I feel like one of the words God has given me this summer is SIMPLIFY.  You may recall, I initially had a blog called The Amazing Mess–because I am NOT an expert at simple living, and I often feel like my life is a mess!  Yet, over and over the past few years, I’ve had my eyes opened and actually made some progress in simplifying life.  Still, the yearning in my soul is to simplify even more–our schedules, our stuff, and even our homeschool curriculum.

But here’s the problem:  I always get so excited at the beginning of every year, and I tend to jump in and bite off more than I can chew.  This year, I thought I was being different, but in the end…as I typed out our curriculum, I realized it still feels like a bit of a mess!  I do think once our routines are established, it won’t seem quite so messy though!!

Two Areas of Focus for Our Homeschool Year:

There are two areas I want to focus on this year in our homeschool:

1)  Memory work

I don’t think I’ve really shared this, but I am going to be a Classical Conversations tutor this year!!  We have a small, relatively new campus in our town, and I’m so excited to be a part of it.  I’ve done quite a bit of reading and research, and I love the whole concept of Classical Conversations!! You can find out more in The Core by Leigh Bortins.

Last year, God’s Little Explorers gave me some accountability since I was posting free weekly preschool lessons and had to have them done.  This year Classical Conversations is giving me accountability!  Since I’m a tutor and my children will need to know their memory work and make presentations each week, I have an outside force to give a little added structure to our homeschooling week.  I’m also SO looking forward to the encouragement, regular meeting time with other moms, and sense of community on our CC campus!  That was really lacking for me last year.

2)  Reading, reading, reading!

The other area I want to focus on is reading good books and engaging in studies surrounding those books.  We are doing this through Five in a Row studies!  I know, it seems weird that I’m combining Classical Conversations and Five in a Row, but it makes sense to me.  I want the rigor of memorization and *training the brain to retain*, but I also want the love of literature and reading.

So, without further adieu, here are our homeschool curriculum plans for 2013 – 2014!  Scheduled to change without notice…  🙂

All 3 Girls Together:

• Classical Conversations Memorization
• Five in a Row books and studies
• Calendar Binder (we’ll use some of these as needed)

Bible:

• Bible readings
• Bible Journals
• Grapevine Studies stick figuring Old Testament Basics (Catechism)
• Learning to Speak Life:  Fruit of the Spirit

Character Studies:

• We Choose Virtues

Copywork:

• Draw Write Now (plus, they’ll get some drawing, too!)

History:

• Story of the World, Volume 2

Extras for the 9 year old:

• IEW – Medieval Writing Lessons
• Spelling – building our own lists from the word demons in the Reading Teachers Books of Lists and words I notice she is having trouble with in her writing.
• Teaching Textbooks – Level 4
• Rosetta Stone Spanish

Extras for the 6 (almost 7) year old:

• All About Spelling – Level 2 and maybe 3
• Math – manipulatives I have on hand and printable worksheets I find online
• Teaching Textbooks – Level 3 (probably 2nd semester)
• Daily reading to me with books on her level

Extras for the 5 year old:

• All About Spelling – Level 1 and possibly 2
• Finish The Reading Lesson
• Math – manipulatives and old workbooks I have on hand, printable worksheets I find online
• Mathtacular

You’ll notice compared to our last year’s curriculum plans, we’ve changed a major component.  I still love My Father’s World, but I just needed a break.  I realized at the end of the year, I was just checking off boxes and it wasn’t really working for us.  My older daughter may still utilize some of the books and the curriculum guide since we picked up a set at a garage sale, but we’ll see.  I think taking this year off to try something new will be a good rest–then, we can decide if we want to jump back in next year!  

What are your curriculum plans for the year?  Anything you really love that I should know about?!!