How to Plan for a Homeschool Year

I was recently listening to an inspiring teaching on homeschooling and began to think about how I personally like to plan for a year of school and thought I would share a bit with you! Every year at tax time we like to take a portion of our return and by some or most of our curriculum (like I am sure so many of you like to do.) So I like to spend time looking over catalogs and picking out what we will use for the following year.

Now because I have a large family I have had to develop a system of how to do this efficiently and wanted to share my little binder method of how I keep records of everything in tact especially with eight children!

I have a binder labeled New Hope Academy Curriculum and within that binder I have a section for every year like 2009, 2010, 2011 and each section contained there is an entire page devoted to one child. I put their name at the top and under that I list all their mandatory and desirable subjects to be covered that year. I also like to put in ideas, prices (to compare), and mark what I already have available since we have a lot of books that can be handed down. This has helped me so much in the past years to keep things orderly and efficient. I can look back and see what we used 5 years ago and if I own the teachers edition to it without having to search for it when buying curriculum online.I also have one bookcase devoted to curriculum which is not active and just for storing and another that is actively being used for the current year.

Here are some great books that I like to review and read to encourage me to get focused before a new school year:

Managers of Their Homes
this book helps to get mama's, homes and families organized. I like to refer to this because the Maxwell's are great encouragers when it comes to being good stewards of time and this helps me to refresh my focus for a new school year (also used by the Duggar family)

Managers of Their Schools

-now that you have organized your home it's time to do the same with your school!
This book defends the text book approach and has great ideas that I had never thought of for cutting your time in half  homeschooling especially with a large family. Valuable information!

Charlotte Mason Companion-teaching the gentle art of learning. I like this because I want to remember to lighter and fun side of homeschooling making it natural and great ideas here too.

Here is a favorite tried and true method of teaching little ones to read---I have used it with 5 of my children. Right now my  little Joshua is going through it and is already reading 5 word sentences at lesson 18! Love it!

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

it works I tell you, it really does!

Last year I purchased this nifty book and found it worth every penny:

Story Starters

My daughters and sons were highly motivated to jump into creative writing using this book. The book contains half written adventurous stories and the children get to finish them any way they like! My boys loved it--and trust me, they are not the kind that like to write! They would much rather be in the yard somewhere hunting helpless squirrels...(can anyone relate?)

Enjoy!

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