I’ve been homeschooling my four kids for about sixteen years now. My younger three have never attended school. My eldest attended day care, preschool, and one month of third grade at a DoD school.
We learn year-round and love having freedom to learn when and how and what we want. We love being able to take breaks for field trips, extended travel just for fun or educational purposes, sun days, snow days, movie days, game days, park days.
Most of the anxiety I had in the beginning years has faded away and I am mostly in awe of my kids’ abilities and interests. I learn so much from watching and learning with them.
I highly recommend the books by Louise Bates Ames. A good guide to follow are the What Your ?-Grader Needs to Know by E.D. Hirsch, Jr. His books have some problems, but it’s a great jumping off point.
My eldest daughter is taking a break from college and working full time.
6th Grade
My son is starting middle school! It’s a lot more writing and independent work than he’s used to, but we will ease into it. I love this age! It’s so exciting to see all the changes and connections.
- finishing Apologia Anatomy and journal
- Apologia General and journal
- Singapore math 6A and 6B
- Latina Christiana II
- Spelling Workout D
- Studying God’s Word F
- baseball and ninja training
9th Grade
My two middle girls are officially in high school!
I’m keeping track of their credits in a transcript for their future needs. Our high school goals are four full year credits of English, math, science, social studies, with two full year credits of foreign language, and multiple electives for creative arts and physical activity.
Some electives the girls are pursuing in addition to their sports are cooking/baking, creative writing, drawing/animation, jewelry making.
Ohio doesn’t allow students to work until age 15, and my girls are already looking forward to their first part time job in a year or two – maybe at our Dairy Queen around the corner or a locally owned shop or volunteering with the Red Cross.
- Astronomy and Microbiology from OpenStax
- VideoText Algebra
- Tori is continuing Russian and Greek
- Tori continues aerial arts and is beginning lyrical dance
- Katie is continuing German
- Katie is participating in a virtual Dungeons and Dragons weekly game
Together
We still do lots of morning read alouds together for Bible, church history, natural history, world and American history, and lots of multicultural literature.
We are currently finishing up reading Life of Fred pre-Algebra 2 with Economics. We also have Life of Fred Financial Choices. We will soon start Beginning Algebra. My son may not be quite ready for it yet.
We’re starting over again in our history cycle with Year 1. It will be my last history cycle with my girls and I feel so sad. I will update as we continue to add better book selections to our repertoire. Libraries still aren’t open except for requests by appointment.
Our main text this year is The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome by Susan Wise Bauer. I just purchased the Study and Teaching Guide: The History of the Ancient World by Julia Kaziewicz. My girls are completing the critical thinking questions for each chapter.
Also The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained by DK and The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way by Joy Hakim are daily read alouds.
I look forward to studying in depth ancient art history!
See how we do history. Our main curriculum Tapestry of Grace (and the way I supplement it each year) covers all the humanities – history, literature, art, music, philosophy, government.
My kids are very active with skating/roller blading, cycling, hiking, walking, playing the Wii, in addition to their classes and rec sports.
I love seeing my kids get creative with floral arranging, jewelry making, various arts and crafts, cooking, writing, map drawing, herbology and foraging. We will discuss elective transcript credit for various hobbies if they complete enough or do a big, long project.
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