Sunday is Lesson Planning day.

Sunday in my house you can find me at my desk, books strewn all over the place, fingers flying on the keyboard as I research yet another life lesson or fun event. I am getting a little more used to being at least a bit more organized. I still am a last minute type of person, but am slowly changing for the better of my children.

This week we start a very intense topic, The Holocaust. We will be starting a comparison lesson on the The Boy In The Striped Pajamas by John Boyne, we will later watch the movie and compare similarities and differences between the two. Some items we will be using in the Unit Study will be:

Germany Lesson

WWII History Lesson

WWII Who's Who

The Boy In The Striped Pajamas Lesson Plan

With this being my first year homeschooling, I am not too keen on my planning Unit Studies on my own so TeachersPayTeachers has been my go to site for almost all of my lesson planning.

Continent Cookies

We are studying continents right now. Using Exploring Europe workbook, we followed the instructions for making the continents out of cookie dough.

Not just for kids

My mother had a very tough year. Many physical ailments as well as two major spinal surgeries. In November, during her last surgery, she suffered from a few strokes. She lost some memory, thankfully she has recovered quite well physically. She asked me to school her with my daughter. She also started 7th grade this year. it has been fun and I feel it has motivated Bri to also work harder. I am very proud that my mom wants me to be her "teacher" as well.

The beginning

On September 2, 2014 I entered into a wonderful new year of schooling. Instead of sending all of my children off onto the bus, I have begun homeschooling. right now I only have Bri home. My oldest has some issues and is currently in a placement. He should be home soon and I will homeschool him also. My daughter, Bri, struggles with traditional school life with ADD. Coming to the decision to homeschool her, had to do with the teacher's attitudes towards her struggle to complete work on time and to the CC standards. I was having to teach her most subjects at home during her homework time. Therefore, she was in school from 7:40-2:30 and then doing homework from about 4-7 on most nights. This just seemed absurd to me. At the end of the 2013-2014 school year I transferred her to the homeschool environment and she has flourished since.

Its not all that easy coming up with curriculum that will benefit her and keep her intrigued. She has many likes and even more dislikes, but so far I feel we are covering quite a bit of ground. Later I will go over which curriculum we have chosen.