I know I posted our 2025-2026 Curriculum and plans earlier but I’ve recently gotten a Montessori program for our youngest, Shyanne, who has special needs. She really seems to thrive with this approach and we all really LOVE it. We still love our CHARLOTTE MASON and this seems to fit in well with it.
I thought it might be helpful to show how we go through our lessons for a week here so that you could give it a test run to see what might work for your home and schedule. Some things we do every day while others might have a specific day of the week or they may be done on even/odd days to work with our schedules.
We also try to have a four-day week with one day off for ‘Life Skills’ as there are lots of doctor appointments, errands to run, and sick days around here plus the gardens and animals keep us a little busy at times. I’ve tried to provide as many links as I can for demonstration purposes if you want to give this a test run but for more detailed information you can check out this post:
It’s that time of year again for us… time to get the next school year planned out. We technically finished up our 2024-2025 school year before Easter but I’ve been busy with the garden and such so I am just now getting around to making our new schedule.
It is always SO TEMPTING to take a few months off to just focus on this house but I know from past experience that this doesn’t go well and that it takes FOREVER to get a couple of the kids back into the school routine. You can read more about last year’s curriculum and routines HERE.
Having a little extra wiggle room in our schedule means that we can take off more time around the holidays and I can take a week off for new grandbabies too! We also love taking the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas to just reflect on the reason for the season and it gives us time to do fun things with the family too.
Last year we switched to more of a Charlotte Mason-style approach and it was GREAT for the most part. We still have a couple of kids who just hate anything to do with math so that’s been a little challenging but we’re making progress. We’ve also really enjoyed using some of the FREE courses with Under the Home Homeschool.
A couple of the kiddos went with one of their big sisters and husband for the weekend so the house was surprisingly quiet… I used the time to sit down and get our new year planned out and organized. We will have an ‘official’ kindergartner this year too… sobbing quietly to myself… that means a little extra planning to include her but she already sits with us during school so it shouldn’t be too much of a transition.
There are so many ways to go about planning out a school year but this is the easiest way I have found for me to do this as we don’t use any one site or curriculum. I am usually gathering materials and ideas throughout the year so I try to jot them down or put them in a special place until I am ready to sit down and plan out what we would like to use.
This year I used the ‘Arts of a Balanced Home Education’ List from Brightly Beaming Resources as a guide for helping me to plan… it went along well with a lot of the Charlotte Mason ideas I have been trying to implement in our routines.
Continue reading “2024 – 2025 Homeschool Planning”
**Although I try to provide as many FREE resources as possible this post may contain affiliate links alt no extra cost to you. We may earn a small commission, if a purchase is made through these links, which helps to support our blog and our family. Thank you!
NOTE: My kiddos were 5, 6, 9, 11, and 15 at the time we created study unit. Some ideas may need to be changed/adjusted for older kids.
Tip: If you want to go to a certain week/chapter or topic simply push the ‘ctrl’ and the ‘F’ button down together and a small bar will pop up. Type in the week number or chapter number you want and it will take you to it.
We have been using the Little House on the Prairie Books for our homeschool this year and my kids are loving it. I have scoured the internet for resources to make our learning experience as fun and exciting as possible. This series of posts is a compilation of different resources we have found and used in our home. Please note that some of these may have been FREE at the time I found them and prices and/or availability may have changed. Feel free to leave your own links in the comments section below.
I also want to take a moment to thank all of these wonderful people who put together so many wonderful resources for all of us to use with our children. I know that many hours, blood, sweat, and tears went into these projects but your work is greatly appreciated!
Answer Key found HERE. **ANSWER KEY password: momsrock (highlight blank area)
We will be completing this Lap Book project as we read through this book.
Reading:
We will be reading the noted selection for the week as well as discussing what we have read. I may come up with other questions as well. Kids are curious and I know we will have many questions which may lead to some research in other areas.
We will also be working on reading through a few books, see Kirby’s Kids Grade by Grade Homeschool Reading List , for each different grade level. The older kids will have some independent reading while the younger ones will have a mixture of read alouds, read alongs, and independent reading.
You should keep a record of the books read. You can do this in a notebook or using this printable HERE.
Handwriting:
I did not list handwriting in the weekly work tasks as my kids are using the Spencerian Penmanship for handwriting and will practice this every day.
Vocabulary:
We will be doing various activities for this area. We will be looking up definitions, matching words, putting the words in alphabetical order, and a variety of other activities.
Writing:
There will be a variety of creative writing ideas as well. I have tried to vary them and offer choices to help encourage writing. We will also be doing various writing assignments in some of other areas as well.
Check out PRINTABLE WRITING PAPER- TWENTY FREE TEMPLATES FOR KID’S WRITING for some FREE writing resources!
Other Activities:
These are just some of the other activities that I am incorporating into the lessons with my kiddos as we are all at different learning levels. I put these in here to keep me organized so I don’t ‘forget’ something.
I will add links to worksheets I find or make as we go through the unit. For a general guideline of skills your child should know by grade level click HERE.
I have pulled a lot of the material from the book for the worksheets listed down below.
Many of the ideas have been pulled from the following resources:
You can also find FREE Lessons with these links:
Other resources used:
The younger kids will also have access to various Read-Along books and puppet books. I will update links to those as we go along.
Many of the ideas have been pulled from the following resources:
Note about Ray’s Arithmetic Books: These can be a little confusing at first but the Parent/Teacher guide is so useful! I have found that the books are in order as follows:
I have used a lot of the examples from the book to create the worksheets you will find listed below. **ANSWER KEY password: momsrock (highlight blank area)
You can also find FREE Lessons with these links:
Many of the ideas have been pulled from the following resources:
You can also find FREE Lessons with these links:
Many of the ideas have been pulled from the following resources:
You can also find FREE Lessons with these links:
My kids also enjoyed reading:
Many of the ideas have been pulled from the following resources:
You can also find FREE Lessons ideas with these links:
We often have some ‘Free Play’ outside whenever the weather allows as well.
This area contains our lesson plans for a few different areas that I have included with our ‘Life Skills’. You will find lessons on cooking, cleaning, and organization as well as bible memory work and character training. All of these will go together to help raise our children into the responsible and caring citizens of tomorrow.
You can find a FREE printable log for keeping track of memory work here:
Many of the ideas have been pulled from the following resources:
You can also find FREE Lessons with these links:
We will be focusing on OBEDIENCE this unit. If you don’t have the book we used you can go HERE and download a lesson plan guide to use in your home.
These lesson plans include Music, Arts, and Crafts. Choose one or two ideas/day as desired.
Many of the ideas have been pulled from the following resources:
You can also find FREE Lessons with these links:
We have also bought the following books/products for use with this series:
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