School room is almost ready!

So our "schoolroom" is almost ready.  I'll have pictures up in a day or two, I hope.  Last night I bought a 22"x35" magnetic dry erase board from Target.  Jim will be installing it today after work.  I can't wait to see how it looks! 
Then in two days from now James will be starting his official days as a homeschool kindergartener! 

We have a homeschool start date! *UPDATED*

Since I'll be receiving the last of James' curriculum materials for his kindergarten year sometime next week  I have received James' phonics curriculum!  The final one we were waiting on!   I can now say when we plan to start James' first day of homeschool kindergarten!


James will start his first day of kindergarten on Monday, September 12, 2011 Tuesday, September 6, 2011!

We are both excited about this. 

We decided that since Jim has Mondays & Tuesdays off, one of those days would be strictly family days.  So we'll be doing James' schooling Tuesday through Saturday.  Now, if he finishes 5 lessons of math, 5 lessons of phonics, 2 lessons of health & whatever else we add in BEFORE the 5 days are up, he gets those extra days off if he wishes.  If not, I'll just have to get to work on getting the next 5 lessons prepped & he can march on through & just finish early!  I'm going to be sure he doesn't fall behind but other than that it's his own pace. I just love the flexibility of homeschooling!

We have a health curriculum now!

So the other day we received James' health curriculum! 
I was unsure whether or not I wanted to do this curriculum because when I first glanced at it a couple of months ago it didn't seem impressive.  I have also read online that the first year (kindergarten anyway) you shouldn't overload a child.  So I was doing the full blown phonics & math curriculum from AOP with some supplemental science thrown in.  Then after reading more in depth about the health curriculum I figured it would be a good idea.  After receiving the books & reading the scope & sequence from K-7/8 of their curriculum (in the other books), I think it will be a great curriculum.  I hope it will be anyway.  So stay tuned to hear more of that. 

So far I think we'll school for 32 weeks (4 weeks of built in breaks there).  At which point he should be through all his curriculum.  I will then give him the option to continue on all year or take a 3 month (all of June-August) break before beginning the next level. 

So that breaks down to 5 lessons per week of math.  1 lesson a week of health for 16 weeks & 2 lessons of health per week for 16 weeks.  I have no clue what it would break down to for phonics because we haven't received it yet.  I ordered it when I ordered the health, but it was on back order & shipped almost a week later.  So I should have it as early as Saturday or as late as Wednesday.  I'm excited! 

In Need of Record Keeping Ideas

I was just showing my husband our son's new math curriculum we have.  Then I showed him the phonics/reading curriculum & the math manipulatives set (online as we've not ordered them yet) that we're going to be using as well.  I was explaining to him a bit of what I read in the math teacher's guide introduction about not giving a letter grade to each and every lesson.  It made me realize that while I have most things figured out (minus the organization - working on that & it will likely involve more purchases), I haven't learned about record keeping yet. 

I absolutely will be record keeping starting with kindergarten.  I'd like to do two "mid-term" reports during the year and then a final report card at the end.  So - exactly how do I do this?  There is a plan I have so far & I would appreciate some feedback from anyone who has been homeschooling a couple of years already & has done record keeping.  I'm also interested in hearing from anyone who is also starting out who has a solid plan for how they will be record keeping grades.  My plan is to buy one of those cardboard sliders that I've seen in teacher's stores for calculating grades.  Then I'm sure I can find some report cards online to order to keep track of it all.  I'm thinking that should be good for each assignment I choose to grade, right?  So then how to I average those altogether for the mid-term & the final report cards?  Thank you in advance for your suggestions & ideas.  Any pictures and links to materials would be great as well. 

The math curriculum is here!

I'm pretty excited!  We got James' math curriculum the day before yesterday, in the mail.  From reading the introduction & such in the beginning I feel happy with what we've chosen & I feel that James should do well with it.  I'm a bit surprised to think that by this time next year my son should be able to add, subtract, tell time (digital & analog), know how to count money, as well as be introduced to other aspects of math/life.  Wow - they learn so much in this first year! 
I'm hoping that in two and a half weeks we can purchase his phonics/reading curriculum.  Afterward, I only need to buy a math manipulatives set.  So most likely September is when we'll start teaching him.  For now, we're reading library books & he's working on the loom to make a few potholders.  :-)

The math curriculum is bought!

I'm excited to say that we purchased James' kindergarten math curriculum tonight.  We should receive it in no more than two weeks.  I can't wait to get it & check it out.  Next month we'll be buying his phonics/reading curriculum. 

Starting Soon

Hi friends!  I just wanted to say that I'm hoping to be able to purchase the kindergarten math & phonics/reading curriculum for James' homeschooling soon.  This month, possibly next.  So not long after that I may be posting pictures & information on how things are going with us.  It all depends on if James wants to wait until after summer or if he wants to start doing it now.  I think if we start now, I'll start slowly, working him up to it.  Otherwise we'll start in mid/late August and also start slowly....but not too slowly. 

I wanted to also apologize (to Kathy H & Camille) for not having replied to your wonderful comments sooner.  My first Blogger blog on this account I have the settings where I'm notified on my dashboard about any pending comments (comment approval prior to publishing) & I hadn't seen any of that on any of my blogs on my dashboard.  Then I decided to check the "comments" link of all my blogs and low and behold, there are two!  I felt awful seeing that they were from almost two weeks ago!  These compartmentalized blogs of mine do NOT have comment approval, therefore absolutely no comment notification that I'm aware of.  That stinks.  So I'll be checking here a few times a week to reply to comments.  I absolutely love & welcome your comments friends.  As well as any friendly tips.  Please follow my blog if you feel it could be interesting, entertaining or informative to you.