for the recommendation! Keira actually used Heart of Dakota her freshman year, though we made adaptations and didn’t use all the recommended curricula.
I would wait on Plutarch. Ambleside says to wait if they’re not ready yet. At least from what I’ve read. 😊 Starting later when your younger daughter is older would still be really good.
I’m thinking of doing Stories from the History of Rome, an Ambleside recommendation, next year before diving into Plutarch’s lives. I may do it as a read aloud for both my younger two and then start then with Plutarch together the following year.
@@TheHomeschoolConvert good idea!
@@TheHomeschoolConvert I've heard Plutarch is very dry/difficult even for high schoolers. David hicks is currently rewriting Plutarch his first book is called the Lawgivers - might be worth checking out!
Thanks for the recommendation!
Your history plans sound similar to mine... We are using Learning American History Through Literature by Common Sense Press. They tie everything together nicely, but give lots of options for books and projects for each period. You could probably add in your own stuff for your high schooler. I'm really looking forward to it. And excited to hear more of what you end up doing for history. It is the hardest subject to really nail down curriculum wise I think :)
It really is! I think I’m going a different direction than when I filmed this video. 🙈
@@TheHomeschoolConvert, totally get it! Hope you guys enjoy whatever you end up doing :)
We will be using TruthQuest for American History next year which has a amazing book list and I really the Charlotte Mason approach with all the beautiful loving books.
I’ve heard great things about that curriculum!
I have a daughter that is not in the same position as yours, but your thought process sounds similar to mine. My daughter has dealt with some health issues for the past three school years. These challenges have put her behind academically in some areas. She's doing much better now and I am hopeful that the next school year she will be able to get in a full year of school and even catch up in some areas. However, I am really questioning the wisdom of adding anything unnecessary when I think she needs to focus on the core areas since those have been negatively impacted for the past three years. So if I were in your shoes, I would not add Latin or Plutarch for your daughter at this point.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Hope you and your daughter have a fantastic 2023-2024 school year! It's so great that we can adapt as we need to for our kids.
I love videos like this! I am struggling with what to do with my rising 3rd grader. He has flown through any spelling curriculum we've used, and is naturally a really great speller. I credit that to the fact that he reads more than my other two children, even though he is the youngest. That may or may not be the reason, but that's my conclusion. I have thought about using the Queen homeschool spelling copywork, but I am not decided on any one thing. He also hates any handwriting practice of any kind, so that is another battle to figure out.
I think some kids just take to spelling more easily. My kids are so different from one another. Let me know what you settle on!
Can I suggest you check out Spelling Wisdom from Simply Charlotte Mason?
I guess I am weird. Next year is already planned, printed, ready to go with the exception of a few little things. I am working on a rough plan for the next few years, especially my oldest since he is going into the high school tge year after next and I need to make sure the requirements are completed so he can go to college if he wants/needs to. I like having a future rough change (it definitely gets tweaked), so I know what will get reused from my older son and what I want to change to help budget. High School looks expensive.
That’s great! I have general ideas of the directions we’ll be going, and I know what things we’ll be keeping. Just need to figure out the details of a few things. I enjoy this part of the process though!
I'd like my children tested for other possible issues but it's hard to find somewhere that will test without costing thousands of dollars. But I think it's important too. For Latin, I'd wait till next year and do them together. It doesn't make sense to me to introduce Latin when she is struggling with reading English. No idea what Plutarch means.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! It's weird to navigate because she *is* a good reader and really enjoys reading, but there are some dyslexic tendencies, especially in her writing.
I honestly don't understand learning latin. I have a dyslexic child and I won't die on the spelling bridge. He'll never win a spelling bee and we live in such a technological world that it's not a huge thing to me. I'm more concerned of getting him to read. A program to look at is All about reading. Not cheap but it might another resource. Katie at Life in the Mundane would be someone to talk too. She has dyslexic kiddos. She's also doing Bibiloplan history with all her kids.
We have dyslexia in our family and love Treasure Hunt Reading. It is very inexpensive.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Kennedy can decode words well when she’s reading, for the most part, but struggles more so with spelling. I definitely don’t expect perfection, but she wants to improve because she gets frustrated at times.
Latin is a highly structured, inflected language that makes its grammar really explicit. English grammar is abstract and more hidden, which contributes to why many people never quite get it. A better understanding of grammar leads to a better understanding of meaning, which is particularly helpful when reading more complex texts. There are other reasons to study it, but what I just outlined is my biggest motivator.
I sent an email - with more than you prob wanted to know :D *michelle
This is the page I meant to comment from... *michelle
You probably already know this because she is a well known UA-camr but Eric the Eclectic Homeschooler has a son with dyslexia, I’d reach out to her for tips and curriculum advice.
Yes, I love Erin! I often look at her recommendations.
@@TheHomeschoolConvert that’s awesome, y’all remind me of each other. Similar styles, curriculum choices, super calm. Thanks for the video today! I grew up in Texas (Houston) so I love watching fellow Texans!
All about spelling is the only thing that has worked so far for my dyslexic. We tried spelling you see and more traditional copywork/dictation wasn't working. Writing created stress with word flipping and letter reversals, inhibited him from learning to spell. Now I've learned that with some bananagrams and oral spelling of the words works well for him.
We used AAS when Kennedy was younger, actually, and it was great the first year. She started to dread it when I pulled it out, so we tried a different approach, but I’m considering the possibility of revisiting it.