[Because it always is so much fun for me to hear your homeschool plans, I thought I’d share mine and the tools I have ready for this year. Feel free to comment or link or share a photo of your plan!]

The cupboard got overhauled last week, leaving an empty shelf for the 2020-21 school year’s books. And this week, all but one of those have arrived, I’ve thought through routines and chores and who practices piano when (gah!!!), and the clipboards are all ready to receive new checklists for each child except Enid — who will probably want a checklist, too, now that I think about it.

I was having a hard time getting into school mode this year, but God helped me along by sending a wave of cool, rainy days. In case I was tempted to continue summer break forever, and spend the rest of our lives just swimming and eating watermelon, I am now convinced that wouldn’t work out well, anyway. So, school it is.

Jameson is going into 9th, William into 7th, Beatrice into 4th, and Fiona into 2nd. Cecily will be a very eager pre-schooler and, I suspect, will begin her K year well ahead of the game.

We’ll start our learning each day with Circle Time, a lovely catch-all name for our time worshiping, praying, memorizing scripture, and then whatever else I throw into the basket that year. The boys will lead us in some songs, and I hope to add Beatrice to that mix as well. Sometimes I take over while we learn a hymn, but most often it’s our favorite choruses. After working on a memory verse (they’re each slowly filling their own spiral bound 3x5s) and having a prayer time, we’ll rotate these three books:

History will mostly happen right in Circle Time this year, with lots of read alouds as we follow world events from the beginning of the Cold War through the Persian Gulf War. I’m using the last 20 or so lessons of Mystery of History Vol IV as my spine, helping me to keep things in order, but we’ll go very slowly, digging deeper and following bunny trails as they appear. (For instance, we haven’t even started, and already the kids have been asking questions about the Bolsheviks and the Romanovs, and suddenly I realized “The Start of the Cold War” is going to look a lot like weeks of Russian history!)

For math, the boys will continue using Teaching Textbooks, while the girls do Bob Jones. I’m considering letting Beatrice make the switch to TT and will make that call at some point. Does the visual impact of a book help her learn math concepts? I’m not sure. Every kid is a bit different, but these two programs have worked for us so far!

I’m very excited about Language Arts this year, and am hoping we can spend a chunk of our time honing writing skills. Jameson will be doing Learning Language Arts Through Literature: World Lit, and William will be using their Green Book. (Jameson will read Cry, the Beloved Country and that may or may not be the sole reason I chose this particular course for him! I so love that book!) Beatrice, along with Bob Jones English, will be using a Creative Writing notebook by The Good and the Beautiful. I bought one for Fiona, too, and it’s the one thing she talks about constantly, so I guess she’s excited, too! I’ll also have her do Bob Jones Spelling, as we beef up on basics.

Handwriting will continue for William, Beatrice, and Fiona. The older two are using cursive books from the Handwriting for Learning series, and Fiona will use Getty-Dubay Italics. Jameson will be scrutinized by his mother, but at this point has proven that he can write a neat sentence. The older three will also do typing — and at the moment, my plan is typing.com unless I hear that there’s another amazing program we should try!

For science, Jameson will branch off on his own to do Biology, including a 3/month class with labs and such. Meanwhile, the rest of us are going to study human anatomy, which never fails to be fascinating!

All the extras will look like piano lessons for all four, guitar for William, computer programming for the boys, cooking for Beatrice, and plenty of “yes!” when Fiona asks to paint. There will be plenty of reading done by all of them, but sitting together to hear me read will be a daily “big rock” that I don’t plan on ever forsaking. And Tea & Poetry will continue one afternoon each week — another chance for us to sit around a table together and chat and smile and build memories. This post is already long enough, but the goals of our investment must be clear in order for the tools to serve and not derail us, and loving one another and fostering good thought and character and conversation is right up there with whatever details Jameson may retain about amoebas.

So yes. I’m excited. Yes, I’ve spent hours praying and thinking and observing and researching and wondering what would be best for this year. I sharpened pencils and tossed the duds from our pen jar and made sure there are spiral notebooks ready for copious notes. I have kids who are as excited as I am, and I know it will be so much fun. It will also be far more chaotic than I ever remember, Enid will be more challenging than I am prepared for, and cleaning up from breakfast will, inevitably, take f o r e v e r some mornings and I will be ready to blow my lid before 9am. Some of these books will be the perfect fit, and some of these will get traded in for a new plan. I know these things because I’ve been around this block a few times. But what I most know is that being home with all of these kids is one of the greatest privileges of my life, being together all day is an amazing gift that we all recognize and enjoy, and being able to receive fresh outpouring from the Holy Spirit each day and serving out of that abundance is the key to it all.

Pencils ready, let’s go!