2013-14 Homeschool plan: Overall

Okey-dokey. Because I like to record it somewhere, lol, here's our plan for our coming school year. (You can read one of my first posts about this topic here.)

- Still homeschooling. ;)

- We're going to start August 12. Yes, it's sooner than I'd like. ;) But. We find that schooling year round is a good fit for us, so I can't just take August off, much as I'd like to, lol.

- For the past few years, we've done a roughly three weeks "on," one week "off" schedule...which is dandy for balancing life and school. (We use that "off" week for appointments and field trips and playdates and such whenever possible.)

- This year, though, we're going to try for a six weeks "on," two weeks "off" schedule...because I've been finding that a single week off isn't always enough when it comes to things like vacations and company. ;) Also, thinking in terms of six sessions during a school year gets us closer to things like quarters and semesters...which boys will probably need to understand down the road.

- I'm not sure yet how it's all going to fit together, but I tend to do independent work in the mornings (so things like math and language arts, where the boys are all at different levels and have their own things) and group work in the afternoons (some subjects I still do altogether, like science and history, because it's just easier and works for us). 

- Asher & Micah will be participating in the Fort Collins Options program on Mondays. (For 2012-13, we had to choose whether to go with Fort Collins or Loveland. Prior to that, the program had been run through Aurora School District...starting that year, it switched to the local school districts, which meant that staff and policies changed somewhat. We chose Loveland (more familiar staff) but will change to Fort Collins for the coming year. This means new people and policies but still, hopefully, the same basic premise and program.)

- Noah is choosing not to do Options this year (not enough class choices that interested him), and we'll use that extra day to focus on schoolwork specific to him.

- Technically speaking, Noah will be in 7th grade, Asher in 5th and Micah in 3rd. The schoolwork we do doesn't necessarily follow that, and for purposes of Options (to get the classes they wanted) Asher is listed as 6th grade and Micah as 4th, but that's what we're going with. ;)

I think that's mostly it for now. I'll continue by subject (and you can read past posts by using that "Homeschooling" category link over on the left...generally, the curriculum reviews are in June-August 2010, June 2011 and August 2012...feel free, too, to completely skip my posts for the next week or so, lol) and will work on updating the boys' curriculum pages also over on the left. :)