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.
I know most families are just now finishing up their 2021-2022 school year and looking forward to a few months off but we aren’t like most families. We’ve decided to adopt more of a year-round school schedule which allows us more flexibility to take time off whenever we need a break or have something important or unexpected come up… which has happened a lot lately!
We have it planned so that we can take a one-week break every three weeks or so with a two-week break around Christmas and at the end of our school year. We can adjust this as needed, for example, we could complete six weeks of school and take a two-week break if needed. Or we could have two weeks of school with a break and then have four weeks… we have a little bit of flexibility for whatever we need to do without feeling ‘rushed’ to get finished.
We finished our 2021-2022 school year back in March and I was tempted to take a few months off and not start back until August/September but I know from past experiences 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. Last year was pretty crazy but we adapted and we survived!
Last year I switched to some Living Education Books from Master Books for our Language Arts and Math and we absolutely loved them so we went with them again for this year. We used some materials that we already had on hand and I ordered a few new things to go along with our studies. So far, everything has been working out well and many of the studies have been overlapping/going right along with each other which has been really nice as it helps to reinforce what we are learning and gives a little bit of review as well.
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These are divided into weekly work as we like to use Loop Scheduling in our home. We simply work on a little bit and then move on to the next subject area. We have four days of ‘school’ and then the fifth day is used to finish up projects that we have been working, for independent study, or fun activities and field trips. Have fun on your Little House on the Prairie Academic Adventures!
Here are our Lesson Plans For Language Arts
These lessons were made to go along with ‘The Little House On The Prairie‘ written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We are planning to go through the whole series and I am keeping track of the different topics we are learning about here on my blog. We hope you enjoy these as much as we have!
You may find it easier to buy a Workbook for your children to work through as you go along with the rest of the study.
Mornings:
We Start every morning off with our prayers and the Pledge of Allegiance. Below is a picture of the prayers that we say and a video of the Pledge of Allegiance.
Not the prettiest example but that’s what we’ve been using for the past few years.
Don’t have a flag? Grab one HEREand print it out to put up somewhere… you could even let the kids make a flag to proudly display. Amazon also has some little ones like this one HERE and HERE.
After this we have our calendar time also where we go over such things as the Days of the Week, the months, and some basic math.
This one came from Lakeshore Learning.
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.
Week 1: Chapters 1, 2 & 3
We plan to use this FREE Lapbook to go along with our study.
Reading:
Read Chapters 1, 2 & 3
You can read it or let the kids help to read it aloud.
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