Homeschool Planning

This will be our 4th year schooling at home.  It will be our FIRST full year doing everything on our own.  There is sooooo much planning and organizing that I want to get done. We will be using an umbrella school this year mainly because we will have two high school homeschoolers. I want to be sure they have awesome transcripts. It will be our first year using a co-op.  The older kids (9th and 11th grade) will have math and science classes in co-op.  The younger kids (2nd and 3rd grade) will have language arts, speech and social science.  I am also hoping they will all have PE, but we don't have the details yet for that. If the co-op doesn't offer PE, we will meet that requirement through the teen social group for our local homeschool group.

An acquaintance through the local homeschool group (not the co-op) is starting a French playgroup and I'm hoping to fit it into our schedule.  I took 4 years of French in high school and a semester of conversational French in college, but have never really used it. We will also be attending the arts and crafts days run by the homeschool group and some of their field trips.

The high school kids are members of our county choral society and will be moving to adult choir at church.  The little girls may both be in the kids choir at church this year.  This means at least 2 days of practices to fit in each week, plus performances and special events.

Morgan will be in 11th grade and will be taking dual-enrollment courses at the local community college. I was advised by the mom of a homeschool graduate that the junior year of high school is THE best time to pack them full of math and science courses to maximize ACT scores.  Morgan did very well on his trial run of the ACT and we plan to test again next Spring. Maggie will probably take the ACT for the first time next Spring as her trial run.

I will be attending a homeschool conference for the very first time later this month. I can't wait. I.will have a chance to look at a variety of curriculum in the exhibit hall, talk with the umbrella school representative IN PERSON and attend workshops given by experts. There will also be tons of fun activities for the whole family.  Luckily for us, this conference is happening right here in the Smoky Mountains!!!  We love living here and everyone we know who has ever visited this area has thoroughly enjoyed themselves.