Irritation Today

I had posted on day three, how I had an almost meltdown due to Lesson Pathways no working correctly.  I got it fixed, but now you can not get on their website at all.  People are complaining on their Facebook page, and only one admin has said they will look at it.  No updates, no nothing.  So, since I have no patience for this type of stuff, I spent the day going back through my resources to find more curriculum choices for Caitlin.  DJ's is basically OK.  He was using Lesson Pathways for History, but he is doing Vikings and the Middle Ages, so it is not a problem finding resources for him.  He is currently doing a blog post on Vikings, it is pretty funny, you should check it out at Through the Eyes of DJ. 

Caitlin will switch to Unit Studies that I already have saved for History, and Magic Tree House books for history as well.  She will now be doing the Magic School Bus series, and activities for Science, and Teachnology, ABCya and Internets4 the classroom for Language Arts.  Reading will go as I see fit. 

First Day of Homeschool 2013/2014

Today was our first day of the 2013/2014 Homeschool year. DJ is in the 8th grade and Caitlin is in the 4th grade. After much thought, soul searching, and searching for curriculum I finally decided on the lessons we would use. Because, last year I kind of was lazy, and used FLVS a lot for DJ, which he really did not enjoy at all, I wanted to make a change. I want my kids to enjoy learning and the way that they learn. That is one of the reasons I decided to homeschool. So, after an awesome day, with no complaints on lessons, I think I have found the right set of curriculum. We also made a schedule, for Mon-Thurs lessons. Now, this will change here and there, due to Run Club and Earth Kids, but hopefully we will be able to keep it on track. All chores will now be done on the weekend, as opposed to every Monday morning. I made each class 60 min in length, to make enough time for each lesson to be completed. Each lesson plan subject is meant to be covered in a week. For Caitlin some of these are only a day. She will be able to make up a lot of time in History and Language Arts this way. Because Caitlin's lesson in History, was on timelines, we made a homeschool day timeline, shown below. For Language Arts, Caitlin read a poem about dreams, then she drew a dream picture, also shown below.

DJ:

Science: CK 12 Earth Science 60 minutes
History: Lesson Pathways Medieval Times 60 minutes
Language Arts: Open High School of Utah Grade 9 reading The Outsiders 60 minutes
Math: CK 12 Arithmetic 60 minutes
Spelling/Vocab: AAA Spell 30 minutes
Spanish: 123 Teach Me 30 minutes

Caitlin:

Science: Lesson Pathways Beavers 60 Minutes
History: Lesson Pathways Timelines 60 minutes
Language Arts: Lesson Pathways 4th grade 60 minutes
Math: Saxon 3 and Daily Math Warm Up 60 minutes
Spelling/Vocab: AAA Spell 30 minutes
Spanish: 123 Teach Me 30 minutes