Here’s the Homeschool plan for 2016/17. We start our school year on September 1. I know it’s July, but as soon as summer begins, I feel the itch to nail down a plan for the next year. I can’t relax and enjoy my summer until I get some things down on paper. Anyone else like this?

[Side note: I got all our school supplies for $8 this year <— there’s the breakdown. I’m a school supplies minimalist, so I only buy what I know we truly need.]

Homeschool Plan

Homeschool Plan for preK/K (Ruby & Victoria)

DiscoveryK12. (Not to be confused with K12, which is the online government school.) DiscoveryK12 is a free (traditional, non-Common Core) homeschool curriculum that offers seven subject areas for all grades.

I am VERY happy to have found this because I think it will make homeschooling multiple kids much easier. Having all the lessons laid out means I can focus on teaching, not planning.

The student logs into their account and clicks on “Daily Assignments” to begin. They click “Completed” after each is done. Everything the student needs is right there on that page, from quizzes and tests to printables, videos, reading assignments and spelling lists.

So simple. 

In addition, only some of the work is done on the computer, which is preferable to me than everything being online, especially for a younger child.

DiscoveryK12 is free but offers a premium upgrade for $50 a year that includes transcripts, achievement awards for younger kids and even a homeschool diploma at the end for the graduate. The Teacher upgrade allows me to track multiple students so I sprung for this feature. It allows me to see what everyone’s doing at a glance.

The site includes recommended book lists, a reading log, free ebooks and historical documents, videos, and a ton of other cool stuff I have yet to dig into, including Personal Finance, HTML, Spanish and Healthy Living for the older kids. It also includes 20 minutes of daily exercise routines for P.E.

I’ll do lots of read-aloud with the littles (reading can be tracked in DiscoveryK12 which is neat, I’ve always wanted to do this but this feature will make it so much easier), and they will also be listening in on Shakespeare memorization with the big kids.

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I made this list back in May before I found DiscoveryK12. We may not need these after all (which is what I’m hoping, because anything that simplifies my life is a YES PLEASE). I suppose after a few weeks I can assess whether the curriculum is comprehensive. If yes, we’ll be able to scrap the additional curricula listed below.

Homeschool Plan for Sadie (5th grade)

DiscoveryK12 5th grade plus:

Math: Saxon 65 Homeschool Edition (if needed as a supplement)

Language Arts: Sheldon’s Advanced Language Lessons Grammar and Composition (downloaded free from Google Books), Shakespeare studies

History: Story of the World (Sadie has really struggled with history in the past, so we’re starting over with SotW 1 this year. If it’s not a good fit we’ll try something else.) This is one thing I’ll keep even if I’m impressed with the History work in DiscoveryK12. SotW can be used as a read-aloud history supplement if you don’t use the Student Tests and Activity Book.

Science: DiscoveryK12, KhanAcademy and The Magic School Bus Young Scientists Club, reviewed here. Sadie has a few more of these science experiment kits coming, so these are a fun supplement to a traditional Science curriculum. Sadie loves science, so she willingly watches videos and does experiments and writes reports using all 3 of these tools.

Homeschool Plan for Ilana (8th grade)

DiscoveryK12 8th grade plus:

Math: Saxon 87: Homeschool Edition (again – if needed)

Language Arts: Word Power Made Easy (vocabulary and etymology), Shakespeare study

History: Don’t Know Much About History as a spine, biographies assigned where appropriate

Science: DiscoveryK12 science  – we’re probably good here

Homeschool Plan for Julien (10th grade)

DiscoveryK12 10th grade plus:

Math: Life of Fred Algebra 2. It isn’t a great fit for the girls but Julien loves LoF.

Language Arts: Word Power Made Easy (vocabulary and etymology), Shakespeare study

History:  Don’t Know Much About History as a spine, biographies assigned where appropriate

Science: I’m thinking DiscoveryK12 will suffice in this area, if not then Apologia Biology

This year for we’re all doing a Shakespeare unit with How To Teach Your Child Shakespeare. My goal is to take the older kids to at least one Shakespeare play during the school year.

We’ll also do daily read-alouds – both from a list of books I intend to read as well as selections, from the book Classics To Read Aloud to Your Children.

What’s new in your homeschool for the upcoming year?

Note: Educents generally has the best prices on Life of Fred math books.