Re-vamping our school

I mentioned in my last weekly post that I'm re-vamping my homeschool.  Well, in actuality, I'm completely re-doing my homeschool.

I realized that the "feel" that I wanted and originally intended for my homeschool isn't happening.  I get my inspiration for the "feel" of my homeschool from several different resources.  The 2 major influences for the atmosphere of my homeschool (not the actual materials used) are this blog (a Baker's Dozen) and Simply Charlotte Mason.  I also have a lot of influence from the Well-Trained Mind resources and forums.  Particularly, in the area of language arts.  So, I use some classical materials in a charlotte masonish way. 

What I did was that I came up with goals for my homeschool and then I broke them down into weekly goals.  I work much better with weekly goals.  With Sonlight I tend to treat it as a weekly schedule even though it's a daily schedule.  I'm just too much of a tweaker.

So, after I had my goals I came up with a Weekly Lesson Planner based upon several aspects of different ones that I had seen online.  It includes all of my goals for each week in more of a check-off and fill in kinda way.  I love it.  That way, I'm not completely committed to certain things on certain days other than my core subjects (and even that can easily be changed).  I put my Weekly Lesson Planner document in my sidebar down at the bottom, so if you want to see it and don't want to click on the link it's there, too.

Now, you may be interested in what my goals are for the rest of 2010.  Here are some examples These are what I call the gravy subjects, but just as important to my goals:

Poetry: Read 1-2 x per week.


Audiobooks: Get plenty from the library or look for a free resource and schedule them for bedtimes or nap time.

Composer Study- Go to library, AO or just online and listen to classical music at least 1x per week or just the CDs in the car

Art: either 1 lesson per week in Artistic Pursuits or get Christy to teach kids 1x per week or every other week

Artist Study: Go to AO and print off an artist print to display and look at 1x per week

Weekly: Watch an educational video off of youtube

Life Skills: Core charts must be completed before they can eat lunch. It’s up to them whether they want to do them right after they wake up or during their playtime or whatever. Also, have the kids cook more with me.

We need at least 1 day per week that they help me cook/bake. Maybe weekly bread making? Maybe they make lunch weekly?

I also made goals for myself which included things like a weekly planning and research session and certain lectures, conference speakers that I want to listen to on a regular basis.

My kids will also be keeping a science binder and I will be keeping a math journal filled with all of my ideas.

I took the Weekly Lesson Planner, and I printed them front and back so that I only had 1 sheet of paper for each week.  I'll let you all know how it goes!

If you haven't checked out what we are doing for math here it is.