Getting Organized

I would love to say that I'm a very organized person. Actually, when I take those funny personality tests, I am very task oriented, however I'm also the first born so I have to do things to perfection the first time. This means that I get overwhelmed and then quit, or I don't even try. What is the point if I'm not going to complete a task to completion??

Now I know you are scared and you are thinking, wait a minute, she is going to home school??? Yup, I'm going to home school and my first lesson is going to be a lesson in grace!!

Okay, so I have yet to get all of my curriculum ordered but I did sit down with the stuff I have in my hot little hand and started making a plan. I made a couple of calendars in publisher. One would be classified as a yearly calendar and the other is monthly. My plan is to keep track of everything on these two calendars.

I penciled in what units we are going to do and when. We are starting school on Aug 27, officially. However we are going to take the Biblical Holidays and do one a month. So we will start with learning about the Sabbath in August, The Feast of Tabernacles will follow in September, etc. I decided that since we are doing Classical Conversations on our own and it is only 24 weeks, we will start it the beginning of September. I'm hoping that I'm giving myself plenty of time to ease into everything without being completely overwhelmed.

Notice that I said I 'penciled in' the units we are gong to cover and when. The awesome thing about home schooling is that there is flexibility. I'm going to leave things fluid as much as I can but I also know that for me and Miss E, structure is going to be needed. At least having a plan for when a unit will be taught will give me the motivation to see it to completion. This will also help me to find those little 'extra' things that will make learning fun and enriched.

I do not want to wish away our summer, but the more I start 'getting ready' for school to start the more excited I get.

Next on the agenda is getting everything ordered. Why is it so hard to push the submit order button?!?

Curriculum

Okay, not that I really did this but did you know that if you googled kindergarten curriculum you would be overwhelmed?? Did you know that if you asked anyone who has done any kind of home schooling you would get a wide range of curriculum?? It is amazing how much stuff is out there. You can get curriculum for FREE though downloads and following tons of blogs or you can pay a ton of money and have everything arrive in a pretty box. (Okay maybe the box is not pretty but you have everything you would need for that year.)

I've been doing my research on curriculum for my family for awhile now. I thought I had it all decided and then I felt the Lord telling me to keep looking. So, I've been looking and looking, praying for peace and that God would show me what He wanted us to do.

I ordered the Foundations book from Classical Conversations early in the spring. I'm really excited about the memory work we are going to do. I've decided that we are only going to do the History, English, Math, and Science portions this year. If we continue through the cycles, we will cover this cycle 4 times so what we skip this time around we will catch in three years.

I also decided that we will, together as a family, learn about the Biblical Holidays. "The Biblical holidays were instituted by God as an integral part of the divine worship system of the church. They are, as He intended, a remembrance and memorial in honor of what God has done for His people."

This is what I'm most excited about! I know that as we work through the holidays we are going to learn more about our Lord and Savor and for that I know we will all be rewarded. We are going to start in August by studying about the Sabbath. We will then take a holiday each month. September will be The Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah); October, Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur); November, Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth); December, Hanukkah; January, Purim; February, Passover (Pesach); March, Feast of UnLeavened Bread (Hag HaMatzah); April, Firstfruits (Yom Habikkurim); May, Feast of Weeks, Pentecost (Shavuot).

Our core curriculum will be with Epi Kardia. Epi Kardia is a Christian literature-based unit study curriculum that uses Charlotte Mason methods. I'm excited about the 'living books' that we will be reading along with the fact that history will be chronological. I also love how there will be fine arts woven into each unit.

Lastly we will be using Singapore Math.

I'm excited to get things started. It is going to be an adventure. It would not be honest of me to say that I'm ready. I have a lot of work to do these next few month in getting 'prepared' and getting things organized. It will come. I need to work on a schedule and learn grace. Let the adventure begin.

**The purpose of this blog is to help me keep my thoughts straight as I go through this process. As we start school in the fall, I will update with what we do and what we've learned. I've heard that I will learn more than my kids and for that I'm truly excited!!

Thanks for reading, I hope maybe along this journey I'll be an encouragement to you. Feel free to share any of your ideas or encouragement along the way. If something I say or do brings an 'ah ha' to your mind, please share.

Blessings,

Elizabeth