One other important thing taking up a lot of my time lately is planning our school year.  We were very blessed to get a tax return this year, while not huge it was a help.  Especially when we've had to pay for the last few years.  We decided to use this to buy our homeschooling materials for the next few years.  I lean mostly toward the classical methods and really wanted items that could be used with multiple age groups. 

I decided to go with math U see.  And I'm glad I did!  I just received there free information DVD today and watched it.  I have to say I'm actually excited waiting for this to come lol!!  There see it, write it, say it approach really makes sense.  And I think using the manipulative blocks will really help our kids learn this.

For science I decided to go with God's design series.  I like that its multi age level and creation based.

I also picked out Five in a Row to start with and will be doing a mix of their ideas and lapbooking with it. 

I have read Teaching the Trivium and loved that!  I'm also waiting on The Well Trained Mind and The 3 R's.  As part of our history we decided to go with the Story of the World books, by the same author as the Well Trained Mind.

So I'm all set for our math, science and history for the next few years.  I'll post some reviews of the products when I receive and read through them.  I'll also post my lesson plans as I put them together.  I like having a plan to work with, as long as it doesn't rule me!  I like to be flexible and have fun.  One of the nicest things about homeschooling is having the freedom to explore different interests as they pop up.

 

I'm still waiting on our butterfly and frog kits to get here.  It should be next week!