Top Homeschool Picks & Next Year’s Full Line-up

July 13, 2017 by Brina Lynn 2 Comments

A few weeks ago, I realized….Oh. my. goodness!…I gotta pick our homeschool curriculum for next year! It was probably well past that time of year to be choosing a curriculum for next year. Since “next year” starts in just a few weeks, I was beginning to feel the pressure of what in the world we are gonna do next year! This happens every year. We get bogged down and frustrated and resolve to try something new for the new school year.

The problem is…finding that something new that works for us in all the hundreds of options out there. I’ve finally decided, after several days and weeks of stressing, what the plan is for next year. I want to share with your top homeschool picks and why we go back year after year, and then some that we love that we’ve walked away from. (If you can hardly stand it and want to skip on down to our line-up for next year, click here.)

Top Homeschool Picks:

Apologia Science

We love Apologia! We have since the very first Botany book we read together when Nan and E were in early elementary school. I learned more that year than the kids, I’m sure. Only one year did we venture to something else; we actually liked it but loved Apologia more.

Math U See

Mr. Steve has been teaching my kiddos math since the very first year we homeschooled. There were years we ventured from Math U See, but found our way back each time. We use MUS for 1st thru 7th grade.

Teaching Textbooks

Teaching Textbooks have been a lifesaver for this not-so-math-savvy mama! I am pretty good at math up to about Algebra, then…um, I need some help. (Okay, okay, I need help in the second half of Algebra, too.) This particular program is a set of CD-ROM that presents the lesson, has practice sets, and also offers solutions to missed problems. It takes the student step-by-step through the problem so that he or she can see where the mistake was made. AND…it grades all the practice problems for you! Ya’ll. It’s a homeschool mom’s best friend! Our plan is to use TT from 8th-12th grades.

Confessions of a Homeschooler K4 Curriculum

This is a sweet little program that we used for BB and now HR and plan to with the twins and JBear when that time comes. It’s very well put together; all the lesson plans are laid out for you. For an 8th grade teacher, turned homeschool mom, I need all the help I can get with the early grades! We have really enjoyed using Erica’s K4 Curriculum. An added bonus is that she is super easy to work with if you have problems or questions.

Learning Language Arts Through Literature

This is one of my favorites, though I have one big kid who would argue. I love the idea of language arts being thought through literature and everything stemming back to the literary work, which is why it’s one of my top homeschool picks. That’s how our team of language arts teachers taught when I was in public education, and it worked very well. LLATL is our default in the early and middle grades. We have tried several language arts programs, and this is the only one we keep coming back to.

Sonlight

Oh, Sonlight! We loved Sonlight. We haven’t used one of their curriculum packs in several years. While that makes me sad, I know that it’s not a good fit for our family right now. If you love to read, and you don’t have such a wide age range as we do, you would probably love it, too! If you are just starting out homeschooling, and have no idea what’s out there or what to do, this is a good option. It can be pricey, but you can almost always find it on Ebay at good prices.

So, what does our line up look like for next year?

Here’s a quick run-down of what our plan is for next year, and it includes lots from my top homeschool picks from above. I am a little reluctant to share this because I don’t want to bore you, but I know that *I* as a homeschool mom want to see what others are doing. Maybe they have the missing piece I’m looking for. Here goes…

Nan ~ 10th grade

Literature: Great Christian Writers along with Red Badge of Courage Study Guide & Scarlet Letter Study Guide

Grammar: Easy Grammar Ultimate Series: 180 Daily Teaching Lessons (this is purely for daily practice)

Science: Exploring Creation with Chemistry

History: Grade 11 American History PACEs

Math: Teaching Textbooks Geometry

Foreign Language: Rosetta Stone Spanish

Elective 1: Health —Lifepac Electives: Health, Complete Set

Elective 2: Finance–Financial Literacy from a Christian Perspective

E ~ 8th

ELA: I am in the process of writing his curriculum. (say a prayer, okay?) It will be a combination course in reading, writing, and grammar. At the bottom of this post is a little sneak peak, cheat sheet! 🙂

Science: Apologia Exploring Creation with General Science

History: Grade 8 Social Studies PACEs

Math: Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra

BB ~ 3rd

ELA: Learning Language Arts Through Literature, Grade 3

Science: Sonlight Science B

Social Studies: Grade 3 Social Studies PACEs

Math: MUS ~ Finishing up Beta, then Gamma

Spelling: Spelling Workbook Level 1

HR ~ 1st

ELA: Learning Language Arts Through Literature Kit Grade 1

Science: Sonlight Science B (with BB)

Math: Math-U-See Alpha

Social Studies: Library books about famous Americans like Ben Franklin and Abraham Lincoln

**With BB and HR, I plan to also always have a read aloud handy. I’m not sure what that looks like yet unless I read to them during breakfast and lunch, but I know we need to be reading together daily. The plan includes titles like Charolette’s Web, Ginger Pye, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Homer Price, The Boxcar Children and whatever else we can get our hands on.

Final Thoughts

In the beginning, we used a complete curriculum each year. We did that for a few years, but as I began to see what worked and didn’t work, we began to break away from full curriculum packages and pull a little of this and a little of that. If you are just starting out, don’t let our eclectic homeschool curriculum scare you. You can do this even if it means buying a boxed set, like Sonlight or My Father’s World. We have used and enjoyed both of them.

If you want to talk to someone about curriculum, I’d be happy to talk with you! If you feel called to homeschool yet feel scared out of your mind, you are normal. It’s a huge step…a rewarding step, but huge. You can do this…remember that in our weakness, His strength is made perfect. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Finding Your Way in the Graveyard

June 15, 2017 by Brina Lynn 6 Comments

Graveyards. The connotation is most always negative. They speak of lives gone by, days we can never have back. Sometimes, they conjure up terrible memories. And sometimes, they just creep us out. One particular cemetery near our house flanks a beautiful old church, Spanish moss dangles from the old oaks, and the road just kind of drops off. It’s a quiet beauty to me, but to my kids, it’s creepy. [Perspective is a funny thing.] How weird it would seem to be finding your way in the graveyard. But that’s exactly what I did.

My plan

For years Chris had wanted me to homeschool our kids. I wanted no part of it. Honestly, it was purely a prideful reason: I didn’t want my kids to fall into the “stereotypical” homeschool kid bucket. (Now I cringe as I write that.) I was, however, truly excited about coming home from work to be with my kids. I’d just take them to school, pick them up, enjoy them in the afternoon, while baking cookies, of course! The little one and I would have us a grand ole time while the bigs were at school. Oh, the pictures we can conjure up….

That was not what the Lord had planned for us. Chris knew my resistance to teaching our kids at home, so he became silent on the matter and began to pray that the Lord would change my heart. We decided that I would resign my teaching position to be home with the kids, and we began to work on getting out of debt so that it was financially possible.

He took me to the graveyard…

The Christmas before I resigned, I decided I wanted a “Charlie Brown” tree to display all the kids’ handmade ornaments. I knew just where to look, too, because my family had cut down trees there many times when I was a kid. We loaded the kids and went to the cemetery where my mom and step-dad, granny and grandpa, aunts and uncles, and cousins had been laid to rest. I love that place. For me, it’s full of sadness, yes, but a peaceful sadness and so many fond memories.

One such memory was my first and probably only experience with an outhouse! The church is Primitive Baptist, so no indoor plumbing. Another memory is of an old hand pump. My mom would always take water in a jar for us to prime the pump because my sister and I found complete delight in that old pump. I remember her lovingly wiping sand and paw prints from my step-dad’s grave and clearing grass from it’s edges.

God’s Plan

That evening, Chris and I and the kids walked to my mom’s graveside and allowed ourselves a few moments, then we walked the treeline looking for a little tree. As we walked, we noticed the old graves and found ourselves reading tombstones, pondering names and noticing dates. We walked a little farther and came to a cluster of graves. There were two large slabs, and four little slabs…the next one smaller than the last. As we paused at this family, we realized that the parents lost all four children before each child reached age 5.

It was in that moment that I found my way. In that moment, God spoke to me as clearly as if he were standing next to me in Chris’s place. He whispered, “You are not promised tomorrow with them.” I nearly lost it, and all I could reply in the recesses of my heart was, “Okay, God.”

That was my surrender to the path he had laid out for me. It was my way, the one I had been searching for. It was an answer to all my questions. Whatever it took, I would stay with them, and I would teach them, and I would love and cherish them.

What my way looks like today…

I’d love to tell you that my path remains as clear as it was that chilly fall evening. I often doubt my calling, wonder what the heck I am doing here, convince myself that someone else could do a better job. But the fact is, even on days when I tell Chris to “just take their butts up to that schoolhouse and sign them up,” I know when I have time to breathe and pray that I was called to this. I am supposed to be here, doing exactly what I am doing because I’m not released to do anything else.

It’s not easy…this mom thing, this homeschooling thing, this living on one income thing, this opening my heart to you thing…but it is a finding your way in the graveyard kind of thing. And when you find your way in the graveyard, you know it’s the right way.

Surviving the Day Managing With All My Monkeys

April 1, 2017 by Brina Lynn Leave a Comment

So many times I hear, “How do you do it? How do you manage it all? I don’t know how you do it; my two drive me crazy.” First we’ll define some key words just so we’re clear. It: being mom to 7, homeschooling, managing, living, surviving. Monkeys: all these little people.

Let me start by clearing the air. I don’t. There, I said it. I fail every day at making it all work, at managing all these monkeys. Some days are much less of a failure than others, but lots of days, it can get pretty ugly. I get angry and impatient, frustrated and sarcastic. Some days I don’t know how we made it to the end. Some days, it’s moment by moment. That’s just the truth of it. But, we have figured out how things currently work best for us, managing with all these monkeys.

Snippets of our days

In order to make things work and work even remotely well, we have to work together. We are a team. There’s no possible way that I could do everything that needs doing on a daily basis if it were just me running the show.

A quick rundown:

get all those monkeys motivated each morning and unwound each evening
plan & cook 3 meals a day (yes, 3 since 8 of us are here all day, every day)
grocery shop for said planned meals
do laundry – an average of 10 loads a week for our family of 9
nurse the baby
homeschool the 4 oldest, keeping while the 3 youngest from jumping on the bed (couldn’t resist)
keep the house at least somewhat clean
squeeze in exercise
spend time reading my Bible because all this falls flat if I don’t
blog, which takes prayer and lots of time 😉

I realize that many of you do the same things. every.single.day! Some of you have more children, some don’t homeschool, some might not meal plan, and some probably work outside the home (you are amazing, working moms!) but all in all, we do the same things day in and day out.

Routines ~ A must when managing with all these monkeys

Routines are not optional. They are necessary to managing our days. Personally, I’m not a schedule kind of girl. I’ve tried, and failed, but I have realized that while still dictating our day, routines give me much more wiggle room.

Mornings are for school. We have a morning routine that I’ll spare you the details of, but it involves getting ourselves ready for our day. We split up, putting JBear down for his first nap; Nan off to her room to get working; HR, BB, and E at the table with me. HR and BB finish school by lunch time (most days), and the bigs are back at it after lunch while the littles are down for rest time.

Rest time. It changes so much as they grow, but right now a movie or legos or a game on the kindle, or sometimes even a nap (they are still little, ya know). I work; the bigs work. I help them with school, as needed.

After rest time, we have free time. Well, those who are finished with school at that point. And then I start supper around 5:00. If we don’t eat early, our evening gets away with us really quickly, and that’s no fun! We eat by 6:00 most days, but as the days get warmer and longer, that’s much more difficult.

After supper, the rat race really begins. All the kids except JBear have chores, so they all attend to those, often with ~~serious~~ gentle prompting. Then’s there’s baths and bedtime routines.

At the end of it all, I’m pretty wiped out, but I cherish the time I get to spend with my most favorite person in the world, my hubby.

Making it work

Maybe that doesn’t sound like much. Maybe you are making do just fine, but I get bogged down in the crazy of it all. And friends, it does get crazy. Here are a few things that make me not so crazy or at least help the insanity level.

I meal plan. It can be tricky to manage, no doubt, because I have tried and failed time and time again. For now, it’s working, and working great.
We pick up toys, books, blankets, and whatever else is in the floor before rest time (most of the time) and before bedtime. With everything picked up, it feels clean even if it’s not actually spotless (which it’s mostly not).
My big kids are mostly independent in their school work. And they help me grade papers.
The bigs also help with the littles, especially Jbear, by helping me keep tabs on them in our big ole yard.
They help with chores, too, in a big way!
I fold laundry as I go. No letting it pile up.
And the key…we make those littles and middles be in bed by 7:30 with the bigs following at 9:15. They don’t have to have lights out, but be in the rooms by then so that mama and daddy can chill and chat for a bit.

So, how do I make it work? *I* don’t, at least not by myself. There have been many tears and frustrations that sent me searching for answers in God’s Word, books on managing it all, mommy blogs, large family blogs, and mama friends. My husband has heard more grumbling than any one person should ever have to endure. We have made many changes, some good, some not so good. We are figuring it out as we go. You know the how the saying goes, “we do what we have to (or want to) do.” This is my have to and my want to.

As the kids get older, I feel like I am finally doing more than merely breathing, showering, feeding babies. That’s a good feeling! How about you? Are you managing with all your monkeys just fine, or do you struggle like I do? I know the answer for us: grace. We have to give ourselves grace and just keep on keeping on.