How Our Family Prepared for A Journey Into Homeschooling

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2020 has been a year of … let’s call it change for lack of better words. It seems like every single aspect of every single families lives are changing. Normal things we do have all changed. Places we used to visit now require advance reservations, if you can get them, and masks. Restaurants are still at a limited capacity or limited menus and curbside meals are the new normal. Everywhere we look there is hand sanitizer and masks required signs. As the school year approached, we knew there would be huge changes as well for the year. Our family had an idea of what we wanted for schooling this year, but we waited to make our final decision until the district came out with the rules and restrictions.

Clearly our choice was to withdraw our children from the public school system and home school them at home with our own curriculum. Our school district is a highly rated school district and our schools that the boys attend get high ratings. We have never had anything to complain about at their school at all. But, when we read that masks would be required for transitions for under age 10 and all day for over age 10, that lunch would have assigned seating 6 feet apart, clear plastic dividers between children at the same desk, questionable recess, etc. we weren’t very comfortable. The other option, which had been more likely of a choice for us, didn’t sound much better! Virtual school with assigned hours and sitting at the computer for nearly the entire school day did not sound like something my boys would’ve enjoyed at all. That really only left one option, to withdraw and homeschool! I was homeschooled from 4th grade all the way through to high school graduation. The idea of homeschooling wasn’t new to me and I had always considered trying it out for our family. What better year to give homeschooling a really good try than 2020?

With our decision to homeschool made, the planning needed to start. It was the end of July at this point. First, we needed to figure out a classroom type situation in our home that worked for us. Last September we actually upgraded our desk to be a larger desk and accommodate two computers. We didn’t know it back then how helpful this would be! This room we decided would be the best room for us. It would keep all of our school supplies together in one place. We moved in a bookshelf from another room and my sweet husband built us a beautiful table to gather around to learn that fit the space perfectly.

Once we got the functionality of the room figured out, it was time to fill it with learning ideas! I knew we would need maps since I wanted to really integrate map skills and geography into our learning. I found these beautiful maps on Amazon that fit perfectly in our space. We also found the perfect globe to help us learn that has raised areas where mountain ranges are located! I bought an ABC chart. Planning for these teacher aids was really tricky since we have 4 different age levels and very little wall space! We bought a new easel at Ikea to keep the daily calendar and weather charts.

Now that we have a functional space, we needed to choose curriculum. I started researching different curriculum brands I used and loved as a child. In researching I found so many new curriculums or was told about some new brands that were wonderful! We really had a difficult time narrowing it down to what would work best for our family this year. We had two different directions we could go. One was the traditional path where each kid had their own curriculum for each subject we were going to cover. The other path was choosing a unit study to do together and add on as needed. After much back and forth, we chose to go with a unit study that we could work on together. Part of my personal homeschooling goal was also to bond our boys together in their learning and to grow closer together as a family. So a unit study filled that secondary goal as well.

The unit study we chose to do was called Gather Round. It is designed to be a year long unit study, with each unit lasting 4-5 weeks. These units can be done in any order, although the recommendation is to complete them in order if you have a pre-reader since it starts with the alphabet letter A in the first unit. The first unit is called North American Birds, so we started with that. For this program, there is a print or digital option. If you choose the print option, you would need to purchase each level needed. When you purchase the digital option, you are given all the levels and you print as needed. So, we have a pre-reader (Adler, preschool), early elementary (Aaron, 1st), early elementary (Anson, 4th – side note though we will be bumping him up to the next level with the next unit), and upper elementary (Aiden, 6th – same side note that he will be bumped up as well with the next unit). The units we will be studying next will be Asia, Space, Europe, Oceans, Africa, Earth Science, North America, Human Body, and South America. We will also be adding the mini unit on American Government in October. Gather Round is great since it covers nearly all the subjects! It includes Language Arts, Social Studies, Science, reading comprehension, Bible, history, art, and grammar. The only subject that needs to be added is math.

Math was a little tricky in our decision making too. I’d read so many wonderful things about Singapore math, but I was worried if we sent the boys back to school next year that they wouldn’t be on level. On the flip side, I wanted to make it fun! After much consideration, we chose Beast Academy for Aiden (6th) and Anson (4th). I love that it was a little more challenging. I want them to learn that it is fun to be challenged. The fact that the lessons are taught in a comic book format, I just knew they would love it! Aaron wasn’t old enough for Beast Academy, so we chose The Good and The Beautiful for him. It is beautifully done and stories are included to tie the math into the story which I thought Aaron might enjoy.

One of the most important thing I want my boys to learn is that their sibling relationship is one of the most important relationships that they will ever have. For the most part, our boys really and truly love hanging out with each other. We do have our rougher days, but in any family that is normal! I had been seeing advertisements for this bible study and it was recommended in a Facebook group I’m in as well. It is called My Brother’s Keeper. It isn’t just for brothers, it is for any siblings. We are only a few lessons in, but I love it already! There are only 20 lessons, so it is a fairly quick study, but it talks about God’s plan for siblings. There are two levels – Primary (ages 4-7) and Junior (ages 8-12). Check it out here!

We are doing a couple of different things for curriculum. The Gather Round North American Birds Unit has a cursive booklet for our big two boys. For Aaron, I bought the digital version of The Good and The Beautiful Handwriting.

Gather Round seems to have enough learning for our boys, but I wanted to make sure Aaron got a good base of Language Arts being in 1st grade. I printed off the digital version of their Level 1 learner (it’s a free download here). Aaron loves this curriculum! He chooses to work on this first everyday.

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Lastly, I had to find fun things for Adler to work on. He loves these Hot Dots Jr.! I made sure he had the “>alphabet, “>Pre-k math. He is also working on the Gather round Letters & Numbers workbook, in addition to the pre-reader workbooks that go along with our units. I also bought him this sorting bears set to work on colors, fine motor, etc.

We have been very happy with our schooling decision so far! We are hoping and praying for a wonderful school year ahead of us. The boys are enjoying some of the homeschooling benefits like sleeping in, staying up later than we would normally allow, working anywhere in the house, independent reading in their beds, and so much more!

If you are new to homeschooling this year or have any homeschooling questions, feel free to comment below or email us (alphaomegafamilyadventures@gmail.com). We are always happy to help!