We started our school year on Monday the 2nd. We started homeschooling in 1991, when our oldest son started kindergarden. This is our 19th year of homeschooling! This year, we have a 4th grader, a 6th grader, a 9th grader, and a 10th grader.

The 9th grader finished 8th grade last December, and promptly started 9th grade. She has now finished some of the books, and is almost finished with others. Except for Algebra (Teaching Textbooks) and Spanish (Rosetta Stone), she will finish 9th grade in the next few weeks. She would like to finish High School as early as possible, so she’s working hard towards that goal.

Aside from a few “back to school” attitudes the first day or two, the week has gone well. I learned early in our home school journey, that it was easier to school all summer than to deal with the back to school attitudes. The last few  years, we have taken the month of July only off. It’s long enough for a break, but not long enough for major attitudes to develop.

Last year, we went to a 4 day school week, so we could work at our churches out reach center. It worked out well. This year we will be doing a 4 1/2 day week. With a lighter work load on the day we work at the out reach center.

We don’t normally take field trips during school days anymore. We prefer to do things together as a family.

This is what our school room looks like:

You can see in the picture, how we display wall maps. Since this picture was taken, I put a round table in front of the window. The kids don’t sit there most of the time. They just spread stuff out on the table. lol

Schoolwork is done on the schoolroom table, at the school desk in there, at the computer desks, at the dining room table, and on their beds. This is where they work most of the time, though.

That’s without all the books, notebooks and papers. lol Thanks to my son, though, the picture is complete with a Star Wars laser sword. lol

For the last 3 years, I’ve been using Homeschool Tracker I use their free Basic Edition. They do have an another version that you can buy, though. I like this better than other programs that I have tried. It also helps reduce the paper clutter. Paper clutter is a monster that I fight continuously!

To see other weekly wrap ups, visit Weekly Wrap Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

I found this really cool website where you can make your own Online Flashcards. You don’t have to print them out, you use them online.

I’m going to use these for Bible Drill memorization.

Why Don’t We Teach Kids to Be Entrepreneurs? Great Homeschool Ideas! | Homeschool Bytes

This is an interesting article. Why don’t we teach this? This is something that I’m going to work on with my kids.

I haven’t mentioned homeschooling in awhile, so I thought I’d do an update.

We missed some school while I was sick. That won’t be a problem though, we will still finish with time for a summer break, if we decide to take one. We don’t always take a summer break, or we just take the month of July off, not the whole summer.

I had to pull one student off Saxon Algebra 1/2. He was doing good, but now he seems stuck. So I have to make a decision. Keep him is Saxon and get the DIVE dvd to help him. Or switch to another curriculum. He says he doesn’t want to go to college. I just want to make sure that he keeps all his options open. So he needs to do algebra.

Hannah finished all the 8th grade work except for math. She asked for more work. So I started her in 9th grade, except for math. She says she wants to finish high school by her birthday. December of this year. I don’t think it will be possible, but if she wants to try I’ll let her.

She wants to take French. The only problem is, We already have Rosetta Stone Spanish. I had planned on all the kids using it. So do I have her learn a language she doesn’t really want to learn or do I spend another $200. to get French?

Our School Room

The 11 year old girl is sailing right along with 5th grade. She likes school, and has no problem with doing her work.

The 9 year old boy is another story! Like most little boys, he’d rather be playing. Now if I can just convince him that he would have more time to play if he would get his school work done early.

Over all, we’re starting 2010 in good shape. I hope to get lots of extra work done now while it’s so cold. That way in the spring we will have less work to do and can spend more time outside.

We started school this past Monday. The school year is set to end June 30, 2010 in Homeschool Tracker. We are starting a 4 day school week for the first time this year. That’s the reason for the long school year. The date will be adjusted next year, as necessary. That will leave Fridays open to work at our church’s outreach center. Of course, any work not completed during the school week becomes Friday Homework.

We use lots of different publishers for our curriculum. We use A Beka, Rod and Staff, Saxon the most. We find and use whatever books are needed to help our kids learn.

For math we use Rod & Staff for 1st thru 6th grades. If you have a child with attention issues, this is a great math curriculum to use. The most the lessons have are a simple line drawing and a Bible verse. No color pictures to draw their attention away from the math problems. 🙂

We then switch over to Saxon Math 8/7, Algebra 1/2, etc. We have had 4 kids now make the transition from Rod and Staff 6 to Saxon 8/7. They haven’t had any problems with the transition.

Our oldest is now 23, so we have been homeschooling for 18 years now. Over the course of those school years, I have used lots of different record keeping systems. For the last 2 years, I’ve been using Homeschool Tracker. I really like it the best. We used another computer program before that, and Homeschool Tracker is much more user friendly, especially for multiple students. (No, I don’t paid to say that, I am not part of their referral program, I really like it!)