I’m so excited! My three little girls are starting first grade today. And at 8:30 they are still asleep! Why is it that they always sleep late when something fun is going on?
We survived the hurricane, by the way. But we are stranded at home (not such a bad thing, to be honest.) Everything is flooded around us, but we are, for the most part, dry-ish and we still have power. We got a message from the gas company letting us know that we might have interrupted service because they are afraid water might get into the supply lines, but otherwise we are just waiting for the flood waters to go down so we can move around again. Since we’re stuck here anyway, might as well go on with the show… er… school!
We are using the workbox system again this year to organize our homeschool day. I am not sure how I would manage to keep everything going if I didn’t find this system. (Thank you, my dear sister Jennie, for pointing me in this direction!) I’ve spent several weeks now, gathering my materials for the year and making sure my printing and copying were mostly done. That’s what tripped me up the most last year: All the prep work every night or weekend, if I was planning ahead. This year, I’ve hopefully cut down my nightly and weekly set up time by making most of my copies in advance and several of the sets I’ve even bound into workbooks, using my dear Mother’s comb binder. (That woman has EVERYTHING. Seriously.)
So it is that I am going into this school year full of optimism and joy. I think that, because I’ve reduced the rest of the work, I’ll be able to have more fun this year, including more art, more hands-on, more mess! I don’t resent the clean up when I don’t have a hundred other things to do! 
We’re using All About Spelling again this year.
And we’re continuing with First Language Lessons Of The Well Trained Mind.
We will also be finishing “Ordinary Parents Guide To Teaching Reading”
and we’ll be working through “Beginning Geography” because my children have been intensely curious about maps and directions.
We’re also using this book:
It’s an old reader that I just ADORE. So sweet. And if you have the teachers guide, it’s full of about a zillion activities and suggestions. The super cool part? I can give you a copy for free! You can download the Elson Reader Primer level WITH Teacher’s Guide right here. Or, if you don’t want to print all that, you can click the image above to purchase it at Amazon. They have a whole set!
We’re using Math Mammoth for math this year. We began it part way through last year and we really enjoyed it. So we will continue working our way through it and adding in the supplements. We got the whole Math Mammoth curriculum for very little money through the Homeschool Buyers Co-op. If you homeschool and plan on purchasing, well, anything for your homeschool, I suggest you sign up with them. It costs you nothing and saves you a TON!
We’ll be using lots of games and supplements from Teacher File Box. They have most of Evan Moor’s stuff ready to print. It does cost you a yearly fee, but again, if you go through the Homeschool Buyers Co-op, you can save at least $20 on it. I love all the games they have that you can print, stick on a file folder or in a big envelope and let your children practice different skills without having to make them do more worksheets. (Though for some reason, my children LOVE worksheets, so I guess it’s more for me than them… 
Well, it’s a quarter after nine, now and the children are finally up! I’m off to be mom/student/teacher now. I’m sure I’ll learn alot today!
What’s your favorite piece of curriculum? How do you organize your homeschool day?
