Gearing up for another school year!

In a few weeks, we will be starting our third year of homeschooling!! The kids and I are so excited! Zachary will be in 2nd grade (technically 1st grade if attending "building school"- as the kids call it) and Katelyn will be in K-4 possibly starting Kindergarten after Christmas. I've got all the curriculum and materials we need (I love eBay!) and have the first week already planned out. Chris convinced me it is "so much easier" to make all my plans in a template on the computer so I trying it out this year. We are using the A Beka curriculum again, pretty much completely. Although I do have alot of other trade books and idea books that I will be using for supplements and extra practice.

Here's Zach's subjects:
2nd grade Phonics, Arithmetic, Reading, Language, Spelling
1st grade Science (with Katelyn) and History
K5 Bible (Bob Jones curriculum)- with Katelyn
Art and music will be with Katelyn too

Katelyn won't be following a curriculum at first. She will work on learning the letter sounds and beginning blends. She'll learn to count up to 100 and do some simple addition. I plan on just playing some games with her and doing some workbook pages (which she loves) to make it easy and fun.

Every year I think about our decision to homeschool and make sure it is still the right thing for our family. Zachary has come out of his shell socially the past couple years that I know that he'd do great in school (same for Katelyn) but we've all enjoyed the flexibility, freedom and benefits that come with homeschooling! We love being together all day and I love that I get to be a part of everything they are learning. I get to see all the milestones and progress they make and see their little faces light up when something finally clicks. We get to work at our own pace and learn about topics we want to learn about, when we want to learn them. We don't have to worry about bullies and being late and forgetting lunches. Best of all, I don't have to wait until the end of the day to hug them. (:

Verse of the day: Proverbs 22:6- "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."