Starting Homeschooling in Fall of 2015

I hope this isn’t a duplicate thread, I looked and didn’t see this specific topic.

For those of us that will start this Fall of 2015, I’d really love to hear where you’re at with your preparations. Still making decisions? Already researching or purchasing curriculum? Setting up your space? What else??? :smile:

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I will post my own response. Right now I’d say we are 80% sure we will homeschool our 6 and 4 year old boys (who will then be in 2nd and K). We are on the fence about our 4 year old daughter and may send her to a local preschool (another topic!). So with that, I really need to get in gear on choosing curricula. And figure out logistics, schedule, the schoolroom area, etc. I would love to hear from others for those of us that are just starting out!

I’m also reading Erica’s book and that is helping a lot. :smile:

Hello! I have a daughter, who would be in the 2nd grade in the Fall, that I am discerning homeschooling. I also have a 4-year old son who will be doing preschool in the Fall. If we keep our daughter home, we will still send him to preschool. He absolutely loves it (does 2-day this year) and I think it would help me get a better start with my daughter if we had some one-on one time! I am drawn to Charlotte Mason, Unit Studies and a touch of traditional. I have a Masters in Education so it will be tough to not go a little bit of the traditional route!

I will be starting in the fall too. I have a son that will be in 7th, a son that will be in 5th, a daughter that will be in 2nd and a daughter that will be in kindergarten. I have planned out our calendar, have purchased some curriculum (Chinese for my oldest, history, science, handwriting, writing), have done my lesson plans for what I have already. I will keep adding to my lesson plans as I get curriculum.

I’m also homeschooling this fall (maybe summer if I can get everything ready). I have a 4, 3, and 7 month old, so my oldest will do more formal homeschooling than the other 2. I’ve done a lot of research on various curriculums and looked at different homeschooling blogs to see what others have chosen for curriculum. I’ve made my decision for the curriculum, but I haven’t ordered it yet. I’ve chosen Sonlight P 4/5, Horizons Math K, and A Reason for Handwriting for my oldest, and my 3 year old will do Sonlight P 3/4. I’ll be adding in other content after I receive the materials :slight_smile: I don’t have a dedicated school room, so I use the dining room table. Erica has great lists for school supplies and teacher supplies that I’ll use when back to school season comes around.
Be encouraged! There’s so much out there for homeschooling families. I’d love to know what you choose for your kids and how you’ve set up your homeschool!

Thanks for starting this post! We are definitely going to start homeschooling in the fall, though I know my husband is still a little unsure about it. I’m praying that he has complete peace about it!
Our two oldest will be in 2nd and 4th. We have a 4 year old who will go to preschool in the fall for one year and we also have a 2 year old. We don’t have a formal school room, so I’ll be teaching at the dining room table for the most part. I have not ordered our curriculum yet, but I’m really excited to do that. We like the living books style and are pretty sure we’re going with sonlight. Being that it will be my first year teaching, I like that it’s is all laid out for me.

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We will be starting this fall. Actually, starting a little bit over the summer. My girls are 7th, 5th and 2nd. The older 2 are considered gifted, but the middle has issues with spelling and math. The youngest has issues with fine and gross motor skills and a reading disability. So, my 2nd grade curriculum will be : AAR (finishing the pre reading level, then moving to level 1), some kind of story telling (she can’t write well), HWOT level 1, books: her reading out loud, me reading out loud, and audio books. I have not figured out Math for any of them. The younger 2 will do Botany with Lab kit and Notebooks together for science. All of the kids will do History Revealed: Ancient History and the Bible. 5th grader- Books and still debating her language arts program and no idea on Math. 7th grader- she is working ahead. She is in all pre AP classes, so doing mostly 7th grade work already. So her classes are Cover Story writing Curriculum, Wordly Wise 8 (doing 7 now), and a reading list of books; Science will be Apologia’s Physical Science with Lab Kit and Notebook, again, working ahead. She wants to do 5 years of high school level science, so we are starting Bio in 8th grade. Math will be 8th grade or Algebra, but have not picked a class. I want to see how far she can get this year and start from there. She also wants to learn Sign Language, so need to look in to that. I want to add in Art and music. Our History and science all have creative parts. But think I will get COAH’s Art and Composers Unit 1. We plan to do school work 4 days a week, with the 5th day for field trips, volunteer work, and Child lead interest projects

We do not have room for an actual school room, but I have rearranging to do before we start.

I’m also about 80% sure we will be homeschooling in the fall. I really want to and have wanted to for some time but my husband is less certain. I have 2 kids ages 5 and 2. I will be doing Erica’s k4 with my 5 y/o and starting LOTW with my 2 y/o (she’ll be 3 in the fall). My 5 y/o has some learning and speech delays so we will take it slow this fall to help him catch up a bit.

There’s so much curriculum to choose from that it’s very overwhelming! I figure if I start looking now I can choose what I’d like to do for 2016 :wink:

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Hi! I will be starting Homeschool in the fall for my daughter who will be in 2nd grade as well. My son is almost 4 and will go to preschool because i know it will give me time one on one with my daughter. I have Already purchased my Curriculum and i will be starting out with Abeka and see how that goes… Also i will use some Lapbooks and other Curriculum that is on this blog for Art as my daughter is very interested in art and also history. I dont have a room to homeschool in but i do have a pretty big corner in my kitchen/ livingroom that i’m going to make a school corner :smile:

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I will be starting homeschool in the fall for 3rd grade, 1st grade and preschool for my girls who will be 8, 6 and 3. I have been a full-time working mom and have given my job notice that I will be leaving when school gets out. I am working on final curriculum choices and I have started searching for good deals on new and used choices. I also am using Homeschooling 101 as a guideline. We have a spare bedroom/office that we will be using as a homeschool room as well with some help from IKEA. I hope to finalize all my curriculum at our local homeschool convention next month and spend the summer lesson planning, putting together our room and enjoying summer with our kids. I am so excited and can’t wait to get started!

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We will be homeschooling our 9 year old starting in the fall. At the present we are unsure about our 5 and 4 year old and we have an almost 2 year old at home as well. Choosing a curriculum has been terribly hard and Erica’s choices have been a guide along the way. I am struggling with lesson plans at the present (what to do when, how much time to spend on each, etc.). Any suggestions would be great. I wish everyone a great upcoming school year.

we will likely be homeschooling my 5 year old come the fall. we have a room but need to be way more organized and trying to figure out if we can keep it a playroom/home school room though i know its not the best idea. though it might be ok since its just kinder. i need to figure out curricula. what makes it a little harder is that we aren’t religious and im finding it hard to find things that aren’t very embedded with religion.

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Hi everyone! We will be homeschooling my 6 year old and 3 year old starting in July. I’m going to try 3 days a week until August and then go to 5 days a week. I’m scared that we won’t meet our 180 days as mandated by the state, so I’m starting early and hopefully have breathing room during the year. I’m so excited! We are currently converting the kids playroom into our homeschool room. I’ve spent way to much time online researching everything I can and I’m so glad I found this site. I just started printing out the LOTW and I have read the 101 book from Erica. I haven’t ordered any other curriculum yet, but I have tons of list…for everything. Good luck to everyone!

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Our family is starting our homeschool adventure in the fall! My son Will be in second grade and my daughter in kindergarten! As of right now I’m reorganizing rooms and moving things around to make room for it. As well as researching curriculum. Here locally we have an amazing homeschool community so i know for sure the children will have plenty of social opportunities. As I said this is our adventure we will learn as we go along what works and what doesn’t. It touches my heart that my children especially my oldest is excited to do this so I know we are making the right decision.

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Sounds like you’re in a great community to homeschool! I would love to know what called you to HS?

Locally we have 3 homeschooling groups. One is a co-op that meets once a week for classes and the other 2 meet once a month! Plus my neighbor also homeschools and has children around my children’s age! My son loves learning and public school was taking the love out of it. With that and issues with being bullied, after lots of conversations and prayer we decided to homeschool. My son is set on finishing this school year but is excited to start hs! Our families are not as supportive as we would like but with our local hs community and online forums like this one we are finding our way. Plus it helps to have so much time to prepare!

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@melissa228, your situation is very similar to ours! Our 4 year old (will be 5 by that time) also has speech delays. And my husband is also a little hesitant on keeping them all home. I think he’s worried about how I will handle it all. And of course also that the kids adjust well and that it works.

I was thinking of using Erica’s curriculum for him also. Or maybe just a “light” version of whatever I choose for the 2nd grader? I’m really not sure! I guess I need to get my husband 100% on board first! :grin:

@mamalisa I hope they come around! It’s hard to want to homeschool without their support!

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This was our family last year ; terrified and excited to HS after our son had been in a private school for the past five years. For us it was too many outside influences taking control of our son rather than him making good choices. It took my husband five months to be on board. One day I called him crying and just told him I HAD to do this. God heard my prayers and sent me two people to address two very specific issues we had. It was incredible. I prayed for his heart to be open to it and now almost a year later here we are. My son has gone back to our sweet boy we once knew, has stronger faith, and has learned so much. Our family is better because we have HS ; it’s an incredible journey. Good luck to you all

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This fall will be our first year with a 5th, 3rd and K’er. I am so excited! I have started rearranging the house to get ready, we I’ll school at the kitchen table because I know that’s what will work for us. We have another dining room kids can move to if they need quiet.
So far I have picked out Math U See, All About Spelling, All About Reading (for my little guy) HWOT, And Easy Grammer. I’m on the fence still about History and Science. We are also going to do a little Typing Instructor and Speekee TV Spanish on the computer because my girls love working on the computer and to break their day up. I haven’t bought ANYTHING (and I’m dying inside about it!) because we have a huge consignment sale the end of April and a homeschool conference here the next weekend. I’m hoping to find some stuff at the consignment sale and solidify my last couple curriculum choices at the fair!

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