Homeschooling is cycles of rhythms, trial and error, for all eternity. So here are the adjustments and updates for our Spring Semester of homeschooling for the year!
Cycles: A few months ago I saw someone, somewhere, share how they work on a 7 week rotation: 6 weeks of school, 1 week break/prep/planning. As Spring is already around the corner, and with as much time as we spend outside and adventuring, this schedule felt like it was calling to me. I also like the idea of there being a bit of a break. We school year round, and I schedule 4 days a week, but we definitely usually do 5-6 days a week. We also usually use the Treehouse Schoolhouse Nature Studies which are 13 weeks. We often skip one or combine 2, so 2 cycles completes a seasonal study for us! Double win.
Reading: I have been working on reading aloud with the girls for well over a year now. After making it through 4 Little House on the Prairie books, we are ready for a bit of a break. In January we are reading Charlotte’s Web and using Home & Haven’s Spring Bundle that includes a 4 day, 4 week, reading plan, a themed week each week, and lesson plan outlines. There are also resources for preschool-2 and then 3rd and up. I expect we’ll likely reread in a few years and get to do the upper level work. I am SO excited to get to read this with the girls and watch the movie when we’re done.
In February we will be doing Fairy Tales, of which I am pulling a number of fairy tale books and created resources I can not find for myself. March, we will be doing The Secret Garden. It along with reading it, we will also be doing The Secret Garden Devotional that goes along with the book chapter by chapter. Last year we got The Secret Garden Cookbook, and will be working through a number of those recipes as well. April’s read aloud will be Indian in the Cupboard! It was one of my favorites as a kid and I just know the girls will love the movie. Ethan is already looking forward to that read aloud as well, because it’s one of his favorites too! On the radar- a local theater company is doing Tuck Everlasting in September, so there’s a chance we read it in August so that we can watch the movie and see the play with some friends.
Academics: Around Thanksgiving Athena finished The Good and the Beautiful Kindergarten Prep book. We had paused the Kindergarten books because I felt that she was just not quite there yet. We are restarting TGTB Kindergarten Language Arts. We are going back and redoing part of the math that we had done, but as she’s on the stronger side with math, we are not starting all the way at the beginning with those.
Extras: In November Athena asked to learn sign language. I did a good bit of digging and searching and found this super sweet channel on YouTube- Learn How to Sign. Meredith is a state certified ASL teacher and certified educational interpreter. She also holds a M.Ed. in Deaf Education. She has such a wide range and thorough videos for all topics, including Christian/church signs, which I thought was so special! We’ve been doing some here and there and it’s been going so well. For Christmas, we received Lily & Thistle’s Watercolor School. She had a Black Friday Sale and we have full access forever. We love, love, LOVE her watercolor videos and the girls are in over their head with all things art. Athena would sit and color and draw all day long if I let her. And they both would sit and even just watch the videos without painting.
The Nurtured Bee 