Teacher's Planning Day

I couldn't put it off any longer. Today, while the rest worked at Mom G's, I stayed in the Caboose, dragged out all the school books and planned our upcoming school year. This is my 28th year of homeschooling - I almost said "our 28th," but I want to be sure all know we don't keep our kids at home forever and ever and ever to school. ::snort:: 

I struggled this year. As I drug everything out, I realized it's not school starting, it's the fact that school starting means the gorgeous summer weather will end, the rains will come and we'll be spending another rainy winter in the Pacific Northwest.  We tried to stay upbeat about it, but last year was hard.  Being confined to 268 SF when it rains and rains, led to cabin fever. We consoled ourselves by double-timing school to allow  "travel all spring and summer." We came up with a plan to allow us to school 1/2 time during travel weeks, to see lots of cool new things and have adventures...we'd spend summer as hosts in ID (doing school to allow for less when we traveled), fall in the NE and Winter in the SE or TX. We just had to survive a minor set back. 

Planning for school this  year means accepting there is no reason to double time. We will go at a normal pace and spend a few hours a day at Mom G's. It will be easier for Michael this year as he'll have something to do and somewhere to go while we school.  We'll look for more to do outside of the trailer to keep us busy.  We will keep dreaming of the year we can travel "as planned." muhahahaha

I was GRATEFUL  Michael willingly went along with a teacher's planning day. It also gave me a day ALONE. I've been told I'm an extrovert, but I sure love down time all alone in the caboose. I've decided I'm becoming an introverted extrovert - yes, I'm sure that's a thing! Below are the history, lit, fine arts, Bible, and language arts books....science and math arrived at the end of the day, but the kids keep those in their backpacks. 

Planning at the campsite

Japanese is in Nolan's backpack....as are a few other electives....but I found all these I wanted to put back in the cupboard too. 

Movies as Lit at the top - can't wait

I updated Nolan's transcript. I created Alex's transcript. We're doing Year 1 of Tapestry of Grace - Ancient Civilizations. The kids are really excited. It is one of my favorite years too.  With Tapestry, history is divided into 4 time periods. This means each child cycles through each time period every four years. They study each period in grammar, dialectic and rhetoric levels - or in normal speak in elementary, middle school and high school. ::snort::  This is at least our 3rd time doing  Year 1 - Ancients; it may be our 4th. We're fuzzy. Tapestry allows students of all ages to study the same subject matter at their own levels. For the teacher, a two-page lay out shows me assignments for K - 12th grade on the same topic. I can pick and  choose to tailor the curriculum for each child. We love Tapestry - though we've developed our own way of utilizing it as a tool. I teach the child and not the curriculum. I tweaketh. 

THIS, other than the kids' backpacks, is the space I have for school materials. The tub stays in the van.  Since we aren't doing much travel I pulled the Good Sam Travel Guide and Off the Beaten Path out of the cupboard and will find a less accessible place for them. I could see I wasn't going to get all the books to fit. 

I learned last year it works MUCH better if the Tapestry books are inside and we don't have to run through the rain to search for a book......I sorted the books by units. I thought maybe I could put the multi-unit resources and unit 1 books on our shelf. 

Unit 1 is on the table

Seeing that wasn't going to work, I packed all but the first week of books back into the tub. ::snort::  I also pulled out the notes for week 1 and 2 from the teacher's manual rather than trying to keep the whole notebook inside. This is much more manageable. 

First week of books

A beautiful sight - there is something about organizing that picks up my spirit. 

All ready for school!

I decided to head up to the office and pick out a new book to read check to see if  this year's math books and the Astronomy kit I had arrived. They did. Think Algebra 1, Algebra 2 and a big kit.....as I lugged the box back to our site - we are the farthest away from both the office and the showers - this very colorful Schoolie drove in and parked in the site across from ours. I must meet them.

Stalking the big pink bus