It’s not pretty. In all honesty, I have about 3 days mapped out so far. I want to see how we do and what is working for us.

My homeschool space doubles as our dining room. We have two bookshelves dedicated to homeschool materials. I recently put up a small whiteboard and bulletin board set. I’m using these to keep info that we need every day. I’ll probably write the date on the whiteboard to help us all keep track.

Each of the kids have their own binder where I am keeping supplemental material and where I hope they can store their work. I also have a binder – it’s pretty rudimentary right now. I have a copy of each IHIP and a calendar for keeping attendance. I also have a place for my daily plans. I have been scratching them out on looseleaf paper organized by subject for each child.

I plan on using the internet extensively for material to fuel hands on learning. I’m really excited about science experiments, demonstrations, and projects. I have a ton of recycables and basic art supplies on hand.

I reviewed their IHIPs and started looking at the resources I’ve accumulated. I have started what feels like a small library – not that we didn’t already have one – but I purchased some workbooks and went through the books we already owned looking for non-fiction I could use for different subjects. I found out that we have a crap-ton of dinosaur books.

I felt that we needed an easy start so I used their Brain Quest workbooks to jump start our first few days. I like these because they help me to see what I need to cover in each grade level. I’m using these as a guide and a starting point for topics. We are going to be covering each topic in more depth and according to my child’s individual needs. For instance, my second grader is a developing reader. We are going to use the first BQ worksheet on digraphs as a starting point and continue practicing them throughout the week. I am going to accomplish this with worksheets I found on Pinterest. We’re also doing that with math. We are going to be working towards better understanding of the hundredths place value so we’ll study that for about a week.

I am going to cover some topics with both my 6th grader and 2nd grader. We’ll be doing a coordinated study of U.S. History dating from immigration across the Bering land bridge to… however far we get. We will also be doing Art, P.E. and music together. Music isn’t even a required subject but I think it would be terrible to miss so I’m on the hunt for some materials. In lieu of having a solid plan for Music, we’re going to start with classical composers.

I am excited and nervous about that first day. I’m not planning on jumping into lessons right away. I am going to use the first day to get them excited. We’re going to name our homeschool, talk about how we learn best, make lots of slime and maybe go on a walk. I want to find out what they want to learn about and do so I can incorporate that.