The little Birdie & I took an EPIC road trip this year! Seven weeks, all over the Southeast & Mid-Atlantic. It was phenomenal, and I now wish to do such a trip every year. Per usual, my plans are grand, yet my reality falls so far short of the plans that the two no longer reside in the same time zone. Two days into our trip, I wrote the beginning of what was meant to be the first of multiple blogs on travel and schooling on the road. Guess what…as a traveler on something a little more than just a “vacation,” the travel itself becomes a job. I also loaded my Kindle with my 15 top books I planned to read. I read one half of one of them (and that’s significant b/c in my normal life, I finish a book every 3-4 days). So that’s why this blog has zero posts from our Great American Roadtrip of the Southeast. Maybe I’ll get to those posts this fall.

For now…it’s the annual, What Are We Doing post for the Homeschool year. I was quite relieved as we headed off on the highway last May because I already had all my plans for 4th Grade. Ha!!! That’s what I thought. We traveled for 7 weeks, then had guests immediately after returning home for 4 weeks. August, our typical Start month, was meant to be our Breathe month instead. Relax at the beach, gentle days, read, regroup. Again, Ha! First, we’d missed our friends, so we’ve been trying to fit in as many catch up get togethers as possible before everyone else was also caught up in other activities. Second, I sat down one morning a couple of weeks ago to just put together my Teacher Binder, print out our Daily Plan, and I realized that other than our 4 Core subjects, the rest of it was actually a jumbled mess in my mind. After over a day of writing various lists, flipping through books, scouring websites I’d bookmarked, I finally resorted to a Mind Map.

Have you heard of a Mind Map? Or ever done one? Take the Main Idea and put it in the center of your page. Then draw offshoots with subcategories & subcategories of those subcategories. See my photo. I wrote down each subject I want to teach this year, the Curriculum for each I plan to use, and the Alternatives, Supports, or Backup Ideas. Once I got it on paper…wowza…my kid’s in 4th grade, not going for her Doctorate. It was a LOT. But with the Mind Map, I could see what was overlap, what things I’d planned to do that were just silly or superfluous, and how ridiculous this schedule would be. So I promptly added it all to our Plan.

What is our Plan? I start with a modified Morning Time. I’ve read ALL the Morning Basket posts, websites, plans, etc., put them together, tried them out. They aren’t for us. This year, our Morning Time includes a Call to School song. Last year’s was “Peace Be Still” by Hope Daarst. This year’s will be “Promise Keeper,” also by Hope Daarst, interspersed with “Say I Won’t” by Mercy Me. When I start this song on speakers throughout the house, it is the signal for both of us that we have about 4 minutes to finish our final morning, personal tasks and go to the Creativity Room. There, we open with a prayer. This year, in order to encourage Nora in her own prayer time, we’ll be using 31 Days of Prayer for Kids. Then we’ll answer our Q&A for Kids – we’ve been using this for 5 years and it’s a favorite of mine! I’ll read out of Everyday Graces, a book I’ve been trying to get through as a Read Aloud in the mornings for over 2 years. Maybe this is our year to finish it! This year, we’ll follow that with a Poetry reading out of my absolute favorite of all our Poetry books. It’s incredibly gorgeous, and I plan to read it cover to cover, one poem each week, read each day. That’s it. Nothing fancy, no discussion on poetry, no big lesson. Just read it and take in the stunning illustrations.

Half of Nora’s Daily Work this year is mostly independent. I’ll introduce each subject, then I keep a notepad by our workspace where I write out her Independent work for the day. Subjects that include me, we’ll work on first. A Character study is primary this year because we’re heading into the Tween years, and they are coming fast and mostly furious. I see that I have very little time left where Mom has more influence than friends.

Character: Studies from Not Consumed.

Language Arts: We will continue with The Good & The Beautiful

Math: We will also continue with The Good & The Beautiful

History…my nemesis…last year, I spent months creating my own American History curriculum. In all of 3rd grade, we have made it up to, not through, the American Revolution. So it’s been slow going. We’ll just keep on going.

Science: We’re going back to Crosswired, which we did for a little bit during the tail end of 2nd grade year. I feel like it was too over her head then, so we’ll try again now. If it’s still not right, then we’ll switch to Berean’s Science program. We did In the Beginning last year, and Nora loved it. The daily experiments were huge wins! So we’ll switch to Science in the Ancient World if needed.

Bible: This is different from Character this year. Bible will be More than Words.

Extras, plus Subjects that may not be daily: Piano, still Hofman Academy. Reading, Nora LOVES to read, so this is pretty easy. I’ll assign a fiction book that she’ll need to read daily. Her Science program requires a few chapters a week of various biographies, and her History is very very heavy on Living Books. We are adding in “The Care and Keeping of You” for some intro to Body Care. Then we’ll have Spanish (Rosetta Stone), Handwriting (cursive, not creative writing), Typing, Geography (b/c Nora recently had me play a game where I was instructed to guess her favorite country. It was Alaska. Geography now moves up on our list for this year), Big Life Journal, Under the Home Drawing, Coding, Art Study, Kids Cook Real Food, Our Journey Westward Nature Studies, and Read Aloud Revival’s Writers on Writing workshops (once finished, we’ll switch to The Good & The Beautiful Creative Writing).

I create a LOOP List for these subjects and just go down the list to the end, then start over again. Ideally, it’s a one week LOOP. Realistically, it’s 2-4 weeks.

This is a LOT. And if you are new to Homeschooling, you’ve probably already quit reading. This doesn’t even include the weekly, homeschool art program Nora has taken for several years, plus our Homeschool group that usually has at least one Field Trip or Activity per week, plus smaller group, friend get togethers during the days. I start out every year with my dream plan. My yearly caveat…this is my DREAM plan. By week 3, half of this is moved to the once or twice a week…or month…zone. Or once a quarter. Or…time to just drop this completely. Every family has what they want to focus on most. And it depends on a variety of input…age, what’s your plan for next year (i.e., public school?), what does your specific child need this specific year. Maybe nature walks, nature journaling, and reading of Living books is just a calm way to get in the learning needed this year. Maybe you want to go into a more intense plan to get ready for some big event. Maybe you plan to do a good bit of traveling and will Road School. For us, it turns into a combo. We do an intense plan some weeks, some weeks we only do reading and journaling and Field Trips, and some weeks we travel and Road School. But the work I do in putting together our written plan gives me a jumping off point and helps me focus through the year.

Always remember, homeschooling is what fits your family and your child. You know what your child needs and how your child learns. Lean into that. Celebrate and encourage their strengths. Create connection over all else, and you’ll have a relationship that encourages a love of learning.