This year, I am doing things a lot differently than I have tried to do them in the past. Unfortunately, I let myself get caught up in thinking that I couldn't use a pre-planned curriculum or workbooks (none of which are bad things!), so not much of what I did last year worked for us. My boys did not do well (and neither did I, to be totally honest) without the structure a pre-planned curriculum offered. My oldest even ended up being enrolled in a private school because he was fighting me so much on doing his schoolwork.
So this year, I have gone back to what has worked for us.
ABeka.
Yes, I heard all of you unschoolers wince. ;)
(Please note: in no way am I demeaning unschooling, whatever I say is purely to be funny.)
I threw my "morning basket" out the window, because it simply was not working for us. My boys did not care one bit about it and did much better if we jumped right into schoolwork. (You can read my previous Morning Basket post if you're curious what we were doing.)
This year all 3 of my school age kids will be using ABeka video streaming. I will have a 4th grader, a 2nd grader, and my youngest in K5. Some may think K5 is too young, but I honestly do not enjoy teaching reading and find it so much better for us if they do ABeka video for K5.
We are also using the Step Up PEP scholarship because we live in FL and we have that option now. This should cover all of my expenses for the year and a bunch of extras! I will do a blog on it after I have used it and have figured out all the ins and outs!
We are starting review lessons next week and will officially start on July 22nd! My goal is to school year round and take breaks as we need them, mainly in the fall/winter when it's not a billion degrees outside and the boys can spend more time outside.
We will also be beginning our house build sometime around January, Lord willing, and want to have a more flexible schedule for that, too. The boys are so excited that they will be able to watch all the heavy machinery and, hopefully, I can get some school lessons out of it! Haha!
This year, I am also requiring one hour of reading time before screen time. I have tried to implement this in the past, but honestly didn't stick to it very well. This year, I am sticking to it! My oldest has trouble focusing when he's just sitting reading, so I am having him follow along in the book while he listens to the audiobook. So far it has worked! He finished Eragon by Christopher Paolini--the longest book he's ever read! He is a very good reader, he just does not sit still well (probably undiagnosed ADHD to some degree), so this was last ditch attempt at getting him to enjoy reading! My 2nd grader has even picked up on it and has asked to listen to his own audiobooks, too! He is struggling with reading, so listening and following along is good for him, too!
We are also going to be involving Dad more! For a little bit more accountability on their parts, I am going to have them put their worksheets and tests (grades honestly do not matter to me, I just use tests to see what they need to keep working on) in a folder during the week and at the end of the week, on Friday, they will give their daddy their folder and show him what they've been learning for the week. If they had to memorize anything, they will recite it to him then, too. He is 100% onboard and excited to be more involved!
I am planning to do family Bible time as well as each boy doing their Bible lessons on their videos. This will give me a chance to get to answer any of their questions and involve Dad more! We will be using Answers in Genesis' Family Bible Devotional Book 1. There are 5 books total that go through the whole Bible. The 5 book set is sold out, but you can buy them individually. I bought the set when we took the boys to visit the Ark Encounter in October 2023.
I have not quite decided where we are going to squeeze in read-aloud time, but we are going to do that, too. It will probably be at night before they go to bed. They are usually more willing to sit still if they are all sitting on their beds. They all currently share a room, so it's easy to read when they're all on their own beds. I will try to do a blog post and list the books on our TBR list!
I think that's all for now! I plan to expound on some of the things in this post (if I remember, haha!) so stay tuned!
**I do not currently have affiliations with any of the links above, just linked them for easy use.
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