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All right, guys, we just wrapped up the first week of our new homeschool year, and I'm going to share with you what we did, how it went, and which pieces of our curriculum we actually worked into our schedule this week
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Hey, guys. Okay, so yes, we did technically just finish up our first homeschool week. The first week of July is always our first first. Our first school week of July is always our first
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back to school week because this is the week that we can start tracking hours for our homeschool
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state requirements. So we begin logging all of our educational activities starting July, and that
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runs through June of the following year. And I thought that it would be kind of fun to do a little
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weekly wrap up to just share with you what we're actually doing each week. But we'll have to see
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if I can actually keep up with doing a video each week, or if anyone even wants to watch it
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We'll see. You'll have to let me know your thoughts in the comments and subscribe in case you're
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interested in seeing updates like these. Just so you know, I am definitely a more traditional type
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homeschooler, although I am loosening up a little bit each year, and I do love to use different
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resources and try new things, but I wouldn't call myself a relaxed homeschooler by any means. I'm
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very much type A, and I admit it, just so you know what you're getting into. And I know I have
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good company out there, right? Now, this summer has looked way different for us than any other
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because this was the first year that we didn't take time off completely. And also, guys, I used to make
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quite the big deal out of the first day of school, the first few years that we were homeschooling
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And this year, I don't know, we just had a lot going on. And learning together is more part of a
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routine now, rather than something that we just start in August. But when they were younger
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we would have a big first day of school kickoff. I would make fun fed eat pancakes. We would do
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first day of school pictures, all about me, worksheets. We would go out to ice cream to celebrate
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afterwards. And this past year and this year, we did none of that, honestly. I think my kids are
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getting a little bit old for some of that. And like I said, learning is just more part of our
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routine now. So we didn't necessarily have a first day of school. It just kind of continued
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But I am thinking that when I officially start my preschool curriculum with my four-year-old
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I might have to pull out some of those tricks because he would really love some things like that
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So anyway first week In total my kids did roughly six to seven hours of schoolwork this week About four of those were core hours and the rest were non activities So this includes their daily devotionals their music practice history Bible a little science And we also did a lesson from our generous students homeschool curriculum We also had the 4th of July in here this week so we took that entire day off So on Monday we finished up our science curriculum
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And this past year we used the BJU Press 5th grade science curriculum
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And typically I'm not all about finishing all of the curriculum, but we really enjoyed these lessons
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So we saw it through. I really love the layout of the book. I had chosen the teacher-led option for this, and the book does very much look like a teacher manual
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So I'm going to hold up a page. Okay, looks like a teacher manual. But I thought that it was pretty engaging to read, even though it was a textbook
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And my kids liked it too. I will say we often skipped a lot of the extra activities and experiments because, honestly, many of them felt like filler activities that didn't add too much to what my kids already knew about a particular subject
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I do really, really love that BJA Press Science includes an answers in Genesis section for each chapter
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that presents a Christian worldview and teaches students to look at a topic from that chapter with their Bible glasses to understand the world
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Anyway, this week we finished up our last lesson, which was covering the skin, lungs, kidneys, and how to protect our heart
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And the book finished off with Colossians 1, 16 through 17, which reads
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all things were created by him and for him. And he is before all things and by all things consist
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Such a great reminder to end out our science curriculum. And in a couple of weeks, we will start with the science lessons that come with my father's
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world exploring countries and cultures. So I'm looking forward to getting into those and seeing what those are like and how they compare
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All right, this week in Heritage Studies, we finished up our chapter on rulers with Iron Fist
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This is what we are using. Fifth grade, BJA Press, Heritage Studies. and we had just finished learning about World War I and how many European governments were left
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with weak governments after the war, and that made it easy for dictators to take control
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So that led into this week when we learned about Stalin, communism, Soviet Union, Mussolini
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Hitler. Our focus for this chapter was that unbiblical forms of government lead to a lot of
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suffering in the world. Again, this is another curriculum that I'm choosing to finish, mainly because
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we only got about halfway through it last year because we went a bit deeper and took longer with
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some of the topics and I was also doing a little bit of back and forth between this and using
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sunlight curriculum. Similar to the science text, my kids typically enjoy reading the lessons
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They don feel too much like a dry textbook and I think BJ Press does a great job of keeping the readings interesting and informative Although I will say there was a lot of information in the chapter we reading right now So this week was a challenging week
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We chose to skip some of the work text pages and are just reading, discussing
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and if I decide to pull some extra resources as we go, I will
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For example, we just started reading Escape to Lichtenstein. I think that's how you pronounce it, Lichtenstein, Lichtenstein, right here
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And this is a book that was recommended by BJU Press to read along with some of these chapters
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It's one of their Journey Forth books that they publish, and they're usually really easy read
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historical fiction that take place during the time period that we're learning about
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I really love using these for read aloud. This one is a historical fiction account of two siblings who discover a Jewish boy who's hiding
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from Nazi troops, and they are traveling with him to get him to safety across
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the Austrian border. So my kids are really enjoying it so far. It goes along with what we're learning
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about. And I love the book recommendations that they do give. You do have to buy them separately
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I got this one digitally because I had some credits on Amazon, but you can also buy them through
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the BJU Press website. In addition to this read aloud, my kids are also doing some silent
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reading. I made them a deal this summer that we'd go out for ice cream each week if they read a book
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And that's been really fun for me because I like ice cream. And one book a week
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might not seem like much, but you guys, my big kids can read, but it's not the first thing
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they always choose to do for fun. So I thought this would be something different to try this
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summer. We'll keep it up maybe until August, so a couple more weeks. This week, my son read
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this book right here, and he is the only one that got all the way through. So we get to go out
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for ice cream. And he'll get to choose a new book next week, and my girls are going to finish up the
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two books that they're reading. Basics for Biblical Worldview. We've done about two weeks
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this curriculum right now. It's intended for sixth graders and I am using it for my sixth grade son
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and my girls who are fifth graders. I figured that even if some of the material was tough
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it would at least provide some good discussion for thinking points. So I figured I'd see how it would go
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I used homeschool plan it to set the lessons for me, set all the lesson plans up. And every day
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we have a short reading and then about every other day or so there are some questions to do in
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the activity guide. We've only had a day or two of written work so far, though. There hasn't been
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much. It's been mostly reading and discussing. And I haven't followed many of the teacher notes and
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the margins. So again, it's another book that is set up very much like a teacher guide
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teacher manual because you can use it for a classroom setting as well We have read and had some good discussion I looking forward to getting further into the curriculum because it looks like there are some great case studies and realized scenarios that will prompt good discussions And the student activities booklet also has some prompts where we will get into evaluating a variety
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of worldviews and learning how to defend a biblical worldview. So far, we've talked about what a
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worldview is, what parts make it up. And we also did a challenging exercise of trying to come up with
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the big story that forms a secular worldview. So I'm liking it so far
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Again, the jury is out whether it will ultimately be too much for my fifth grade girls
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but so far so good. I'll keep you guys posted. And finally, today we did one of the lessons from our generous students curriculum
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We've been working on this for the past couple of weeks. I received a kit from the company to try it out and we've really been liking it
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The lessons are very short. Honestly, they've taken us less than 10 minutes the day to do little bite-sized chunks for my kids to digest and think about
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And we actually only did one day this week. It is an everyday program, but I forgot to put it in my planner
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And with holiday earlier this week and everything else going on, I really just forgot about it
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And we did it today, though, and I did add it to my homeschool planet calendar, so it will remind
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me to do it in the future. So today we had a short lesson that focused on scripture connection to generosity, and we
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read and discussed 2 Corinthians 9, 6 through 8. We discussed how all we have comes from the Lord and how we have
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we can work on letting go of the attitude that everything is ours. My kids shared about some times
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that they were cheerful givers, and we also discussed how giving can show that we truly
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fully trust the Lord to provide for us, that we don't have to worry about holding on to everything
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for ourselves, or trusting in ourselves to make sure that we have enough. Looking forward
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we'll be talking about Amy Carmichael and learning about some ways we can intentionally put
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generosity and action, so I'm looking forward to that. All right, that was it for this week
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If you watch my video on planning out my homeschool year, you will know that we really slow roll
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into the curriculum. So next week, we're going to add back in our math lessons using CTC Math
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and also jump back into Latin. These are two subjects. We did continue through the summer as well
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but we took a break from them this week. Thanks so much for watching. If you're interested in
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seeing how I plan out my entire homeschool year using homeschool planet, make sure you watch this video
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and you can check out the review slash unboxing I did for the generous students homeschool curriculum kit
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Don't forget to like and subscribe and leave a comment below if you have any questions
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or you just want to share how your homeschool year is going. I love hearing from you guys
