Homeschool - August (Back to Homeschool)

And we're back! Our August homeschool has been the culmination of everything that I've ever wanted our homeschool to be and I am SO incredibly excited for this year.

Lydia

7th Grade (Middle School!)

She really wanted to study Algebra and Writing this year, so those are her main core focuses. She’s starting a new middle school coop which is going to be awesome. She will also be taking a musical theater class from Hale Center Theater Orem and can’t wait to perform at The Ruth! I’m so proud of this beautiful, funny, creative and thoughtful girl.

Austin

4th Grade

We love Utah History around this house and we are so excited for this upcoming year with our Utah History group + field trips. (4th grade might be my favorite elementary grade.) Austin is also starting a Makerspace class at Thanksgiving Point and a Thursday co-op. Austin is kind, hard-working, and enthusiastic. I love spending my days with this boy.

Caleb

2nd Grade

Caleb is most excited for his Thursday Co-op but it’s probably tied with starting piano lessons with his favorite @robosteff. He loves listening to audiobooks and is also loving our family study hour. Caleb is energetic, so smart, and often gets sucked into his own imagination because it’s so vivid and exciting there. I love this sweet, fun boy.

Lucy

Kindergarten

I can hardly believe my baby is ready for Kindergarten but I have zero bittersweet feelings about it. I am 100% excited about this new stage with my girl. Lucy is excited to learn to read and I am excited for our first homeschool year without a baby/toddler. Walking around the block with Lucy at lunchtime and knowing I will be the one to make the accommodations to set her up for educational success is bringing me so much joy. We have so many fun things planned and I can’t wait for us to do it together. Lucy is sweet, spicy, tender, and confident. This is my favorite kindergarten year ever!

-First Day of School-

New books, art supplies, and general excitement for the upcoming year.

"School and Pool"

This year we have a stricter schedule than we've had in the past, but we made some time in the first week of school to enjoy a "School and pool day". This was the most glorious morning. We have just a few hours between our morning Family Study and our Lunch/outside hour that is dedicated to our independent work (math, language arts, etc…). We decided to pack it up and do our work poolside and it was a dream. I wish we had started school even earlier so we could have taken advantage of this more times before the pool closes.

This is the homeschooling year of my dreams. The kids are at such fun ages and after doing a significant amount of praying, pondering, and preparation, we are ready to change things up a little and really embrace a rigorous homeschool schedule. Last year, we were involved in two coops and a lot of really good things - but at home we really only did Math and Language Arts. I structured it so that they had a lot of choice in what they were doing at any give time of the day, they just had things they were expected to accopmlish and they got to choose when they did those things. It was fine - but I felt like it was taking ALL day and we never had time for the fun things that I wanted to do. This year, I have set up a pretty tight schedule to make sure that we are including the fun things that I WANT to do. That means that we are starting breakfast at 7 am every day and that each hour is assigned to a certain task. It's been amazing and I can't believe how much we are accomplishing and how much we are enjoying it. I know that it's a lot, but I hope that it is sustainable because I really, really want this year to be our best one yet. 

I went through the Well Educated Heart materials and created our own rotation. Each Month we will cover 4 topics: Nature, Country, Characteristic, and Day of Creation

(The Characteristic and Day of Creation are only covered in our Menu organizers, but we will have weekly activities for nature and country studies.) 

Weekly Family Study Schedule: 

Monday - Fairy Tales (& Nature Activity in the Afternoon)

Tuesday - Nature

Wednesday - Country (Wonder Wednesday in the afternoon) 

Thursday - Poetry

Friday - Music

Each day the kids have one hour of quiet time scheduled in the afternoon, called "project time". They can choose to read a book or work on a project but it has to be individual and in their room. I'm hoping that this will give me opportunity to help them with their projects (and their Children and Youth Goals) and have a little structured downtime in our days. Honestly, the whole schedule just feels so good and I'm so happy about it. 

August our topics are: 
Day 1: Light & Darkness

Hope

Stars

Argentina 

Here are some pictures from our family study hours: 

Silhouette Art (light) 

Star Science

Star Craft

Children's Museum

Homeschool Friends

Charlotte Swenson's dog had puppies and Lydia has loved getting to visit them. I am excited for our homeschool friends/community this year. 

Utah History 

Another thing that I'm really excited for this year is that we are hosting a "Utah History" class twice a month. The syllabus (that I created, ha) states: "The content for this group will be hands-on experiential learning, based on a moderate, balanced view throughout Utah’s long history. We will learn about dinosaurs, complex issues regarding indigenous people, faith-promoting stories of pioneer courage, testimony, and goodness, immigrants of many countries and faiths, major events that impacted the state, and Utah geology/geography. We hope to instill in the students of this class a sense of gratitude, wonder, and personal responsibility to contribute and make positive impacts in their state." 

Our first day was making "Utah" cakes. I titled the lessons "Getting to know YOU and Utah!" because I'm clever. 

I wanted to add this from an Instagram Post I made about Utah History because I felt like it described my feelings so well: 

"Utah History is one of my favorite homeschool spines. It’s such a fun and interesting topic with so many fun things you can do. I had an incredible 4th grade teacher, Mr. Bartholomew, and the love that he passed on for the things he taught has stuck with me for almost 30 years.

Mr. B made Utah History come alive- from letting us make our own “caches” to making homemade jerky in the classroom. I don’t remember everything but I remember enough.

When Lydia was in 4th grade we did an awesome rotation with some great neighbors and did lessons and field trips together. This year looks a little different- but it’s going to be amazing. My goal for these kids is give them hands on experiences that will connect them to the things we are learning about and follow that up with field trips to deepen the experience. Living history is the best kind of history.

I am planning to post about a lot of the things that we are doing- hopefully it will bring some inspiration or act as resource for others who want to experience Utah History.

With that- this was such a fun intro to Utah activity. We made Utah Cakes. We learned about the three regions of Utah, plus a bunch of important landmarks and other things. Can you spot: The Great Salt Lake, Lake Powell, Utah Lake, Bear Lake, Flaming Gorge, Uintah and Wasatch mountain ranges, Salt Flats, Promintory Point, SLC, Dinosaur Diamond and the three regions? (Colorado Plateau, Rocky Mountain, Great Basin)"

Field Trips

Here's the plan for field trips this year:

One large group field trip for our general homeschool group. 

Two Utah History Field Trips

One "Kids Choice" field trip

This month for Utah History we went to the Golden Spike National Monument (and Spiral Jetty) and the Fort Bridger Rendezvous. 

{Golden Spike}

plus family history - note #24 Richard Brown, my great, great something grandfather

{Spiral Jetty}

=

{Rendezvous}