The "Everything Room". The office/craft room/catch-all. The before pictures. I have been working feverishly for the past 2 weeks getting this room re-organized. I have gotten rid of a lot of my scrap booking stuff, listed a bunch of old books and games on Amazon.com (sold the majority of them too!) I just have 1 laundry basket full of scrap booking stuff to go.
Last week I took the boys to F.E.A.S.T. and Lake Shore Learning to get some of Alec's curriculum. We have decided to go slow with the curriculum since it is VERY easy to spend a small fortune on it. I have tried to put myself on a budget when it comes to the homeschooling supplies. The money I have made selling my scrap booking stuff I have been putting towards it. We'll buy a little at a time, as we have the money to do so. Derek and I talked about what we felt was important to concentrate on first then we would go from there. Alec has trouble with math so we purchased his math curriculum first. We want to work with him to get him caught up, or ideally ahead of where he needs to be. (Since we will have more time to work on it) His handwriting is horrible too so we got a couple books to help with that. Of course exercise is very important as well so P.E. will be part of our day as well (as long as the weather allows). I am thinking our schedule will go something like this:
6:45 - Wake up, get dressed & have breakfast
7:45 - I get back from taking Cole to school
8:00 - Alec & I will meet in the "school room" say pledges and start the day off with a prayer. We'll talk about our schedule for the day, I tell him what I expect of him that day, and he will do the same for me.
8:30 - We'll get our tennis shoes on, grab our tennis rackets and head over to the tennis courts at the local park. (Tennis was his choice btw)
10:00 - Come home, have a little snack, change clothes and return to the school room.
10:30 - Math
12:00 - lunch break
12:30 - Handwriting
1:30 - Reading
2:30 - Family Tree project (a special project we have come up with for him to work on the entire year)
Of course this is not a rigid schedule. It will change, from day to day I am sure. But this is what I really like about homeschooling. We have some wiggle room! After the first 3 months I will start adding more subjects to his day, or as I feel like he is doing good with the math and handwriting. For math we chose Teaching Textbooks, for Language Arts, Science, History & Geography we chose Alpha and Omega. I do also want to have some study of religion and the bible, but I haven't quite found one that I like. A&O I am seriously considering but I just haven't had time to really look. We chose Teaching textbooks because it just fit Alec's learning style. I felt like it would help me make math fun for him again. I liked how Alpha & Omega had their curriculum set up. At FEAST we can buy the workbooks just one at a time as he is ready for them. (which helps our budget too!)
I also got a lot of books when I went to the Scholastic warehouse sale. You can get info on them here. Both boys love WWII and I found them 2 great books at the clearance sale about it. Target's $ Spot is also a great place to find stuff. Last year I stocked up in some fun workbooks & flash cards for the boys, .25 cents each. I also have gotten educator discount cards at stores that I frequent, Office Depot, Office Max both extend their special discount card to homeschoolers. I also have a Hastings educator card that gives me 25% off all books, 15% off music and 10% off videos.
I have been busy at work lately, getting in lots of hours before school starts. Tomorrow I am attending Valrhona chocolate demo/class at Le Cordon Bleu. I'm taking my camera in hopes I can get lots of good pictures!
Stay tuned!
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