Summer Homeschool Plans

This summer we're homeschooling for a number of reasons:

• the kindergarten teacher told us we needed to in order to prepare my eldest for 1st grade
• as a trial to see if mom and kids can handle it

And, because it is more of a trial, we are not spending gobs of money buying curriculums and stuff. In fact we've spend roughly $75 for supplies, excluding art supplies which we would have wanted regardless (art is a big thing in our home).

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Abeka Grade 1

We were gifted a nearly complete Abeka Grade 1 kit. As near as I can tell, we have everything from the Home Language Arts 1 Lessons Plans.  Basically it's everything on this Abeka search page -- at least for the TEACHER. We didn't get anything other than the reading books for the student.

Instead of buying the student workbooks, we're substituting workbook pages from other books (like the ones we purchased at Costco or Dollar General over a year ago). And I'm writing stuff out on paper, photocopying it, and using that. Basically whatever I can do to keep it simple.

I also made sight word flash cards using 3x5 notecards. I should note here that my eldest loves to memorize things and isn't great at phonics. Sight word flash cards are a good choice for us. I used 100 Words Kids Need To Read by 1st Grade by Scholastic to determine the sight words. (Several of our workbooks are Scholastic.) I plan to have my eldest use the 100 Words book itself as a record of what she learns.

Handwriting

My eldest is fascinated with writing and my youngest isn't far behind. They both like to sit and pretend to write stories in their respective notebooks.

​We're going to do a little work on handwriting. My eldest needs more practice and shows an interest in cursive. My youngest just needs to start. I got each of them a K and Grade 1 D'Nealian practice book. I got the consumable versions and fully plan for them to be destroyed in the process of learning. I have no idea if we will get to use both of them over the summer, but we now have them for when we are ready for them.

Math

We were gifted a set of Miqoun Math. We got the Orange book, Red book, Lab Sheets, and First-Grade Diary. Since that's a fairly complete set, we're going to use it along with whatever else we have in random workbooks from Costco and Dollar General. I figure we can use plain paper with me writing out additional problems if we need them.

Science

I'm keeping this informal for now, since I'm trialing. We've got a few Little Scientists books around, a flower and vegetable garden, and baking options to keep us plenty busy. Bugs, animals, and poop seem to be big topics for my kids and I'm sure some combination of those will arise during the summer months -- especially as my youngest potty trains.

Extracurricular Stuff

Both kids have asked to take gymnastics and will participate in a local class. Swimming lessons will be part of the summer as well.

My eldest has been asking to learn to sew. We have a doll quilt in process that should finish up during the summer. Then I purchased a Unicorn quilt pattern for us to get started on.

Baking and cooking plus normal stuff like cleaning up their own messes and chores to earn money will fill things out.

That's it...

It's summer. I'm not willing to go completely nuts with homeschooling. I think I've got a pretty comprehensive program together for a little bit of money and effort. As the summer comes to an end, I'll post a follow-up on how we did (or are doing if that's necessary).

​Got any advice for me? Drop me a note in the comments.