Our Homeschool Plan for 2020-2021
My girls named our homeschool River Lake Sunshine School a few years ago after we moved to the farm. Although it probably should have been “Magical Creek School” because our school room overlooks Snow Creek across the street, which runs year-round.
When we first started homeschooling 6 years ago back in Dallas, Luci Belle named our school Rainbow Ladybug Learning. I love looking back at those photos and seeing how we started in the early years and miss them so much in many ways!
I haven’t shared my homeschool plans for the fall yet because honestly in my 6 years of homeschooling, this has been one of the most difficult years for me to figure out. My empath nature and enneagram 9ness has left me feeling a bit lost lately rather than empowered, absorbing all the emotions of everything going on in the world. 🤦🏻♀️ I’ve totally been that person who’s allowed herself to be swayed to and fro by every single post about a new curriculum until I became absolutely paralyzed with all the choices.
I had to take a MAJOR step back, refocus and reevaluate so I could get this year planned for what’s best for MY family alone. I’ve taken back the reins now and am moving into my strengths.
I’ve loved having SO MANY conversations lately talking through questions and ideas with friends near and far who are new to homeschooling this year. I see you! I hear you! And I’m sure this has been a really hard decision, and you might even be mourning the loss of your school life. Much love to all of you mamas out there, whatever your school plans are for this year. And thank you, teachers, for doing your jobs bravely. I truly believe we can make it through this together! We can not only survive this year, but thrive and grow. 🌱
My hope is that this post inspires you and maybe sparks some ideas.
Just for reference, I have two daughters - my oldest just turned 10 who is going into 5th grade, and my youngest who is 6.5 and going into first grade.
If you’d like to read about the heart and values behind our homeschool, go to this post…
Otherwise, read on, and let me know if you have any questions!
Tutorial
We do the bulk of our learning at home, but it’s important to me that my girls have a chance to be under different adult authority figures and develop the social skills that are required when in a group/team setting, so I like having a once-a-week tutorial or co-op.
We spent the last 4.5 years in a local Classical Conversations community and met so many wonderful families, but we’ve decided we needed a change this year, so we’re not doing CC. There have always been so many things I love about CC, like the way it fosters community, the games, and the emphasis on children being comfortable with doing “presentations” in front of their class from age 4. But other things about it weren’t working well for our family. So we’ve changed to a 3-hour-a-week tutorial at a local arts academy this year, and we’re excited that both girls will get to do a wide range of subjects and activities there, including art, physical education, science, and more. They also offer music and dance and foreign languages, so who knows what we’ll end up doing there in the future! We’ll see how this year goes.
Bible/Devotional
This year, we’ll be working through Indescribable: 100 Devotions for Kids About God and Science by Louie Giglio. I’ve heard it’s wonderful, and I can’t wait. And it’s free on Kindle, so we’ll be reading it through the Kindle app on the iPad. My little 6-year-old scientist is particularly excited.
Math
This is the subject that was giving me the most trouble to figure out for this year, because we really needed a change. We’ve used Math-U-See since my oldest was in 1st grade, and overall it’s been good. We love the math blocks and “place value village” for getting a great foundation. However, the workbooks have been a struggle - the very simple black and white design has been declared “so boring” by both of my very artistic, creative girls. We’ve had many math tears and battles. While teaching my girls perseverance is very important to me (the reality is, sometimes we have to do things in life that are hard and challenging, and we have to learn to push through), I’ve decided to rethink what we’re using for math this year. It’s time to CHANGE and try something new, and that’s totally okay.
Life of Fred (Apples) - I’ve been wanting to try Life of Fred books for awhile - they’re a story-based approach to math, and they look so fun! I’ll be trying this a few days a week with Norah (1st grade) as a break from sit-down math problems and to help her see math from a different perspective. Bonus: our local library has all of these books, so I can try them out and see before purchasing.
Singapore Dimensions Math - This is what we’re trying for my oldest this year. My husband is the math expert in this family, and he’s always singing the praises of the Asian approach to math, which really does make so much sense. Singapore Math highly emphasizes mental math, which is a skill I wish I had, and my husband does so well. Especially being on a farm, we use math literally everyday in some form or fashion, so I think this will be great for my oldest to experience and be challenged by this year. We’re starting with level 4. I believe she can do level 5, but since this is a different approach than we’re used to, I want her to “get it” more easily at first rather than feeling overwhelmed because she doesn’t understand what is going on. So we can move quickly through the levels if we need to. Each level is broken into A and B for each half of the school year, and there’s both a textbook and a workbook for each.
Math Mammoth - For my youngest, we’re trying Math Mammoth level 1 this year. I’ve read awesome reviews on this math program and its simple, straight-forward and also fun appraoch for kids. It also includes lots of ideas for math games using things you already have at home like dice and playing cards, which my youngest will LOVE. We needed a change, so we’ll see how this one works. I purchased level 1A workbook on here. I decided not to do Dimensions Math for my 1st grader because I just want something simple in the early grades so she can get the beginning concepts and maybe we’ll switch to Dimensions Math later for her.
History
We’ve absolutely loved doing many of the curriculum plans from The Peaceful Press since they began a few years ago! I’ve loved getting to know their founder, Jennifer Pepito, at the Wild + Free conferences and connecting with her on & offline. Jennifer has homeschooled 7 children and I consistently love her connection-based approach and book selections. The guides include so much more than history - even science, arts and crafts, recipes, language arts, handwriting, and more. We started a few years ago with The Peaceful Preschool, which was absolutely precious. I wish I had another preschooler to go through the program again! That year, I did The Playful Pioneers for US History with my oldest daughter who was in 2nd grade at the time. The next year, we did The Precious People for Ancient World History, followed by The Kind Kingdom this past year for European History. I’ve also done their Advent Guide, Mountain Guide, and Christmas Guide.
This year, we’re cycling back through US History with The Playful Pioneers 2.0. This is a refreshed version of the plan with some new books added, and instead of the Little House series which we’ve now read in full and also listened to on audio multiple times, we’ll be reading the Little Britches series, which we’ve never read. My oldest daughter is the one who really remembers doing The Playful Pioneers for the first time 3 years ago, so I’m excited that my youngest will get to participate fully this year! Since we aren’t doing the copywork pages for the Little House books, each of my girls will have a watercolor notebook in which they can do a narration after each chapter. My older daughter can draw/paint something from the chapter and write a few sentences in her own words or a quote from the chapter that she liked, in cursive. My younger daughter can draw/paint something from the chapter and dictate a narration to me aloud that I can then write out for her. Or she can copy a sentence from the chapter to practice handwriting.
I’ll also be concentrating this year on adding in even more living books for read-alouds and getting to really dive deeper into topics like native peoples, racism, and people who persevered throughout history. I found this blog post with a long list of books that celebrate Inclusive American History. Several of these books are already included in The Playful Pioneers (like some of the Joseph Bruchac books on Native Americans) but I’ll be adding some of these in as well to supplement what we’re learning.
While learning the truth about history has always been important to me, I want to make sure, especially considering what’s been amplified in our world in the last several months, to do my part to include as many diverse voices as possible as we study the history of the US and make connections to the people and issues of our country today. We are a family of immigrants after all - my husband is a 1st generation American, and I’m a 2nd generation. I’ve also purchased these Native American cards from The Peaceful Press so we can do a deeper dive this year.
Language Arts
The Good And The Beautiful - We’re using this again for Language Arts this year. I think TGATB has a very thorough, fun, and interesting approach to language arts, and I love how varied in style the lessons are and that they even include some science, geography, and Charlotte-Mason style narration. The levels do not correspond with grade levels, so we’re using level K for my 1st grader and level 3 for my rising 5th grader. Just for the record though, I don’t agree with everything about TGATB’s overall philosophy. For example, I don’t agree that my children should read books with ONLY completely “pure” and “clean” content with no hard things included. Preserving childhood is one of my most important goals in parenting, but I believe that here at home is the place to have hard conversations (age-appropriate of course) about topics like racism, injustice, poverty, loss, war, and other realities of our world. So I don’t use TGATB book lists except for what’s included inside the language arts curriculum.
Brave Writer - I’m excited about trying a few of the different single issue Arrow literature guides from Brave Writer with my oldest daughter this year! I’m not able to purchase the entire Arrow curriculum, but I’m planning to choose a few of these since she’s read several of these books already. We’ll start with The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street.
Handwriting/Typing
For my oldest, we’re using The Good and The Beautiful Level 5 handwriting (cursive). She loved doing the level 4 book last year, and it’s fun how they include drawing and coloring in between the handwriting pages.
I really like the method of Handwriting Without Tears in the early years, so my 1st grader will be using My Printing Book.
I also have the Draw Write Now US History book which we’ll use from time to time.
My oldest learns keyboarding a few times a week on Typing.com, which is easy and free.
Science
Well, we live on a farm, so science is pretty much built-in to our everyday lives! We even experience food science as both my girls help in the commercial kitchen with my chef husband. They both participate in starting seeds, amending the soil, planting, and harvesting on the farm.
At home, we’ll be learning about the human body through The Good and The Beautiful Human Body unit and this fun activity book.
For the second half of the year, we might try another science unit from The Good and the Beautiful.
We’ll be reading the book, Good Pictures, Bad Pictures Jr., together.
YouTube is a great place to supplement with TONS of science videos made for kids! We also love science videos from Steve Spangler.
Other Fun Things
Dover coloring books are great and you learn so much from them. I thought these would be good to have on hand for my girls to do during read-alouds. Here’s one on Indian Tribes of North America and there are several other ones that correspond with US History.
My Calendar Planner from The Good and The Beautiful - this technically goes with their 1st grade math curriculum, but I thought it’d be fun for my 1st grader to do as her own little calendar.
We use the DuoLingo foreign language app a few times a week, or really, whenever they feel like it.
My youngest uses the Khan Academy Kids app for fun and to practice math/reading/phonics skills. SO grateful this app is free and also has NO ads!
I have several 50 States puzzles and board games, and we love mixing those in!
Life Skills
My oldest daughter who just turned 10 is in charge of laundry once a week. My youngest empties the dishwasher everyday. In addition, they have the opportunity to make money if they want to do extra jobs around the farm and commercial kitchen, like helping clean, put big dishes away after dinners and Steven’s cooking jobs, wash the truck, etc.
Favorite School Supplies
And now for my favorite part…because who doesn’t love a “bouquet of newly sharpened pencils” like Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly?! I’m all about less school supplies but better quality, so here are the items I replenish at the beginning of every year:
Lyra Waldorf Colored Pencils - The BEST. They have an awesome soft texture with the most vibrant colors. The pencils themselves are thick and last forever. Highly recommend these as the only colored pencils you’ll ever need. They also have a package of Skin Tone Colors. For storing our colored pencils/markers/paintbrushes in mason jars or recycled tin cans with the labels removed.
Artist’s Loft Watercolors - So great. They are vibrant and last a long time. I get each of my girls their own palette, because they use them differently so this way they each get the colors they need for their own artwork.
Canson Notebooks - These are what we use for our narration notebooks. They can be used with watercolors, acrylic paints, and just for drawing, so they’re perfect for all our needs. You can use both sides of the paper. Each girl gets her own for the year.
IKEA BEKVAM Spice Racks - I finally got these this year! These are super cheap and perfect for displaying books that you’ll be using for the year or just the next read-alouds you have coming up. I also got one for each of my girls for the wall next to their beds so they can keep their favorite current books and/or journal in them.
I’d love to get this US Map Coloring tablecloth from Uncommon Goods this year and hang it on the wall in the school room.
Small white board with dry-erase markers. We have one of these hanging on the wall in the school room and also a small personal size bamboo one that can be held in the lap. This is great for practicing spelling words or writing sentences or words that I dictate to them, or even working out math problems.
Other supplies: Purple Cow laminator, laminating sheets, giant glue sticks, card stock, construction paper, plain copy paper, a binder for each girl to store her work for the year.
Planners
Y’all, I am THE WORST at planning ahead, yet it affects my sanity so much. I’m the girl who has to have her pictures hung a certain way and the furniture at the exact right angle in the living room, but my room is a mess and there are a million things piled on my bedside table. So I’m trying to get better about planning ahead this year instead of winging it.
I’ve been loving the Cultivate What Matters Powersheets Planner from Lara Casey, but I’m also looking forward to trying this new homeschool planner by The Peaceful Press. It’s beautifully simple. Just what we all need right now, trying to navigate these insanely complicated times. The only things I think need to be improved are that the tabs aren’t laminated so they bend easily, and I wish the weeks started on Monday rather than Sunday so the weekend days are at the end of the week.
Schoolroom & Workspace
Here’s our sweet little schoolroom on a regular day last year, but it’s about to get way more organized! Steven is building me a giant shelf to go all the way along the left wall up high so I can store all my books and curriculum. I’m mounting a book rack on either side of those windows with a little shelf under it that each girl can store her pencils and supplies on, to free up some room on the table. The entire right wall is a chalkboard, and it makes all my teacher dreams come true.
We also sometimes do school work in the living room or dining room. You don’t need an official school room, but no matter what, it is good to have a dedicated space to store your things in a cabinet or in drawers so it doesn’t feel like your school supplies and books threw up all over your kitchen table. This is a random, tiny bonus room on our second floor that we turned into our school room, and it’s tight, but I like knowing all our stuff is in there and I can close the door when we’re done.
If you’re temporarily homeschooling right now, please don’t feel the pressure to create the PERFECT homeschool space in your home! Even just a little desk in your child’s bedroom or a corner of the living room can work for now. YOU know your kids best and if they need a quiet space to work on certain subjects or if they feel most productive around other people, and then adjust accordingly. For example, my oldest gets overwhelmed doing math or language arts, which are both challenging for her, if her younger sister is around, so I try to carve out that time to do it with her one-on-one in a quiet space.
Adventure
And last but not least, we plan on doing lots more adventuring this year! This is me and my girls at the beloved creek across the street from our house, and we often take our books and notebooks down there for a change. Or some days, we trade in our normal sit-down work for a field trip to a local state park, monument, or hiking trail. These totally count as learning days. I’m very grateful to live in a place with so much natural beauty.
