I can’t believe Emmie is a kindergartener! She’s growing stronger and smarter every day. With NF, we know there’s a pretty good chance she can deal with learning disabilities. Armed with this knowledge, we take things slow and are making sure she enjoys every bit of her school time. Thankfully, she’s an eager learner. My goal this year is to get her closer to reading. I’d love to see her reading by the end of the year because she loves books. However, if we just see progress, I think we’ll all be happy. Kindergarten, for us, is all about loving to learn and learning to read. So, with that in mind, here’s what the super hero is working on.

• All About Reading Pre-Reading-I love that this is self-paced and we can split up activities over several days. Emmie is learning to recognize her letters. I stay on a letter until she gets it all while reviewing letters she’s learned previously. After we get letter recognition down, we’ll move on to the sounds. I also use flashcards to review previous letters. We’ve already started to talk about how letters have different sounds.
• Developing the Early Learner-I’ve had all of our kids work through these fun workbooks and it seems to help quite a bit with their thinking processes.
• A Reason for Handwriting Level K
• Later in the year, we’ll add Math Lessons for a Living Education K but it’s not come out in print yet. Hopefully, it’ll be out in September and we can started it our second nine weeks.

Here’s what we’re using for the other grades:

• Everyone
• 2nd Grade
• 4th Grade
• 5th Grade (with special needs modifications)
• 7th Grade
• 8th Grade
• 10th Grade
• 11th Grade

For the past several years now, I have been posting first school day pictures on the days that correlate with their grade level. Yeah, I know grade levels are considered irrelevant for homeschoolers, but it’s a fun way for us to commemorate the start of their new year.

I decided that since I am so far behind on getting pictures up, I’ll just start where we are. I (hopefully) will get their first of the year pictures up and also a little snippet on what we’re starting off studying. I say starting off, because, if you have homeschooled any length of time, you know that some times what you start off with is not what you end up finishing the year off with. Homeschooling allows me the flexibility to change what isn’t working and to find what works best for each individual child…and that is just what we strive to do.

This year, I’ve picked a verse to help us stay focused and basically give us a mission for our school.

1 Corinthians 10: 4-5

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ

So, with that in mind, here is what we are studying as a group.

Bible

• We’re using the SOAK method from Good Morning Girls study. We used this last year and will continue on a two week rotation. We’re currently in John. Mark takes the chapters we are studying and goes over it during our family worship time.
• After two weeks of SOAK, we will do two weeks of World Religions and Cults. I think this is going to be a great introduction into different worldviews and religions

Fitness

Since Zoe and Ace are in high school, they need to do a one year of physical education. We’re going to try out Family Time Fitness this year. I like that the whole family can get involved in it.

History

Mystery of History Volume II-All but Zoe will be doing Mystery of History. I’m looking forward to adding timeline and lapbooking as we explore history together.

Science

We’re in the stars this year. Well, all of us from Ceili Rain down. We’re using Apologia for Astronomy. They’ve redone their astronomy curriculum and I’m trying to decide, still, if I like it. It seems more short and age appropriate but the jury is still out as to whether we continue with Apologia next year.

Psychology

A recent Bible study I have used mentioned a neuroplastician named Dr. Caroline Leaf. I loved what she was saying about training your mind and taking every thought captive and decided to get her book, Switch on Your Brain to read through with the kids. After we started reading, I realized the workbook would be great at driving discussion about what we were reading. So, we’re slowly getting through the book. Lots of sensible information that I already knew but it’s saturated with God’s word and pretty much is a scientific articulation of what I tell my kids every day, “You cannot control the situation or people around you but you are in charge of your actions and reactions to those situations and those people.”

Other Stuff

In addition to this, our family is also involved in Trail Life for the boys and American Heritage for the girls. We love the Christ-centered focus and the opportunity for the kids to learn more about the world God has created and the amazing people in it.

Here’s what we’re using for the other grades:

• Kindergarten
• 2nd Grade
• 4th Grade
• 5th Grade (with special needs modifications)
• 7th Grade
• 8th Grade
• 10th Grade
• 11th Grade