Another School Year

School starts Monday and I'm going to have a very busy schedule. I will be teaching three 35 minute language arts classes in older elementary and being the teacher's aid for history. I should be free by lunch time, to go home make lunch and do some of Blaze's lessons. Then Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I will have to be back at the school by 2:00 p.m. for 2 hours of tutoring (I have 2 middle school tutoring students and one high school student). Tuesdays, Blaze has speech and physical therapy in the afternoon. He also has speech Friday mornings. Special Olympics swimming practice may be continuing on Saturdays, although there is no set time right now ( the pool is outside, but it is heated for year-around swimming).

Last year, I purchased a full curriculum from a Waldorf homeschooling source, but I discovered that I don't follow other people's curriculums very well. I prefer more flexibility. I am starting out this year with the idea that our home lessons will parallel the lessons being taught to the elementary school students at the school where I work, but I expect we will go off on our own tangents, as well.

For history this year, at the school where I work, the topic is World History (it goes in 3 year cycles, so next year will be American History again). Since Blaze will often have to accompany me to school, when DH is working (he's starting a new job as a tutor for athletes who need extra help), I decided it would be easiest if our lessons at home were similar to what the children at school were doing, so we will also be doing World History. I spent awhile today gathering up books about early man, Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. I was going to get out the dinosaur books, as well, but I think they're in storage, so I'll have to stop at the storage locker after work on Monday.



For Science, we will be learning about the changing Earth, landforms, volcanos, and the human body. I will be using some of the same materials we used 3 years ago, but Blaze doesn't really remember much of that.

For Math this year, Blaze will be continuing to work in the Math*U*See Beta book. He only did the first five lessons in the book last year before he hit a subject that he was really struggling with and I took him out of that book to work on more basic place value understanding, and then time and money. I'm hoping that he is ready to go back to Beta book now.



We are still working on the sight word flash card program on my Ipod and Blaze's speech therapist has been using worksheets from Explode the code, which is a workbook I also have at home. I'm hoping to learn more about what we can do to help Blaze be a better reader after next week, when he is being tested to see if he is dyslexic.

For storing worksheets and lesson plan ideas, as well as finished work, I really like using the 3-ring binders that have a clear plastic cover with an opening at the top, so a title sheet can be slid inside the plastic. This is the cover of the World History binder that we used 3 years ago and will be using again this year.



This is the cover for the logbook where I will save Blaze's finished work: