Homeschool Planning

So I have been working on my homeschool lesson plans for the upcoming school year all summer. I am still not done.  And I am planning for only three students!

To begin my planning process, I first had to clean out my entire schoolroom. I cleaned every single cabinet, drawer, shelf, closet, etc.  And this led to my wanting to clean and and reorganize every single bookshelf/bookcase in our house.  I did that!  I am so happy with the finished product. I grouped like books together in various spots in our home.  I cleared out two shelves of books in one of my schoolroom closets, and moved those books to the built-in bookshelves upstairs.  That gave me much needed room in the closet for teacher supplies, binders, current school resources, etc. As I went through the hundreds of books, I found many, many duplicate titles.  I kept all the duplicates, and I can share them with my children when they leave home.

After I got everything in order I began making a school supply list.  It was actually fairly short.  I think I have enough markers, pens, spiral bound notebooks, and glue sticks to furnish an entire elementary classroom. (Clearly, I am an over buyer in certain products!) Next I made a list of schoolbooks that I needed for each child.  It wasn't too long of a list either.  I ordered everything, and all has arrived except for my final (second!) Sonlight order.

I bought new crates for the children's schoolbooks and supplies and have put all their new school things in there.  I typed up their daily work checklists, and I think I have almost everything ready to go.  I am just finalizing my daily schedule.  When my Sonlight comes in, I will need to spend some time putting the new Instructor's Guide in my binder, sorting out the books, and putting stickers on them.  The last big planning task I have is mapping out my English IV class plans.  This is a senior level English class for Clay and five other twelfth graders.

About the Sonlight.....Lynn, Leanna, and I are taking a short break from our Sonlight studies this August-November to study the presidents, the election process, and our American Government.  I am also going to finish covering the 50 states with Leah and Sam.  Beginning November 7, I will start Sonlight Core F.  My original plan was to fly through this Core, cutting books here and there and still completing the Core by the end of May.  I spent several hours culling the books and typing a 100 day plan.  But I still wasn't satisfied.  I couldn't figure out how to fit in the books and content that I wanted to cover, and I also wanted to add some of the newer Core F books.  I first used Core F 6 years ago, and Sonlight has revised this Core since then.  Last weekend I had a new idea!  I decided I was not in a race to complete this Core. In fact, I decided to order the newer Instructor's Guide (at half-price since it was a reorder!) and the newer Core F books.  I am so excited!  I really liked this Core, and I feel so much better going through it at the intended pace. We will just work on it November-May, and pick up where ended the next school year.

I am starting school later than I have in years.  I will be having various houseguests (college students) during most of August, and then I will be driving Julie (Olivia has to go a week early for a class) to school later in the month, and staying there a few days. So, I have set August 26 as our first day of school.  That leaves me exactly one month to get everything ready.  Actually, I want to have everything ready before the guests start arriving.  :)

I'll share our curricula for next year and an outline of our daily plans as soon as I get everything ready.

Warmer Weather

Finally.  Sunshine!

I sat outside yesterday while eating my quick lunch so I could soak up a few rays from the sun.  I think we will be doing our Sonlight reading outside soon.  (We have been reading our Sonlight books at night for various reasons).

Jimmy is tilling up our garden site right now.  I think I missed the opportunity to plant potatoes, but I plan to plant tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, and squash. This year I will plant enough green beans to hopefully can for the fall/winter.  I have only 3 jars of tomatoes left from last year's crop.  I would have run out sooner, but I have bought some canned tomatoes at the store in order to save my last few jars.  If we have soup one more time this spring, I will use the remaining jars.  We have also eaten all but three or four jars of the beans I canned last July.  I have plenty of dried beans (chickpeas, pintos and black) to can again, I just have not set aside the time for the task.

The kids and I both have spring fever with this warmer weather.  No one wants to do school!  We want to be outside.  The kids are roller-blading, swinging, riding their bikes, and romping in the woods.  I want to plant my garden, trim my shrubs and monkey grass, clean out the flower beds and spread the one hundred bags of mulch Jimmy bought last weekend.  However, we are still doing our schoolwork. And when I am home in the afternoons, we will do our Sonlight reading outside in the lovely sunshine.

We have a few 5K and 10K races planned for March, April, and May.  Also Julie will be graduating on May 1, and I will be bringing Olivia home from college at the very end of April.  The other three children will continue their schoolwork until the Friday before Memorial Day.  Then summer break will begin!  Yay!  I plan to continue some Sonlight reading throughout the summer, but we will see if I actually do it.  :)

Happy Spring!

Reading

I finished reading Detectives in Togas today to Leah and Sam.  It ended well.  That was the last book in Sonlight Core B!  Hooray!

But instead of beginning Sam in Core C tomorrow (the second part of world history), I am going to put him with Leah in the last 7 weeks of Core D (American history, part 1) and then keep him with her all the way through.  I have done multiple cores for many years now, and I am just ready to teach one core.  Just one set of read alouds.  Sam has listened to most of Leah's books anyway, so he really is not skipping any chunk of history.  Plus, he will have world history and American history again, at least one more time, before he graduates.

Tomorrow we begin The Journeyman in Core D.  Occasionally Sonlight adds new books to their core (and omits some others) and I find myself reading a book to Leah or Sam that I have never read before. The Journeyman is one such book. I have no idea what it is about!  We will find out tomorrow.

For our bedtime reading, we finished Farmer Boy a couple of days ago.  Jimmy is reading Climb Happiness Hill to the family after supper each night.  I plan to begin a new bedtime book tonight…..I think it's going to be Little House in the Big Woods.  I want to make sure I read all the Little House books to Sam, because I doubt he will read them on his own when he gets older.

I am still not through with Pride and Prejudice, Home is Where My People Are, or Running With the Girls, because I have not had any time to read lately!  When I finish P &P, my next book to read will be A Tale of Two Cities.

And I am thinking about beginning reading through the Bible in 90 days beginning February 1.  I have not done that reading in a while (maybe over a year), so I would like to do that again.

What are you reading?

Some Things About Sonlight

Today I have a post over at The Homeschool Classroom.  It is called, "Five Things You May Not Know About Sonlight".

I share a few things that I have learned along the way as well as how we use Sonlight in our homeschool

Enjoy!

School Books

Yesterday both Leah and Sam started new Cores in Sonlight.  We did not finish their Cores last year (Sam-Core A, and Leah-Core C), so we began this school year by finishing up those Cores.

Now, Leah is in Core D, and Sam is in Core B.  Fun!  It is always exciting to begin a new Core.  New books to put in our basket in the den, and new pages to insert in my master Sonlight Binder.  Beginning new Cores yesterday and continuing on Day 2 today, has brought a little bit of excitement to our school days.

Core B is year one of two of world history.  Core D is year one of two of American history.  With Sam being my 5th child, some of the books we will read in Core B, I will be reading aloud for the 5th time!  But not all of the Core B books, because when my first three children were elementary aged, I used KONOS unit studies instead of Sonlight.  However, many of the books we read for KONOS are also Sonlight books, so I frequently encounter books that I have read aloud 2-4 times already!

For most of the books, that's ok--I have read aloud so many books that I forget the details of each of them.  But every now and then a book is scheduled that I don't think I can read aloud one more time.  So, thankfully, I have discovered Audible.com.  I can download the book on my iPhone, and then play it over the speakers in my car.  How great is that?  We listen to many audio books while we are going around town.  You would be surprised at how many minutes you spend in your car and how quickly you can listen to a long book.

Currently our read alouds (not counting the history/geography readings) are:
Homer Price
Walk the World's Rim
Pedro's Journal

Some fantastic ones that are scheduled for these Cores include:
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
The Year of Miss Agnes
Mr. Popper's Penguins
Understood Betsy
Mountain Born
Johnny Tremain
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Moccasin Trail (I think that 's in Core D--if not, we will read it anyway!)

And I still plan to squeeze in another reading of The Phantom Tollbooth.

We are still reading The Secret Garden at bedtime, but we have only 5 more chapters to finish.  The first read aloud book in Core B is Charlotte's Web, but we listened to that on audio last month.  Yesterday we just finished Adam of the Road on audio.  I love that book, but it is one that I could not bear to read aloud again!  I think I have already read it out loud twice, and I will still need to read it to both Leah and Sam. Well, not read it out loud myself--I can use Audible. com again!

Yes.  I spend many hours each day reading aloud to my children.  Yes.  Even my high-school students will join in and listen when they can.  And yes.  Reading aloud to my children is my favorite part of homeschooling.

When Olivia was packing for college, she asked if she could take some our "school books" to college with her.  Of course I said yes, and then I added except for the ones that I will reading aloud this year.  She said thank you!  She chose several books that were her favorites, and then she chose a few more because she said she had such fond memories of my reading them aloud to her.  That made me smile.  (and tear up).  And then I told her that she could take any book she wanted, and that if she wanted one that I needed for school this year--take it anyway!  I would order an additional copy!

History and great stories both have come alive by the many hours that I have spent reading aloud to my children.  The most important reading I do each day with my them is our Bible reading, and the history, poetry, and stories included in God's Word are more real to all of us because of the time we have spent reading and discussing the Bible together.

Reading aloud = happy homeschooling to me!

The Schoolroom AFTER

Here are my after pictures of my schoolroom.  I am very happy with the results.  It has been ready for almost two weeks now, and it still looks this neat!  So far, we are doing a good job of tidying up after each school day.  I know that at some point the schoolroom will get messy, but right now I am enjoying it!

 a view of the whole room from the door you enter

(I know these pictures aren't the best.....)

The U.S. and World wall maps are new.  We use our globe every day to locate places, so I knew that these wall maps would come in very handy.  I tried to hang them high enough so that the cats couldn't reach them.  A couple of years ago I hung a U.S map in the schoolroom closet, and those cats shredded the bottom of the map!

I moved the piano to the center of the wall, and I moved a small desk (to the right of the piano) from across the room to this wall.  This serves as Clay's workspace.

 Here is a view from the opposite of the room.  Behind me are doors that lead to the bathroom, a small closet, and our storage/crafting/sewing room.

Jimmy raised my marker board, and I put the white bookcase underneath it.  The tall cabinet to the right of the marker board used to be where the piano is now.  We call that our paper cabinet.  My cabinet maker originally built it for my girls' bathroom, but it took up too much space.  So it has always been in my schoolroom, and it has always held school supplies and all kinds of paper.  

 One side of the schoolroom.  This is the wall between the entry door and the bathroom.

I moved this desk down the wall to the left to make room for the tall bookcase.  This computer is for all of the children to use.  The little space at the left end of this desk is Julie's workspace.  The books to the left of the computer are Julie's schoolbooks, and the books to the right are the children's test binders, and a couple of my binders.  

 The shelf underneath the marker board holds Olivia's and Julie's history and literature books.  They are sorted by subject, and I have labels on the spine of each book.

 This shelf holds Cores Pre4/5 and Core A (Sonlight) plus three boxes of categorized science books.  Those books have been sorted in those blue and purple bins for a few years now.  The cups on top are holding pencils, pens, scissors, etc.

 Clay's workspace.  I hope he is looking at the world map often!

 The cabinets at the end of the room.  

All of my extra schoolbooks are stored in these upper cabinets.  The cabinet on the far right contains all of our painting supplies.  The lower cabinets store various craft kits and supplies.  The filing drawers hold all of our household and school-related files.  I cleaned these out this summer.  What a huge job that was!

The four black boxes on top are all Sonlight boxes.  I have each child's name on them, and they hold their current Sonlight readers, read alouds, history, and geography books plus my teacher's guide.  The fourth box is Leah's and Sam's Core B science box.

 A new slipcover for this rocking chair!

This rocking chair belonged to Jimmy's grandmother, and he had it in his apartment before we were married.  I have had it recovered twice, and it was threadbare and cat-shredded!  I have rocked and rocked all five children in this chair!  It used to be in the children's rooms.  I have also used it in my bedroom and in various living areas of our homes.  Once we moved here, it has always been in the schoolroom, because I knew I would be rocking babies down there too!  I have slept many nights holding a baby in this chair!

This is the first time I have bought a slipcover.  It does not stay on very well due to the design of my chair rather than the fault of the cover.  However, the overall look is very nice, and it is soft.

 This shelf holds from top to bottom:

miscellaneous history books

reference books, teacher manuals, a box of science books

Core C Sonlight books, 2 science boxes

Core W Sonlight books, 2 science boxes

Core F Sonlight books

 just a close-up so you can see the labels on the book spines

These are the extra books that wouldn't fit in the schoolroom, so I put them on shelves in the closet!

I hope you have enjoyed a tour of my schoolroom!

My ABC Book Post

Today, I have a post over at The Homeschool Classroom all about the ABC book that Sam and I are making as part of his Kindergarten.  I have included some pictures of our actual book, so you can hopefully get some ideas, but also see that the book is actually Sam's book.  While I used a scrapbook and some scrapbooking supplies, I let Sam create the items that are put into the scrapbook, and I allowed him to place the pictures and stickers wherever he would like.  You can tell!

We are drawing near to our 100th Day of School mark.  We are on day ninety-something, but we will be taking a short break from school (I plan to blog all about it soon....very soon) before we actually get to Day 100.  We have about five or six letters left to learn, and the the whole alphabet will be covered.  Wow! This year has flown by in some ways.

You can click here to read the ABC Book post.  Happy reading!

A Good Book

Today I finished reading Moccasin Trail by Eloise Jarvis McGraw aloud to Clay (and Olivia, Julie, Leah and Sam sometimes too).  It is one of our books for Core D/E (American History) in Sonlight.

It is an excellent book!

Moccasin Trail is set in 1844, a time when many brave pioneers braved the elements and numerous dangers to travel west in to the wilderness of the Oregon territory.  Jim is an 18 year old who ran away from his family back east eight years ago.  Following a tragic encounter with a bear, Jim was rescued and then raised by a tribe of Crow Indians.  Later, part of his original family make the difficult journey out west, and Jim joins them for the latter part of their trip.  Most of the story revolves around Jim's inner conflict---is he a Crow Indian or a white man?  Where does he belong?  Does his family really want him back?  Does he really want to live with them?

Throughout the book, many gruesome things are described, but I know that's how life really was for these people.  I am so thankful that I live in the time and place that I do!

If you are studying this time period in your homeschool, or you simply want a good book to read, I highly recommend Moccasin Trail.  I am adding it to my list of all-time favorite books.

A couple of more things--I would recommend this as a read aloud for your children because of the dialect.  My children prefer me to read books with dialect different than ours out loud to them.  Also, there really are some gross parts.  I think this book is best suited for ages 9 or 10 and up.  Clay is almost 13, and he really enjoyed it.

One more book that I have read aloud recently, and LOVED was The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill.  I read this book to Leah and Sam as part of Sonlight Core B.  We all loved this book!  I have a blog post about it due to be published on February 16 over on The Homeschool Classroom.  I will post a link to the article on that day.

Tomorrow, I begin reading Across Five Aprils to Clay (another favorite of mine),and I am currently reading Little Pear to Leah and Sam.  Little Pear is ok.  Not a thought provoking or life changing book or anything.  But we have read worse!

I love, love, love reading aloud good books to my children.  It is my all-time, hands-down favorite part of homeschooling!

Homeschool Planning Part 3

I am still working!  But I needed a break, so I will share a few more ideas.

1.  Don't try to plan a year's worth of school for 5 children in 5 days.  Stressful!

2.  I use Apologia science courses for my children beginning with General Science in the 7th grade.  Well, actually, I sometimes use their elementary science books like Botany or Astronomy, but once they are in 7th grade we follow this schedule:

• 7th--General Science
• 8th--Physical Science
• 9th--Biology
• 10th--Biology II (The Human Body, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made).  Olivia is doing this course as an 11th grader, and she did Chemistry last year, but I am switching it around for the rest of the children.  Olivia is my guinea pig, you know!
• 11th--Chemistry
• 12th--Physics

3.  I go to www.donnayoung.org for all kinds of resources for these Apologia science courses.  The main thing I use are the PDF files for daily lesson plans.  Someone has taken the time to divide the books into daily reading assignments.  All you have to do is print them out and give them to your child to follow.  They are free!  The child just follows along and checks off each day's assignment as he completes it.  But, no one has made one for Biology II.  Not that I could find!  So, today I spent almost 2 hours making one.  

4.  I provide each of my science students with either a binder with 3 sections (for Clay) or a spiral notebook with 3 sections (Olivia and Julie) to use along with their science textbook.  Section 1 is for writing the vocabulary words and their definitions.  Section 2 is for answering the Own Your Own questions (usually one or two questions per day), and Section 3 is for answering the Study Guide questions (one at the end of each chapter).

5.  I allow 2 school days for the children to complete the study guides, meet with me and go over the answers, and then study for the test.  I also look over the test while we are meeting, and I make sure they write down any pertinent information that may not be on the study guide.  Also, I tell them which vocabulary words will be on the test--words that they have to write the full definition for.  But something new that I may to do this year is to also make an additional page for each test with ALL of the vocabulary words in a match-the-word-with-definition format.

6.  I printed out labeled black and white maps of the world for the children to mark the places we read about in our history/geography studies.  In the past we have just located the spots on our globe, and we did that every day, but I wanted something more permanent.  Sonlight provides maps for each book you read, and the locations are marked, but I felt like that was too many maps to copy for each child to use.  Sonlight also suggests that you mark the locations on a large markable wall map, but I don't want a markable wall map in my den, and that is where we read all of the books.  I did hang one of those maps in my schoolroom closet (the only place I had wall space last year), but we never went down there to mark the map.  So, I made each child their own little set of maps that I am keeping in either a binder (Leah and Clay) or a folder (Julie and Olivia).  I am guessing that I printed about 10-15 maps--the U.S., Canada, Central and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, etc.  Each day, as we read about a certain location, they will use colored pencils, crayons, or markers (whichever they prefer) to mark their map.  I hope it works as well as I think it will!

6.  I have assigned Clay (7th grade) daily Bible readings.  Sonlight lists daily Bible readings at  the top of each day in the IGs.  These are intended to be read aloud by the parent, but since we read the Bible together anyway as part of our daily Bible lesson/study, I am going to use Sonlight's daily assignment for Clay's personal Bible reading.  He can simply check off the square after he completes the daily reading.  I also am providing him with a spiral notebook (in his color) to write down two things each day after he reads.  I am really not intending for this to be "school work".  He can read his Bible first thing in the morning, in bed at night, in the afternoon--whenever he wants.  He and I both just needed some sort of plan and accountability to get him in the habit of daily personal Bible reading.

That's all for now!  I need to get back to work.  The next thing on my list is Home Economics planning.  I am using a variety of resources to put together a custom-made course.  

Homeschool Planning Part 2

This is what my schoolroom has looked like for several days now.

I should have taken pictures of the floor, but you might have fainted!  Most of the time I am in here working, I have two little helpers named Leah and Sam.  They are cutting, glueing, sticking stickers, coloring maps (my mess-ups while printing), playing with cubes, painting, beading, jumping, and on and on!  I am just working around them!

I have completely finished my planning and organizing the entire school year for Sam, Leah, and Clay.  Three down, two to go!  Hopefully soon I am going to share some of my plans and work for Clay (entering 7th grade).  I am starting with him, because early this morning while Lynn and I were running our long run (first one in over 2 weeks!), she expressed disappointment that I had not blogged yet in great detail Clay's plans!  She has a son the same age and needed inspiration.  Ha!  So, I am beginning with Clay.  Well, first some general information and then on to Clay.

• I made some changes to my school organization.  Some of my methods aren't working so well anymore, and I have seen some cool new ideas on blogs and in person recently.
• I let each child choose a color and I bought them all new Better Binders from Staples in their chosen color.  I also bought spiral notebooks, folders, and colored paper (I actually only bought a couple of new colors) in their chosen color.  I used coupons and sales to buy the binders, and I got them for under $6 each, tax included.  They are $9.49 + tax full price.
• Then I decided that I was not going to put a new binder in each child's work bucket this year.  The work bucket is just an 18 qt. dishpan.  I bought mine six or seven years ago, and some of them are beginning to crack and the handle part is breaking off.  After looking all over creation, I found 5 (not all in the same color!) at Family Dollar.  Anyway, as I have been cleaning out last year's work buckets, I discovered that none of the children were filing their papers in their 3 ring binder like I intended for them to do.  There were final copies of compositions wadded up in the bottom, all dog-eared.  Many tests and compositions were stuck in the inside pocket of the binder--not neatly inserted into the binder behind the proper tab.  So....
• I am using my color coordinated binders for other things, and I am making an area on my desk in the schoolroom for them to turn in finished papers and tests.  This way the papers will stay looking nice and neat!
• The children still have binders, just not one huge binder for every thing.  Sam, Leah, and Clay each have a Sonlight binder in their Sonlight basket that stays in the den.  This basket includes the binder which holds the IG (Instructor's Guide), their timeline stickers, their maps and narration binder, and the current books we are reading.  I keep this basket in our den, because that is where we do our reading together.

These two pictures above are of Clay's Sonlight basket.

Which leads me to the next great new idea...

• Bookmarks!  In each child's color!  These are just pieces of paper laminated and then cut into eleven 1" strips.  I made each child 22 bookmarks.  These are to mark the current place in our Sonlight books, my teacher's guides for their math books (where the answers are!), their place in their various workbooks, and anything else they need to mark. You can see Clay's bookmarks sticking out of his books in the picture above.
• I put the Language Arts pages from the Sonlight cores into a separate binder that I am keeping in the schoolroom.  We do all of our seatwork downstairs in our schoolroom, and last year I made many trips up and down my stairs to get the Sonlight binder....if I was doing Language Arts with the children, the binder was left in the den.  When we got ready to read aloud, the binder was still down in the schoolroom.  So, two separate binders!  In each child's color. 
• Last year I sorted out the history, readers, and read aloud study guides and put them behind each week's tab.  Big mistake.  I did NOT like moving those study guides from week to week.  So this year I just left them all in the back of the Sonlight binder that stays in the den.  But to help me know where to turn to....

•  I am putting these little sticky notes on the edges of the pages.  Now those will be easy to move or replace when we begin a new book!
• One more change I am making for our new school year is the daily work checklist.  For years I have been printing these out a month or two at a time.  They were in table format with the dates, subjects or assignments, and squares to check off when the work was completed.  I have printed pages and pages of these!  I learned this great idea from Erin--a laminated checklist that can be marked on and washed off week after week.  What a super idea!

I need to get back to work now!  I will share more ideas and plans tomorrow, and I will have details of Clay's 7th grade plans ready to go!

Sonlight Questions Answered

I can't remember the exact questions that readers have asked me about Sonlight, so if I don't include the information that you are wanting, please leave me a comment.  Some of these questions have been asked by people in person or email, and some of them have been asked by blog readers.


1.  Were you happy with how you organized your Sonlight binders last year?  You can click here to read how I did this.  Yes and No.

For next year, I am still using the big blue Sonlight binders with tabs.  I am still placing each week's Instructor Guide pages and the Language Arts IG and student pages behind the appropriate tab.  But, I am NOT placing the notes from the Readers, Read Alouds, and History/Geography sections behind each week's tab.  I know that if you don't use Sonlight, you have no idea what I am talking about!  I did not like moving those pages from week to week, and I don't think that I used the questions and vocabulary discussions as much as I would have if I had kept them all in one place.  The Sonlight binders have tabs numbered 1-36 for you to place each week's IG pages behind.  Then they also have tabs labeled Readers, Read Alouds, and History/ Geography.  I am going to keep all of the notes for these sections behind their tab.  The book notes are printed in alphabetical order by title rather than chronologically (in order that you read them), so I will just flip to our current book.

I am going to change my "working binder" a little bit too.  Last year (well, this year that we are still finishing!) I was using only two Instructor Guides, so I pulled out 3-4 weeks of each IG and placed them in one "working Sonlight binder".  I left the huge blue binders on a shelf in the schoolroom.  By the end of the year, I have found that as I finish a week of Sonlight, I like to put it back into the blue binder.  So, when we begin our new (4 cores!) school year, I am going to use a separate binder for each core.  In each binder I will keep the current week's IG pages plus ALL of the tabs for Readers, Read Alouds, and History/Geography.  As I finish a week of Sonlight, I will trade those IG pages for the next week's ones.

2.  How do you organize all of those Sonlight books?

In my previous post I shared how I have sorted, labeled, and stored all of our Sonlight books in my den.  For the upcoming school year, I will be doing 3 cores that will require my participation.  Olivia will be doing core 100, and the upper level cores do not require the parent to read aloud.  

I have three small baskets that I keep on a sofa table.  Each basket will be for a separate core (for us, Core pre4/5, Core B, and Core D/E).  Each basket will store its core's binder, timeline figures, timeline book, and the Sonlight books needed for that week's reading assignments.  We do most of our reading in the den where all of the books and baskets are stored, but sometimes we read outside or in another room, so having all that I need in a small basket allows us to move around easily.

3.  How do you do more than one Sonlight Core, and why do use more than one Sonlight Core at one time?

I use more than one core because I just couldn't figure out a long term plan that would allow each of my children to do all of the cores that I wanted them to in the order that I wanted.  Plus, I really don't mind reading all of those books all day!  I love to read to my children!

So, how do I actually use more than one core at one time?  Well, I literally read out loud at least 3 hours a day.  The planning for Sonlight is really nothing.  You just open the IG and do what it says.  There is time spent up front--gathering, unpacking, sorting, labeling, storing--the books and the IGs, but after you do that, there really isn't much else to do.  Well, actually there is one more big thing to do--I pre-read (skim mostly) all of the readers for my older children.  I do that for two reasons:  1.  So I will know if a certain child actually reads the book (I can discuss the book with this child if I have read it too).  2.  Some of the books I omit after reading them, for a variety of reasons.

A typical school day using multiple cores of Sonlight looks like this.

1.  Bible lesson with all 5 children.

2.  Core reading to one child, other children do independent work.

3.  Switch to core reading to another child.

4.  Switch to core reading to another child.

5.  While I am reading to one child, at first the others do their independent work.  If they have done all they can alone, then they usually come in the den to hear the books.  

6.  Sometimes most of all of the children want to hear books not in their core instead of doing their independent work.  I normally allow this, and then they get back to their independent work later.

7.  After I have done all of my reading, I start with one child and just work my way through them one by one helping them with the rest of their schoolwork.

8.  Yes, school takes us until around 3:00 or even later most days, but that's ok.  My children LOVE the Sonlight books, and I treasure all of the hours I am spending on my couch surrounded by my children listening to me read.

If I left anything out, please let me know!

I'll post pictures later--my camera battery is dead.

More Homeschool Planning

My idea is that for every minute I spend planning and preparing for the upcoming school year, I actually save myself hours of headache once we actually begin. The reason that I spend so much time organizing the children's binders and making them various checklists is because I want to train my children to complete their schoolwork independently as much as possible. However, I do spend a good deal of time reading out loud to them, studying the Bible with them, and for the younger ones, teaching new math and grammar concepts. I also "do science" with Leah (1st) and Clay (6th), and I try to read the older girls Apologia science books periodically so I have some idea of what they are studying. I also work Olivia's math lesson with her every day.

When we are in the middle of our school day, I don't want the children to have to wait on me for their next assignment. For those subjects that are not "do the next page or the next math lesson", they need a plan. For the upper level Apologia science courses, they like to know how many pages do they need to read/work each day. As I have studied my Sonlight instructor guides (IG), I have found Julie and Clay have a daily independent reading assignment (like read chapters 2-4, or read pages 44-60), plus the Core that they will be doing also has daily assignments in a geography notebook.

That is why for every subject possible, I make them a daily lesson plan. I really don't want them dragging out my teacher books to get their next assignment, or finding me and asking me (like when I am in the middle of a reading lesson with Leah) how many chapters in their book are they required to read that day. Again, it seems like a lot of trouble right now (actually, I enjoy it), but it saves so much time throughout the school year. I also think it fosters their working independently. They are able to get their work buckets, look at their daily assignments, complete them, and check them off. I am always available to answer questions, but having these plans and checklists allows them to be productive until it is their turn to work with me.

Here is how I organized my Sonlight IGs, Core K and 5

the two big (and one small) blue Sonlight binders

The Sonlight IG have plans for 36 weeks. Each week's plan is printed on one page. There is also one page per week for Language Arts instruction. The big blue binders come with 36 numbered tabs, and I put each week's history/geography/Bible/read aloud and language arts plan (2 pages total) behind each week's tab. Then I pulled each week's study guides for read alouds, readers (independent reading), and history/geography, and placed them behind the appropriate week tab. If a study guide is used for more than one week, after we are through with the current week, I will move the study guide to the next tab to be used the next week. That should take about 5 seconds. I also put the language arts instruction notes and student pages behind each week's tab. So, behind tab 1 is every single thing I will need for week one of Sonlight; behind tab 2 is week two's pages, etc.

The big blue Sonlight binders are very, very big! In my opinion, too big to lug around each day, and it is difficult to quickly flip to the weeks in the second half of the book. So, to make things easier, I am pulling 3 weeks worth of tabs from Core K and Core 5 ands placing them into a smaller, more manageable 3 ring binder for daily use.

the inside of my smaller Sonlight binder

the outside of the smaller binder

At the end of the three weeks, I plan to place tabs 1-3 back into the big blue binder, and put weeks 4-6 in my smaller binder. I think this will take about one minute or less, once every three weeks. I will also move any study guides from week 3 to week 4 if needed. When we are through with a study guide that is used for multiple weeks, I plan to replace it back behind the tab where it was first used.

This really sounds more complicated than it really is! For a couple hours of work, I now have my IG all organized and ready for the entire school year!

I put all our Sonlight books for the year on shelves in my schoolroom. The top shelf holds Leah's books, the middle shelf has reference books and Olivia's literature books, and the third shelf holds the Core 5 books.

the books

I pulled all of the books I would need for the first three or four weeks of school for Leah and Sam and placed them inside this portable bin. I will probably add Julie and Clay's current Core 5 books to this bin also. This way they can easily find the books they need each day.

the books we'll use the first few weeks

The last steps in organizing my Sonlight materials were to find a place for the markable wall map and timeline books. I hung the map on the wall inside our schoolroom supply closet (a walk-in closet), and I stored the timeline books on the shelf with all of the Sonlight books.

Each day after our history/geography read aloud time, the children will mark on the map the location we read about, and they will also insert the appropriate people inside their timeline books.

the markable world map

I am really looking forward to our school year! I love reading aloud to my children so much, and I know that we are going to love doing Sonlight. It may take us all day! But we will be making special memories and learning a lot too.