Mission Complete!

My goal when I started this blog at the beginning of the school year was to blog about our homeschool journey

 for a school year 

 so that I could, in some way, encourage or help others.

Our school year is over and I blogged about it and our life for the year.  

Mission Complete!

The school year culminated with school pictures of the kids.  I haven't done that for a few years and I was so excited to get that accomplished this year too.

 Now... 

Decision time.

Do I continue blogging?

Yes.

 Sometimes it seems that I have diarrhea of the mouth when people want to dialog about homeschooling.  I get homeschooling.  I live it.  And, I like sharing about it and how it's woven into our family's story. 

So the story continues.  

Luke

Josh

Caroline

Jesse

Sophia

Levi

Time to...

1.  Order a hard copy or digital version of my blog.  It's my family scrapbook for the year!

2.   Get to know my fellow bloggers better!

Would you share a comment about yourself, your family, your blog?  Or all of the above?

What do your kids do on summer mornings?

No answers on this post.

Just a question.

What do your kids do when they get up in the mornings in the summer?

I mean on the mornings when there isn't anything planned for the day.  I don't want my kids turning on the TV or the computer everyday.  I  would love some suggestions. 

They eat, do some light chores.  One has some school work to complete.  Eventually they go outside and we often spend hours at the pool. 

But, in the mornings, in the summer, they are prone to turn on the TV/computer...which bugs me.  And, it is all about me, right?  If left to themselves they could be watching TV for hours.  Not preferable!

 My kids are 3, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16.  It's mostly the younger ones that I need suggestions for.

Levi has swim lessons for 2 weeks!

What do your kids do on summer mornings when they get up?  Especially kids 12 and under.

High School Portfolios

What did you have for dinner last night?

Time's up.

Did you remember?   I didn't.
That's why I spent time this week putting together High School Portfolios for my teen students.

My oldest is going to be a junior so I haven't had the college application experience yet.  But, after listening to others, I'm keeping records in case my kids need them for college.

Since I can't remember last night's dinner, it's important that I write things down (and store the information in the computer).

I have a binder for my two oldest.  The binder has tabs for each subject for each grade.  With my oldest, I started in 9th grade, but for my next I'm starting in 8th grade because he may use some or all of his 8th grade as high school work.  Actually, my oldest will probably use some of his 8th grade work as early high school courses too (possibly Algebra 1 and Physical Science).

For each subject put some/all of the following in the binder:

• description of the class which I can usually get from the curriculum provider's website or the website of the online class
•  final grades
•  copies of tests
•  a list of every grade the student received for that class ( I only do this for some classes)
• for writing- an example of a writing assignment
• a list of books used for each class- the literature and history lists are long 
•  service hours- I require at least 50 hours per year for high school 
• special awards (ie: Eagle Scout)

 A great website that we use to track service hours is   http://www.presidentialserviceawards.gov/

How do you keep track of your middle school and high school students' work?  

Any veteran homeschoolers have additional suggestions? 

Why I Dread Summer

Hmmmm.

Thinking.

Still  thinking.

Nope.  Can't think of ANY reason why I dread summer.  What's to dread?!

 I love having 'off' in the summer.   

 As Buddy the Elf would say, "It's my favorite."

I guess it's not really off, just more of a change of pace.  As a matter of fact, during dinner tonight my kids were dicussing some grammar rules.   So, noooooooo, we're not off.  

However, my whole family looks forward to the more leisurely days.  Here are the 
top ten things
  that we are 
looking forward to doing this summer:

1.  Levi (age 3) has swim lessons for two weeks. 

2.   Summer camps.  Luke (age 16) and Josh (age 14) will attend Home School Legal Defense Association's GenJ government camp in Colorado in August.  Luke, Sophia and Caroline will also go to  other summer camps (church,  gymnastics, horse). 

3.  Host a 12 year old girl from Spain and a 16 year old boy from France for three and a half weeks so they can learn English.

 4.  Go to the beach in Texas for a week with our family (and our two exchange students).

5.  Steve and I will continue attending Toastmasters meetings and I'll be preparing to teach my year long speech class to 7th-12th grade students next year.

6.  Caroline (age 12) will have her friend, who lives two hours away, come stay for awhile.

7.  Compete in a (few) mini-triathlon(s).  Luke will do his first one.  It's scheduled for next Sunday but it may be cancelled...ugh..  we'll find more.

 8.  Maybe, just maybe, take Luke to get his driver's license.

 9.  Proceed with the adoption process.

10.  Celebrate my birthday in August (or maybe I'll just celebrate the anniversary of my 29th birthday!).

 

And here is something that will take most of my time, but not something that I'm necessarily looking forward to:   

•  Preparing for next year's school year.  That alone, could fill the entire summer.  

I wonder why it takes so long to do that?  Can't I just have each child follow the schedule of the oldest as they get to be his age?

Sigh.

No.

As I think about that, that could actually be worse!  Having each child take the same courses that the child before him/her took.  That wouldn't work.

They need individualized schedules/curricula,  and we need to change schedules/curricula based on what's going on with our family that year.

Now I feel better about spending that time preparing for the next year!

Pro 21:5  The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty. 

Galatians  6:9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

How do you prepare for next year's school?  

I'd love to have you keep up with posts and discussions by becoming a follower or subscribe by email.  Thanks for reading, following & joining in the discussion! 

End of School Year Organizing

What do I do with all this stuff?  Has that question come across your mind? 

That probably depends on a few things such as how much storage room you have, whether you are going to move soon and if you have younger children (or may have more children) who will use your books.

I think the optimal idea would be to have a library in my home with all the books labeled by curriculum.  I know at least one family who has that.  It's amazing.  We've never had a room with ALL of our books on shelves so I've used storage bins.  I prefer the clear ones.  I'll keep them in the attic, the basement, the garage or the laundry room depending on our house!  The bins need to be accessible.  They need to be handy.

One time when we moved and I had all the books organized in their respective bins, the movers TOOK THEM OUT AND RANDOMLY PLACED THEM IN MOVING BOXES LABELED "BOOKS".

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Sigh.  There isn't much worse than that for a military homeschool mom.  So, now I tell the movers to pack those specific plastic bins with the books in them and not to in any way, shape or form, alter what is in the bins.  Breathe out.

They usually object, saying that my plastic bins will break in their cardboard boxes.  I tell them I don't care.  And I don't.  It is much easier to buy new plastic bins than to organize 12 years of homeschool books when you arrive in your new state or country and have to start school in a week.

Back to- what do I do with all this stuff?

I tend to keep some books out on our book shelves that I'm pretty sure I'll use again next year.

The others I put in a bin labeled with the curriculum and year of that curriculum.  For example, "Tapestry of Grace Year 2 (LG, UG)."  I now have kids in all four levels of  TOG so I find it easier to have separate boxes for Lower Grammar/Upper Grammar and another for Dialectic/Rhetoric.  I also a have some bins that say science, grammar or math for those books.

I try to keep a folder from each year with kids' artwork, drawings, etc.  I usually keep them in the bin with the curriculum we used that year.  In four years we pull out that bin again and I look at some of the arts and crafts they did four years before- priceless.

One bin that I have says "School Supplements."  That has those books and curricula that I haven't used, but don't want to part with, or that I've used and think I may use it at some point in the future but I'm not sure.  I try to weed out that box often.

And, OH!!! I just found a great website to buy/sell used homeschool curricula.

http://homeschoolclassifieds.com/default.asp 

What about those workbooks???

I tend to get rid of them at the end of the year.  In the past I would save them for posterity or so I could see what they did when they were five.  Awe.  I'm pretty much over that now and I don't save so much. 

What do you do with your school books at the end of the year???