HOMESCHOOL: Prep

materials for homeschooling 5th Grade

Today I sent the letter of acknowledgement to the Superintendent of Schools of my town.  It’s a piece of paper that tells the school that my son is now being homeschooled.  

Anyways…

I decided to use the same curriculum as my son’s school for our first attempt at homeschooling.  (I’m talking about my ten year old, not the one with the allergies… although I will be homeschooling him as well) If we decide, at the end of the year, that homeschooling is not for us, he will have learned the same materials as his peers going into the following grade.  

I consider this my “trying on” year.  Yeah know, try it on and see if it fits?  Just like I did with sending my youngest son to preschool.  I tried it.  It didn’t feel right.  Let’s try something else…

I also had the chance, today, to rip out all of the pages of the workbooks and collate them by chapter.  That was fairly easy…    when my youngest wasn’t standing on them.  🙂  

After collating them by chapter, I grouped them by materials that will be taught first, and then organized them in hanging file folders.

Each file contains an entire week’s worth of school work.  Or what I assume will be a week’s worth of school work.  Which is probably where the interesting stories will come from.  🙂

Next, I will start researching field trips.  My plan is to slip a Reminder Field Trip notice in each folder based on what materials are being taught that week.  For instance, if we’re studying about the body, I would add a Field Trip Reminder slip inside that week’s folder stating where we could learn a more hands-on approach about the body.  This is also where I would invite other homeschooling families to join us.  Woo Weee!!

First Attempt at Organizing Materials For Homeschooling

What else??

Well, of course I’m going to leave out the part of today where I had serious doubts that I was, in fact, doing the right thing.  And I’ll leave out the part when the boys’ fighting was driving me crazy.  My feelings of fear, doubt, and nervousness I will also leave out, because I want to keep my thoughts POSITIVE.  

I will do this succesfully.  

I will succeed. 

I can do this…and will!

Even if I couldn’t remember if there are two c’s or one in succeed.  

That doesn’t mean that my child will not flourish by being homeschooled. I just means Mommy relies on auto-correct way too much AND possibly (and this could be stretching it) possibly she’s not perfect. 

– Elizabeth