Storing School Supplies

 

I have things in a couple of spots that I store school supplies, downstairs in the family room are 6 bookshelves that hold all of the books not needed for school that week. But still available for reading.

We live in a split level home and there is a closet at the top of the stairs that was for coats, well the kids hang there coats in their rooms and I use the downstairs closet by my room. So we turned that closet into an office with a door. It holds a 2-drawer file cabinet, an 8 drawer plastic cart for school supplies, a paper sorter from Sam's Club that holds lined paper, colored paper, etc. On top of this I have 6 magazine holders that hold workbooks, and papers for each child. Then I have two shelf’s one holds my binders for TOG, and older sons textbooks. Then the top one has photo boxes to store markers, paints, extra school supplies in anything I don't want my 5 year old using without supervision. It also holds the microscope, and bins for odd and ends.

Downstairs there is a closet that I use for art supplies not used every week, like dollies, beads, etc.

And in the dining room were we actually do school I have a large hutch, most of it holds dining items except for on one side were I stack the other kids text books.

Then we have a wicker basket in the living room that holds library books.

When we first moved here I tried to have a schoolroom downstairs in the family room area with fireplace and everything. Well the kitchen is up stairs, and the TV was downstairs, and I like schooling at the dining room table (which is a 9 ft buffet table from Sam’s thank you DH).

I do want to get some more photo boxes I think I can fit 4 more in there. I also still need to update the labels on the drawers and binders for this school year.

Time spent per subject

Now for how much time, I am letting him decide when to do each subject as he will be the only one I am home schooling this year, and he does most of his work independently.

But I am setting how much time he must spend on a subject each week. So he could do Math all one day, then science or a little each day.

 

Math – 1 hr per day – 5 hrs a week

Science- 1hr per day – 5 hrs a week

Writing – 30 mins a day – 2.5 hrs a week or when weekly writing is done.

Reading – 1hr per day – 5 hrs

Art History- 30 mins 3x a week – 1.5 hrs a week

Government- 30 mins 3x a week – 1.5 hrs a week

History- 1 hr per day – 5 hrs a week

Latin –45 mins a day – 3.75 hrs a week

Logic – 45 mins a day – 3.75 hrs a week

Typing -15 mins a day – 1.15 hrs a week

Civil Air Patrol studying – 30 3x a week – 1.5 hrs a week

Phys Ed – 30 min a day – 2.5 hrs a week (I don’t count it as time in the day as most of it happens at night.)

Total per day : he will run between 6 to 6.5 hours per day.

 

Now on some of these subjects he has a set amount of work each week, but others it as much as he can get done. Then he will get a 2-week break from that subject before starting the next book. For example Math, Science, Logic, and Latin are all as much as you can do subjects. While Writing, Reading, Art History, Government, History, and Typing are just certain amounts per week, and therefore if he finishes his work correctly early he is done for the week.

 And with the as much as you can do subjects he has to score at least a 90 or he redoes it agian, this prevents rushing.

In New York State 3 hrs a week per subject is considered a full- time class, for High School.

Curriculum Choices

My choices in curriculum for my 9^th grade son are:

 

Tapestry of Grace Year 4- this will cover reading, writing, history, art history, and church history, American government.

 

Elementary Algebra – by Harold Jacobs

 

Exploring Creation through Biology – by Wile and Durnell

 

Lantia Christaisa level 1 and 2 – by Cheryl Lowe

 

Introductory Logic- by Douglas Wilson and James Nance

 

A typing program – which one yet I don’t know

 

So he will end up with the following credits:

History – 1

English- 1

Art History -.5

Math – 1

Science- 1

Latin – 1 maybe .5 depends on how much time he spends on it.

Logic - .5 (maybe 1 if he likes it and we do the second book too.)

Typing - .5

Phys Ed - .5 (maybe 1 depends on how much time he spends on it.)

Government -. 5

So he will have at least 7.5 credits possibly of 8.5 credits.

 

He also will be doing Civil Air Patrol work, but I am not going to give school credit for it except for the PT hours.

Planning the School Year

Well yesterday I spent more time on getting my school year planned. Since my son has issues with handwriting I pre- typed his biology vocabulary words out into a worksheet for unit 1, he will only need to fill out the definitions. I also spent a lot of time pre-reading the book 20^th Century by Peter Jennings. I found out that Ernest Hemingway was an ambulance driver in Italy in World War I, I always thought of him as a writer only. What I really like about this book so far is the personal stories that are in it, the first hand accounts of someone who saw the foxholes of World War I, or grew up as a black child in the Deep South with Jim Crow laws. I think that this year of TOG 4 will be an eye opener for both my son and me.

I also spent a chunk of time making planners for him; he will have two planners for the year. One to plan his work out on for the week, and the other to record what he actually gets done and how long it takes him as we need to record hours for high school in New York State. I think that two separate planners will be neater by the end of the year, next week I will get them copied and bound at Office Max.

Setting up TOG Year 4

This year I am using Tapestry of Grace Year 4 with my 13year old son; this will be our first time using this curriculum. In the past we have used sonlight, and some abeca that did work well .But I wanted something that used lots of reading real books and I could use full time with my older son and after school with my younger children. TOG looks like it will do this for me and at a price we can afford. I really like the way the writing program was written, with grading rubrics and everything; great for writing challenged person like me.

 So I spent today setting up my binders; I am placing everything in sheet protectors, as I tend to read while I eat or am drinking tea. I am also making my own planning book for Patrick to fill out not only for his TOG, but his other studies to. I am also trying to design a calendar for him to fill out the time he spends each day on each subject, as I need to track hours for him.

I have started reading unit 1 and I am thinking to myself this child is going to have a better understanding of 20^th century history then I ever had. I am starting my list of books that I will need to get from the library and which ones I will need to buy and when. I am getting a handle on things I think, and by September when we start working on schoolwork each day I should be ready.