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Free 5 Year Holidays List – 7 Step Homeschool Planner {Turquoise Gem Option}

February 9, 2015 | 6 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

You may get tired of me saying it, but I never get tired of sharing color options for the free 5 year holidays list for the 7 Step Homeschool Planner.

Curriculum Pages for Planner

Today, I have the second color choice ready which is turquoise gem.

I can’t make my mind up about which color I luv. So I don’t make a choice.

I print off both color choices and stick them throughout my blog planner and curriculum planner.

If you want to grab the Passion Pink color too, you can grab it here at the Free 5 Year Holidays List – 7 Step Homeschool Planner .

Remember, this is a multiple use form. There is no limit to the number of planners that you can use it with.

Download here Free 5 Year List of Holidays – 2015 to 2019 – Turquoise Gem color.

Add this to your 7 Step Curriculum Planner, home management binder, blog planner, student planner, a day to day journal or everyday planner.

It is so very helpful for long range planning and monthly planning.

There is a space at the bottom, which is “To Remember”.

It is a place to jot down notes that you want to remember for this year or any year.

If you can’t wait to get started building your 7 Step Homeschool Planner, follow the steps below:

7 Easy Steps – “Tons of Options & Pretty Color”

Step 1. Choose a Pretty Front/Back Cover

Step. 2. Choose Calendars/Appointment Keepers

Step 3. Choose Goals/Objectives

Step 4. Choose Lesson Planning Pages Right For You!

Step 5a. Choose Unique forms JUST for You!

Step 5b. Choose MORE Unique Forms JUST for You!

Step 5c. Choose MORE MORE Unique Forms Just for You!

Step 6. Personalize It

Step 7. Bind it! Love it!

Hugs and love ya,

Linking up @ these awesome places:

Controlling the Time Spent on Homeschool Subjects or Running a Homeschooling Boot Camp

February 8, 2015 | 9 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Controlling the time spent on homeschool subjects can mean the difference between quitting homeschooling and not ever coming back to it or sailing along with a few ripples that are easily conquered.

In upcoming posts I will get down to the nitty-gritty by giving you suggestions for time to spend on each subject and tips to remember. You know details are more valuable then generalities anytime.

However, before I jump into sharing what has worked for me, it is important that I don’t stress you out when I share those posts.
Posting some questions and tips to mull over before you read about specifics of scheduling homeschool subjects will help you to determine what tips will work for you, which ones you can discard and when to make changes when the time comes.

Is your goal in a subject to have your children complete the assignment or to stay within the time scheduled?

Look at this example. If a math assignment has 31 problems, is your goal to complete the whole assignment or to stay within the time frame you allowed for math?
Do you see the difference between teaching to completion of an assignment and teaching thoroughly in a time frame?

Are Time Tested Ways of Teaching Always the Best?

If a system has children studying all day for 8 hours and it is not working, do we want to follow that same mentality?

Please tell me you are not homeschooling for 8 hours straight.

Yes, I have mentored homeschoolers who homeschool for 8 hours in a day. They tell me that there is just no way they get all the subjects completed without spending that long homeschooling.
No reasoning on my part helped them to see that they are on their way to crash and burn.

Unless you are running a military camp, homeschooling for 8 hours straight can be flat out disastrous.

Learning and living naturally for the day is very different than running a homeschooling boot camp.

The longer I talk to homeschoolers who homeschool endlessly into the night I realize that most of the “learning” is not spent on project based learning, hands-on activities or interaction with other family members.

The homeschoolers I helped were panicking to complete assignments by distance learning programs, which they thought would ease the stress in their day only to be the culprit of a majority of it.

Before you can plan the length and time of homeschool subjects, you need to be in control of determining them.
It’s a simple concept that is easily overlooked.
I am always for outside help when you need it through your journey but never give up control in determining what and how much for the day your kids will need to do.

Do you know what percentage of time in the public school classroom is actually spent learning?

I don’t think you have to have kids that attend public school before you can appreciate how much time is actually wasted learning to walk the line, standing in line, sitting criss-cross, waiting on the teacher to correct the little boy who got no sleep the night before, taking the attendance and lunch count for the day to the office and recess to name just a very few interruptions.

One-on-one learning is absolutely intensive and I don’t think it’s talked about nearly enough in homeschool circles.

I have talked about this before and that is what I see when parents bring children home from public school. I am not just talking about normal kids, but kids that are high achievers too.

The common thread they share is that it is extremely hard for them to sit still and learn without wanting to take a break.

To say, that bringing them home to learn while having minimal interruptions can be difficult, might be an understatement.

It requires a retraining period at home because they are use to moving constantly for a bathroom break, talking to another student or just having a shift in focus.

So don’t fall into the homeschool trap that more hours always equal productive learning.

How to encourage the sheer delight of self-teaching?

Encouraging our children to see the sheer delight of self-teaching shifts the focus from simply completing assignments to learning thoroughly in a time frame.

Another foundation you want to build your homeschool subjects on and how much time your children spend on them is on the delight of learning.

It is one thing to savor the time our kids have learning while being mindful of a time frame and yet another to be stressing out about a schedule because an assignment is expected to be completed.

No matter what your preference is for teaching, whether you are more of a shoot from the hip homeschool mom with a minimal schedule or you have a very detailed schedule and maybe even use a timer to schedule subjects, both styles of teaching require being punctual.

Balance is always the key to homeschooling and scheduling subjects and time spent on them is no exception.

Some homeschoolers feel that being controlled by the clock takes the delight out of learning. It actually can be quite the opposite and seen as a bit selfish (ouch) if we don’t have some kind of flow to our day.

Unintentionally, we may be running late the whole day for every subject and not get to subjects that our children have been waiting all day to do. If our day is calm and organized with subjects balanced, we get so much more done for the day.

Starting from a faulty point by giving up control of when and how much to plan, following the methods of public school by schooling endlessly and into the evening with homework and not holding to a time frame to foster the delight of all subjects planned for the day are barricades to worthwhile learning.

Whether you use more of zones for your planning or have a very specific schedule for covering the subjects, do you find that you are covering each subject in a balanced way? It’s not easy for sure.

Hugs and love ya,

Grab some more points on scheduling and doing meaningful learning.

Divide And Conquer The Ever Growing List of Homeschool Subjects

Dynamic Reader Question–How To Get All those Homeschool Science Experiments Done?

Easy Hands on Homeschooling Ideas When You’re Not the Bomb Mom

Linking up @ these awesome places:

9th Grade Homeschool High School – Avoid the Sock It to Them Attitude

February 6, 2015 | 5 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

It feels like starting brand new when your child enters the 9th grade homeschool high school trek. Also, look at my page How to Homeschool High School.

This is not going to be another one of those homeschool high school posts.

You know where I share all the future plans for my sons.

Looking back now after having gone through it with my first two sons, I have tips.

I realize that realistic sanity saving tips would have helped me better.

Sure, I found plans for all 4 years of homeschooling high school helpful.

But in reality each child and each family’s goals are different.

Too, I chuckle now that I planned ALL 4 years of high school in 9th grade.

I will share why I feel that way in a minute.

The tips today that I want you to know about are tips I didn’t give enough credit ( pun intended, corny I know).

9th Grade Homeschool High School

Try to remember that over crowding your teen’s schedule in 9th grade can be a new mistake.

Even for the most seasoned homeschooler, it happens.

In our attempt to “do it right”, we can take a sock it to them attitude at the beginning of what can be, at least for us, some of the most memorable times about homeschooling.

I planned way more for Mr. Senior 2013 than he was able to do for his age in 9th grade.

With Mr. Awesome, the schedule and load was just about right. Then of course Mr. Awesome is my second child to enter high school and you get to expert status real fast.

In addition, a lot of kids at the 9th grade level are taking driver’s education on top of their workload.

This means they are not driving yet and you are still taking them and your younger children to activities, classes and events.

Then there is the period where you have to ride with them when they are learning to driving.

If you have a highschooler, you know what I am talking about because I had claw marks on the car door though Mr. Senior 2013 ends up being a good driver now as an adult.

The point is that extra stress at 9th grade is not needed and because most of us have younger kids to school, you have time to still take a marathon pace.

The beginning of teaching them self-independence as an adult begins here but doesn’t happen in one year.

From Teen to Young Adult, A Complicated Unfolding

Speaking about young adults, another factor that I did not appreciate enough is that there is a noticeable difference of maturity at 14/15 years of age at the 9th grade level and 17/18 years of age in 12th grade.

That can be a good and bad thing, but that is another post.

I want you to know that eventually you stop going the homeschool planning alone because if you have raised your children with independence in mind, which is our goal, then the training continues in high school with them planning their courses.

9th Grade Homeschool High School - Avoid the Sock It to Them Attitude

Though I sat down with both of my older boys to plan out each year and though I consider them both fairly independent for their age, I was still pretty clueless as to the level of maturity and independence that they would grow into as a young adult.

As I planned with my second son as he entered high school, I simply explained to him that at least math and language arts would be done each year and the rest of the subjects we will map out as we went along.

It was a different approach than I took with Mr. Senior 2013 because as Mr. Senior 2013 approached being a junior and then a senior, he had decided to change out some subjects.

For example, I had science planned for all four years, but like me, his first love is history. Too, the careers that he mentioned to support himself as an adult were not science related.

For his junior and senior year, he planned out his subjects and they didn’t include science but did include some form of history study for all four years.

At first I was hesitant to agree with him to immerse himself in what I thought was lopsided planning, but then I had to question myself because isn’t that the whole reason I homeschooled in the first place.

The beauty of high school is for a teen to pursue his interests and to not be weighed down with subjects that he won’t be using.

Throw Out the 4 Year Homeschool High School Plan

It’s easier to say that than doing it because you are always a parent and want to help your teen make the best decisions in high school.

However, high school is the time for them to start making the decisions for their life.

You can’t teach them how to be self-reliant and make good decisions if you take away their right to make decisions at the first instant they flex the decision making muscles.

A young adult has definite ideas of what his own future should look like and both of my older sons knew which subjects they wanted to focus on.

Like I mentioned, it has been different with Mr. Awesome. Along with doing basic subjects, he will have 4 years of science and is pursuing more computer related courses in high school.

You can see why now that I chuckle at the fact that I listed all courses for each year.

It’s like planning for an adult without asking them their plans for their life or at least including them. Crazy notion,uh?

Focus on Homeschool High School Framework

It only took one year of over planning for Mr. Senior 2013 in 9th grade to learn that I needed a framework or guide for the high school years instead of focusing every bit of energy on all four years and the courses.

Understanding about credits, planning either for college or a focus on career or ministry, when and how to include outside classes, if any, and whether or not to CLEP are all easier to find out about if you have a framework to guide both you and your teen.

You are not going to ruin your kid’s chances for having a successful life if you don’t plan all 4 years in 9th grade.

Core Subjects are Key

I know you need a basic guideline, so look at the foundational plan on my blog post Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 1 so that you can use this as a jumping off point for planning 9th grade.

Planning from the inside, or basic subjects like the 3 R’s that you have been doing all along and moving to the outside, which are content subjects like history, science, geography, foreign languages and electives is the basis for an excellent and superior education in high school.

Not only will 9th grade be rigorous, but it will be spicy, eventful and unique to each child of yours that enters 9th grade.

Remember that producing the transcript, attending a college if they go to college, choosing a career, or missionary work are all done the end of the journey.

Too, by then you will have a young adult that wants a definite say in the direction his or her life takes.

Though it didn’t seem silly at the time to plan all four years, it didn’t hurt because it gave me a measure of security because I wanted to be a responsible homeschooling mom.

I realize now that each of my son’s personalities and strengths were a larger part of determining what we covered.

It is not easy to change hats from teacher to supervisor, counselor, coach and partner in the high school years, but I wouldn’t trade one tear shed for the precious and memorable moments we now have in high school.

I don’t like being sappy either when I talk about my sons growing into young men, but it is hard to not have a few tears.

Somebody told me once that the high school years fly after your kid enters 9th grade. Guess what? It’s true.

Look at these other posts to ease your mind:

The Must Cover Subjects Part 2 in High School

High School–How to Log Hours for High School?

High School Readiness?

Homeschool High School How To Prepare THE Transcript + Editable High School Transcript

Accreditation Removing the Shroud of Mystery

3 Unexpected Benefits of Homeschool Narration

February 5, 2015 | 6 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Second only to reading aloud, there is not any other homeschool tool more outstanding than narration.

It it totally free, works across the board with any homeschool approach used and the skill level is absolutely zero for beginner homeschoolers.

Explaining the definition of narration, which is simply telling back what your kids have read or learned or telling back what you have read to them, is easier to explain than the way I feel now about the 3 unexpected benefits of homeschool narration.

It’s not a secret that I use a more unit study approach and don’t really follow a Charlotte Mason approach. With that being said, I don’t think many of us totally follow only one homeschool approach, myself included.
Narration, which is a hallmark of the Charlotte Mason approach though is one homeschool technique that I have used from the beginning of my homeschool journey and that has spanned all of my sons’ learning style.

Most homeschoolers will tout that the greatest benefit of narration is that it is a way of checking what a child understands. Though this is true and it’s important in gauging progress, there are benefits to narration that I couldn’t even imagine.

ONE/ Teaches Valuable Critical Thinking Skills.

When I did narration with Mr. Senior 2013, little did I realize that “simple narration” in younger grades would prepare him for not just high school level courses but for honors courses too.

Mr. Senior 2013 did honors classes early in math. Looking back now, I feel this was directly related to teaching him to only know how to think, but how to sift through information when he was narrating back to me.

Many days as I would sit and listen to him or write down what he would say, I wondered what he would be doing with this massive amount of information he was storing.

I am not the most patient mom but I sat still as my son bubbled forth with what he knew about any subject.

Is Your Homeschool Narration Missing a Vital Link?

I admit, it was not easy to sit and listen to details that I didn’t think mattered to what we were learning at the time.

Simple narration then was the basic framework of teaching him how to think long-term.

Having helped many new homeschoolers, one of the problems they had in the beginning was that their child was not use to sitting still for long amounts of time to contemplate, think or recall information.

A fast paced schedule at public school and constant shifts in focus can leave very little time to process new information.

The problem is exacerbated now because we live in a fast paced technological word and that can breed in all of us a “give-me-an-answer-right-now” attitude.

Narration helped Mr. Senior 2013 to avoid the negative effects of an instant education.

TWO/ Narration nurtures togetherness.

By it’s nature, the process of narration is sociable and interactive.

When I first started narration, I was probably more teacher like using white boards and writing down everything my children told me. That can be part of narration but as I have schooled longer, I realize narration is more of meaningful conversation than me quizzing my children.

Narration in 5 minutes.

Time spent one on one with each of my sons nurtures a warm relationship and it begins with short meaningful conversations each day.
Getting past the feeling that narration had to be so formal and school like each time, I realized that communication with each of my sons was filling an inborn need for all of us, which is to communicate.

One of the reasons for homeschooling, which I hold very dear is to give each child my exclusive undivided attention for discussing whatever is weighing heavy on his mind.

As each son narrated back what they liked about a story, a science lesson or history lesson, it almost always was a time for them to share with me what else they were thinking at the time.

I wouldn’t trade any of those special moments I have had with them for making them sit down alone and do a quiz to process information.

THREE/ Self-Expression flourishes.

Another benefit of narration is that your kids learn beautiful expressions that fill their mind’s memory from worthy literature.

Using literature like the Bible and other great sources like classical literature and living books your child gradually learns to adopt values and principles that make up the man or woman they will turn out to be.

Self-expression flourishes because they have been influenced by resources that you value.

What I am saying is that instead of being molded by this world, which can make a child feel withdrawn because they are always being corrected, your child becomes an independent and free thinker in a positive way.

A lot of homeschooled children who have never been public school simply do no care whether their viewpoint is accepted or not by others.

Being sure of their identity because they have spent time pondering morals, principles and values learned and recited during narration from childhood, a child is proud of their adult role whether they start a family of their own, go to college or take up some form of ministry.

It has been hard for me to strain all of my feelings, thoughts and reflections about the value of narration into these short nuggets.

My love for the tool of narration has only been heightened now as I help Mr. Senior 2013 with his next venture as an adult.

Seize the moments for narration and don’t let them pass you by because they are filling more needs than you can imagine at this point in your homeschool journey.

What about you? Do you take time for narration?

Hugs and love ya,

Check out these other posts:

Narration – Telling Back or Testing? Books that Make Teaching Narration Easy Peazy
Am I Doing Enough When Homeschooling
Gauging Homeschool Progress – Masters of their Material?

Free 27 Week American History Study through Lapbooking In Chronological Order

February 4, 2015 | 16 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, I have rounded up 27 free American history lapbooks to keep American history fun, hands-on and covered in chronological order if you choose to cover American History in order too. There are enough lapbooks here to turn this easily into a year long study on American history.

Free 27 Week American History Study through Lapbooking

Some lapbooks have more resources added to them and others less. Some topics have two or three lapbooks, but then again, the topics like the American Revolution and presidents, you could spend two or three weeks on.