Tuesday, July 10, 2012

10 Exciting Things About Starting a New School Year!

Top Ten Tuesday at Many Little Blessings
We start school in three weeks!  I am looking forward to a new year.  Our 14th year of homeschooling!  Here are 10 things I am excited about this year:

1) NOT reinventing the wheel ~ I love to create my own curriculum and come up with my own ideas. However, this year I am going to take a step back and enjoy the many literature unit studies put out by Veritas Press, Beautiful Feet, Prairie Primer, and Beyond Five In A Row.

2) Guiding my two tweens through tweendom peacefully ~  We will be concentrating on the three R's (Responsible, Respectful and Refined).  I hope to continue laying the groundwork for mostly peaceful teen years.

3) Really getting a handle on the dyslexia that is plaguing some of my students ~  We will be done with vision therapy in a few weeks and ready to go through remedial spelling and reading programs this fall.  Hopefully we will make great progress in writing this year.

4) Using Charlotte Mason techniques for art and music ~ We will be studying a different composer and artist each quarter.  I haven't picked our composers yet.  Our artists will be Frank Lloyd Wright, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and N. C. Wyeth.  

5) Getting back to weekly nature study ~  We will be using the Handbook for Nature Study and Barb's blog, Handbook of Nature study.  I made a brand new nature box with all of our supplies for the car so it will be super easy to be organized.

6) Introducing "poetry teas" each quarter ~  Our poets this year will be William Yeats, Carl Sandburg, Langston Hughes, and Robert Frost.

7) Dad taking over our family read aloud books ~  Dad is reading a family read aloud each night now before spending individual time with the kids each evening.  Currently, Daddy is reading Davy Crockett.  This will help a great deal in getting through more classics and history books.

8) Seeing the kids participate in activities that give them public recognition ~ I am trying to encourage good work ethic in several different ways this year.  One way is for the kids to make projects and enter them for public judging.  They will enter the state fair and the Festival of Knowledge (natural history) this year.  Additionally, they will be participating in "The Nutcracker" and "Swan Lake" with our dance studio.

9) Going on field trips ~ We love field trips and hope to do at least one a month.  We are hoping to do some homeschool days within a reasonable driving distance, such as The Biltmore House.


10 ) Starting back to our "out of the home classes" (okay, the kids are way more excited about this one than me) ~ They live for dance and being on the stage.  They are such show biz kids.  I really don't know where they got their love of the stage from ~ it isn't from me!

I am looking forward to getting back to school. But, for now, let's enjoy the slower days of summer.



I am joining ManyLittleblessings.

Blessings, Dawn

6 comments:

  1. 14 years! Wow! You are so amazing to me!!! It sounds like you are going to have another wonderful year. You know I will be stopping by on a regular basis to follow your adventures. I am excited to see what awesome things you all will be doing. I am so blessed to call you my blogging friend.
    (((HUGS)))
    Ginny

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  2. Wonderful!! We were supposed to start in a few weeks, but with the move, things will be crazy. We may be doing a little here and a little there. Hopefully we wont get too far behind!

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  3. I wish I felt excited to get back to homeschooling, but I just need a couple more weeks off before I can put my heart into it. Great reasons though!

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  4. Love your list, as always. I need to find some kind of drama group for my youngers. They seem to love putting on shows and don't mind being in front of folks at all.

    You always sound so excited about school and give it so much thought. I appreciate that about you.

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  5. As Anne of Green Gables said, "Tomorrow is always fresh." as next school year is always fresh. Enjoy!
    Laurie

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  6. I'm venturing into the third year of homeschooling and this time I'll be gathering misc materials for history. I'm excited to create our own unique curriculum but it can be scary too! I bought The Handbook of Nature Study awhile ago. It sat on a shelf. I wasn't sure how to tackle the enormous book! Now that I receive Barb's email newsletter, I think nature study once a week will be good for us. Maybe I'll "see" you on her site :)

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