It's time for homeschooling in the new year.

Melody just finished up her English Composition course with Ashworth College with a 100 average. That tastes so good in my mouth that I might just go around repeating it over and over again. HOOOOORAYYYY for 100!!!! The next course is intro to computers, and I expect her to do just as well, considering the fact that computers have been a major part of her entire life.


Abbey is just a few weeks away from finishing up Y6 of the curriculum on amblesideonline.com, which means that she will move right into Y7, which is the equivalent of 8th grade. Hoootie hoo!!!

Tarja has finished all of her reading readiness stuff and has graduated to math readiness. We've been working out of a huge preschool workbook that we got from Sam's Club. Incidentally, Sam's Club is my haven for homeschool shopping.

Ivana's job is just to eat, sleep and grow. As of today, she is 8 pounds 7 oz. and 21 and 1/4 inches long.

A lot of homeschool friends are gearing up and buying curriculum for the next year. For those that come here looking for ideas, I have found nothing better for my family than the Charlotte Mason method. The best book that I have purchased is A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola, and the free curriculum on amblesideonline.com is simply the best. Other than that, I love unit studies and lapbooking.

For organization, I use basic things like loose leaf and spiral notebooks. Each week, I write out the lessons as outlined on amblesideonline, look for any new books or links that we need for those lessons, and discuss them with the girls. To make it easy and more fun, I send links to all of the books, lessons and pertinent websites to Abbey's facebook, and she takes it from there. This is also an avenue for teaching time management to older children, and it's as simple as just letting them know what is expected for each day, week, month, etc. and then encourage them to plan their time accordingly.

There are no actual grades for anyone except for Melody. My philosophy is that they either did the lessons right or not. If not, then they haven't learned the lessons and need to keep working. I'm just mean like that, but the older the girls get, the more benefits I see that they have received from my madness.

If you have any questions about getting your homeschool ready for the next term, leave me a comment. I can answer your questions in future blog posts.

Now, I am off to make supper, clean up, crochet, and answer some questions on ChaCha.com. I absolutely LOVE being a homeschooling, work at home mom.