# I'm so glad I'm homeschooling this year!



## Mrs. Jo (Jun 5, 2007)

Oh...it looks like it's going to be fun! We are using the Prairie Primer for our guide, and Elizabeth Marshal's book "This is our Land" for our history spine. We are going to concentrate on the American Revolution and I've already made up the book list for the read alouds, and my daughter's reading list. We have lots of prairie stories like "The Cabin Faced West" and "Grasshopper Summer" to read, neat craft projects like making a doll quilt and corn husk dolls, and learning animal tracks and making moccasins. We have planned a year of science based on experiments, and have a lot of fun science reading to do. We love the old-fashioned "Seaside & Wayside" books and plan on doing the Nature Portfolio to go along with it. For my youngest, I have a preschool/kindergarten program that I am going to do with her, it has activities and books that we can order through the library to make it fun. For art we are using "Discovering Great Artists" and I made a list of books that we'll be getting from the Library about the artists for us to explore. 
I'm not overloading the kids with too much stuff out of boring textbooks, and too much memorization that they are not interested in. I can already see that this is going to be a better year for us. Spelling is going to be hard for us but, we have found a new way to approach it for my oldest daughter and I'm hoping we'll see some progress this year. All in all, I'm feeling very positive right now. We've technically already started school here, they are doing math, language arts, read alouds (Calico Captive) and piano. 
So how are you all doing? Are you feeling positive yet?


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## Sonshine (Jul 27, 2007)

Sounds like you have a wonderful plan. When my son was younger we use to do themed curriculumns. I remember doing the westward expansion. He got to make homemade butter, ate out of seashells when learning about native americans, built a minature homestead using lincoln logs and a few things around the house. We traveled from Florida to Illinois and compared traveling in a van to traveling in a covered wagon. It was a blast to do. We also did ancient Egypt one year. I still have his name plaque he made using hydroglyphics.


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## pammy (Aug 15, 2011)

That is a great plan. Thanks for the info and good luck!


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## ovsfarm (Jan 14, 2003)

Sounds good. If you want a more contemporary read about homesteading, take a look at Lois Lensky's Prairie School. It's set around the early 1920's on the plains.

We started our school year on Aug. 1 and that first week was kind of bumpy. But now that we are on the third week, things are smoothing out and going fairly well. I actually like the curriculum I selected and don't have to tweak anything.

If anyone is looking for a decent 8th grade physics program, we are doing Exploration Education's Intermediate Advanced Physical Science. So far my daughter has built a racer and a large glider and conducted several experiments with them. It seems like a pretty good program, especially for those learners who like to do things with their hands.

Our other stuff includes Math U See, Learning Language Arts Through Literature, Institute for Excellence in Writing, Fallacy Detective/Thinking Toolbox, Vocabulary from Classical Roots A & B, and our own cobbled together history of the golden ages of ancient civilizations.

Hope everyone else gets off to a strong start also!


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## Mrs. Jo (Jun 5, 2007)

Thanks for the idea about Lois Lensky book. We've read cotton in my sack and strawberry girl before and like both of those alot. She's a great author.


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