Back To School–Curriculum Week

   Curriculum Week

Planning for our 2015/16 school year is complete -

Each year as I am planning a new school year I review, update and remind myself of why we are homeschooling through our Touchstones.

This helps me to get focused and has become a great tool in curriculum selecting for me.

We have been homeschooling for almost 20 years and graduated 4 children, and have 3 more to go. We have 8 children in all ages 11 – 26 but our 5th child – our special guy attends a special needs program.

I have used the Unit Study approach for most of our homeschool years with the elementary & middle school aged children. As they reach High School we transition them into independent learning, were I would set up their courses and they would either learn on their own with these resources, attend outside classes taught by myself and/or other homeschool parents or take Jr. College classes. This would be different each year for each child – tailored made to fit their bents, talents and the direction we felt God was leading them for their futures. When people would ask or comment “you homeschool them all through High School,” I would joke – “well they kind of homeschool themselves.” I was slightly embarrassed to admit this,  but I realized, that for us, this was one of  the goals we have for them – to become independent learners.

I will be teaching a 10th grader, 9th grader and 6th grader this year. In an effort to move my girlie girls into more of an independent mode we will be using Time 4 Learning for our core subjects of Math, Language Arts/English, Social Studies & Science. We started Time 4 Learning  in May to get a feel for it and to see if it would be a good fit for us. And it was.

I have placed them each in the grade level best suited for them and we are all working on US History this year – and Nature of  Science and Earth & Space Science. This makes adding supplements for those subjects much easier.

Time 4 Learning Goals:

2015/16	Audriona – Golden Girl	Angelina- Angel Girl	Shekinah – Little One
English	English 8	English I	Language Arts  6th
Math	English 8	Algebra	6th Grade
History	US History	US History I	US History - 6th
Science	Nature of Science Earth-Space Science	Nature of Science Earth-Space Science	Nature of Science Earth-Space Science
Art	Art Program	Art Program	Art Program

We will be adding 4 Units of History Readers – One for each quarter of the school year.  Our quarters are broken down into seasons:

Thematic Units -  Historical Novels  - US History I

Summer - Colonial America Serpent Never Sleeps	Autumn - Revolutionary War Johnny Tremain The Fighting Ground
Winter - Civil War Behind Enemy Lines Charley Skedaddle	Spring - Industrial Revolution Lyddi Breaker

         

We will be using the Teacher Created Thematic Units to go with these Readers. I love these because I can tailor use these for each girl and it gives us a good way to not only reinforce some of the History facts but to do it through living books.

For Bible we will be continuing our 3 year journey through the Bible –

We will be using our own Family Motto & Habits Curriculum and the What’s In The Bible Video series – my girls may seem too old for these videos, but I think that Phil Vischer is the best at teaching Bible Theology for children.  Even my older children love these videos and honestly we all learn new things from them. We will also be using a Youth Walk Devotion series that brings you through an overview of  each book of the Bible along with Picture It – the new version is called Picture Smart Bible.  I have created our own devotion sheets and worksheet to go with these resources.

We will be adding Fine Arts and Enrichment Classes along with some Personal Development Elective courses. I will be touching on all of these more in a future post.

I am excited for the direction we are moving in and for the new year ahead.

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Amazing Grace

As I was praying this morning, I paused for a moment to praise the Lord and listen to the sound of the wind chimes from my front porch.

They are designed to play the song “amazing grace”  but only if the notes are all played in the right order.  Every once in awhile I will recognize part of the tune as a few notes play in succession together, but most of the time they chaotically play a random tune….   but a beautiful one.

I was thinking about how my life is like that some days…
                 well most days.

I have a plan…   a way that I would like my day to look.   An ordered pattern of how it should flow.  I think that if it flows this way, I would accomplish all I want to do.  I would be able to do all I set out for us to do for that day.   I would feel successful and accomplished.  All my lists would be checked off.  It would be amazing….

But, I realize that is not how  life is or works.

I have days… even weeks like this one - where I feel like I am disorganized (yes, super organized, planner me ), in need of some time to sort out our schedule. Realizing our life is  in need of some grace and His plan…


I find a notch of time and energy all at that same time…
          but it happens to be at 10 pm and goes until 2 am,
              but that notch of time was so productive and creative .

That time was filled with the creativity and the grace of my God, who knows what my days look like,
                   who knows what my children need, who knows what I need...

 That Amazing Grace

and He reminded me that I can make plans and He can help me lay out our plan… 
                               BUT I need to trust Him with the plan.

and the Lord took me on a little word study again…   another one of those powerful little conjunctions-

BUT - conjunction
—used to introduce a statement that adds something to a previous statement and usually contrasts with it in some way
: other than —used in speech at the beginning of a sentence that expresses surprise, shock

that little word but… full of contrast, yet adding so much more to the previous.

So my day today is…   well off, I woke up at my normal time and got my special boy ready for school, prayed for my unique son before he left to walk to school.

Funny I prayed for both of us to be filled with His grace and to walk in His plan for us today.  I prayed for that same thing for my special son.  That he would walk in His saviors plan for him today.   

Unique son called and had left his backpack at home (took the wrong bag), not having a car during the day (hubby is having to use it as his has not passed smog).  So he walked home to get the right bag, and a note since he would be late.

then, I went to lay down and cuddle with my little one, just for a while and I feel back to sleep…  who wouldn’t with only 4 hours of sleep.

                  so  now my morning was starting off…    my day started off the plan.   chaotic.

So, as I sit here on the coach… needing some grace…   some amazing grace.
                           
                                I hear this chaotic, random song. 

and it is beautiful -  full of quit moments - full of vibrant moments - full  of chaos…

                                               but Full

I look for grace,  in the plans that I  lay out,

but… 

He gives me amazing grace… 

 the grace that comes from the plans He lays out  for me.
       
           and His grace…  His amazing grace is Full.

 


We should make plans but counting on God to direct us.
                                                                     Proverbs 16:9



living in the fullness of His amazing grace.



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Back to School–A Day in the Life Week

A Day in the Life Week

We started school last week and spent the week “easing” into our schedule.  I have two in public school, my special son returning to his special needs class and my unique son who all his life has been homeschooled, is attending his last year of high school at our local HS.  My Rock Star Son is driving in with his Dad at 5 in the morning and attending the  Jr. College in the town his dad works at.

So we were all back into a new routine this week. 


I am more of a routine person than a ridged schedule person.  I love schedules… how they look and that I can make them and have goals, but I do not like to be “locked” into them.
Each year I revisit our School Touchstones to remind me of the reasons we homeschool and the importance of FLOW in our days:

Touchstones: As a metaphor, a touchstone refers to any physical or intellectual measure by which the validity or merit of a concept can be tested.

<sup>F – Family Needs
L – Learning Moments – Learning Center – Love of Learning
O– Ordered By Routine
W – Work Binders – Work Stations – Worship Him in all we do



Progress is born out of FLOW…  (FLOW is more important than time frames)</sup>

Going over these points will ground  me in my planning stage for the year, as I can tend to “over plan” and get overwhelmed at the big picture.  These touchstones help me zero in on what is important to our family.

I shared how the Lord speaks to me in seasons in a previous post.   The past few years I have adapted our school year to reflect the four seasons.  We have four quarters: Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring.  We end up schooling year round but our summer quarter is a light schedule with 3-4 goals in mind.

Here is one of our summer quarter plans:

This is our daily schedule for Autumn:


This year I have 2 Binders set up for our school year:


Portfolios~
I have a section for each of the girls. 
I record their progress and grades in this section. 
I have individual course sheets for each subject in their sections.  

 

 

 

Yearly Planner ~  

This binder has all my planning sheets.  

There are four sections – one for each season quarter.  

I keep attendance sheets and a copy of the course of study for our school.

Well, that gives you an overview of our plans & schedule for the year, and with anything they are just that  - plans.  




The LORD directs the steps of the godly.
He delights in every detail of their lives.  
                 Psalms 37:23


living for His delight~

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A New School Year

A new school year, a new house and a new name…

In our old house our school’s name was Shining Star Christian Academy…

In celebration of a new home came a new school… so it is only fitting to have a new name…

we are now…      

  

    Seasons of Life Christian Academy

The Lord has always spoken to me in terms of seasons.  Knowing what season I am in has been important to me, especially with education our children at home.  I have had to evaluate and re-evaluate our schedule, routine, goals, and priorities depending on what season we have been in.  Do we have a new baby (out of that stage now), what are the dynamics of my children’s ages, needs, interests.  What are the dynamics of our families needs, finances and schedules. And the list goes on.  One of the blessings of Homeschooling is being able to work our family dynamics around our school year and to work our school year around our family dynamics . 

Seasons…  this year with 3 students at home, all girls and all at the level of reading and writing more independently  - we are entering a season of being able to dig deeper… 

deeper in the word together…

       deeper into living books together…

              deeper into creative writing together…

                    deeper into God’s creation together…

                           deeper into learning new skills together…

This is an exciting season, one that will take commitment and grace…

I am looking forward to this depth (I do love deep things).

 

 

They are like trees planted along the riverbank,
bearing fruit each season.
Their leaves never wither,
and they prosper in all they do.

                                   Psalm 1:3

 

A new school year… a new season,

Resting in this season~

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Back to School–Student Photo Week

   Student Photo Week

Over the years we have tried to take back to school pictures at the beginning of the school year. 

This past showed the last two years of pictures:

Back to School 2012

Back to School 2011

This year I was able to use pictures taken by my missionary daughter who is also into photography:

 

 

BrittAneyPhotography

 

 

I have 3 students at home this year  and 2 students in public school at our local High School:

   

                                          

and we can’t forget the teachers of this establishment:

Living those “back to school” moments~

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Back to School – School Room

School Room Week
We have been tweaking our Family Room - School Room since our move and trying to make it more functional. We are not totally there yet but I like the changes we have made.







here are some pics from when we first moved in:



We have not made too many changes but have taken out some of the cubes so that it is not so crowded.  I have organized the learning center (the cube area) to better meet our needs for this school year.  We were not using all of the items. I moved my Office Apprentice so that it is next to my desk.  I will use it more with it being easier to access. The command center is also changed a bit to better meet our needs.  I now have all the supplies and the girls workbox binders under the command center area.  I think this will work much better. I will post updated pictures soon.

We do our morning devotions, Bible Time and Read-a-louds in the Living Room.  We like the coziness of that room for those activities.

So that is our school room area.  I love that it is in the area that we do life.

living by His grace~
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Back to School – Curriculum Week

  

It is back to school time at the Chellsen Clan household.

This year brings some changes for our school year for the coming year. We have a new home, which means a new school environment.  We have a new school name, we went from Shining Star Christian Academy to Seasons of Life Christian Academy. (I will share more on why the name change in a future post)

My unique son will be finishing his last year (senior year) at our local High School.  It is a small school that offers many fun and extra classes in the arts, which we are really excited about.  We have been able to meet with the counselor and hand pick his classes and talk out options and extra activities.  They have been so helpful.  My special son has been going to the high school special needs class since we moved, so I will have both my high schoolers out of the house this year for school.

The girlie girls and I have a fun year planned.  For our main frame we will be doing U.S. History through the American Girl Series, using Portraits of American Girlhood.   

We will cover an overview of early American History with Beautiful Feet’s curriculum. BF brings you through Abraham Lincoln and the Civil war.  We will use   History Pockets and Teacher File Box  units to suppliment with each monthly unit.        

I love Beautiful Feet’s timelines and we will be incorporating that, along with adding pictures for our additional units to them. 

I want to really work on creating and ongoing timeline for us.  I do not want to have one for each of the girls because, honesty having three thick notebooks with all the some stuff in it hanging out for years just feels to cumbersome to me.  So we will work on completing one Family Timeline Book.




This is an overview of our units per month.  We will cover one girl each month and the time period of history for that girl.   I also make my own notebook pages to add to our units and will be doing this for our American Girl Notebooks.   I will be using these with the Welcome to …. World Books.






  



Last year we had these containers for our continent boxes and this year they will be recycled for our American Girl Boxes.  Each box will have the American Girl books, facts sheets for each girl, history books or information sheets for that time period, and anything else that applies. .    






This is a run down on our main frame which usually focuses on our History.  This is a copy of our Golden Girls Course of Study for this year.  This will give you an idea of the other subjects we will be covering.  We are participating in a bi-monthly co-op in which we will be completing different science units. 

We will have my missionary daughter home, visiting for a week, which we are all very excited about.  Planning on taking some new family pics, and graduations pictures for my unique son.  I want her to take the girls back to school pictures also.

We will be starting school the week of the 19th.  Our Schools here start that week and my rock star son is starting Jr. college the same day.  So it is back to school time for all of us. Looking forward to ALL that this new season has for us.  

living by His grace~
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Morning Devotions

One of the goals I have had for a very long time…

has been to have a “consistent” morning devotion time with my children. We have had a short seasons of this or times when we did a study, but to have it consistently, has been a struggle.   I do things well for short term but long term has always been a stretch for me.

With the move, we have been able to establish this.  I have a short time reading to my special son from his favorite “Veggie Tales Bible Storybook Devotional” and then praying with him before he goes to school. 

I have a time of prayer, devotion and reflection by myself and then the girlie girls and I have our devotional time together. We start by reading the current devotional we are on and then we go around and share what we think God is telling us personally.  After each one of has had a time to share we have a time a reflection.  One by one we go to the tree (cross) to look at the added ornament and spend a few minutes reflecting and praying.  Then it is off to our rooms to fix our beds, and get ready for the day. It has been a wonderful way to transition into our day.  I am loving hearing by girls hearts.

 

During Lent we used Ann Voskamp’s  “Trail to the Tree”   devotional and the Youth Walk Devotional that we got from our youth group.  They were a great combination together.

 

 

We just started a new devotional, also using the Youth Walk Devotional.  The focus on this devotion is the names of God.  I made ornaments and devotional booklets for the girls and I.  We will be adding the ornaments to our new “Devotional Tree”   I am really excited about this devotion and how God is going to move in us. I am planning on making devotional books for future devotions we do. 

If you would like a copy of this devotion, send me a message and I can email it to you.

  

 

Enjoying spending time in and with the “Word” together~

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