A Look Inside Our Home-school Routine For The New Year

My oldest would’ve been heading off to school this summer, so I’m currently planning out our first ‘official’ year of home-school. My aim is to make this year fun with lots of new experiences and exposure to new topics. Below is a rough outline of our plan for the new school year, however I am fully open to being flexible on this as our family grows and changes.

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Maths:

For maths (my least confident subject) I wanted a curriculum. Whilst I make the vast majority of our own printable resources, I just had no idea what she needed to be learning for maths. So we opted for Math with confidence grade 1 as our starting point. To supplement, I make a lot of our worksheets, so any additional practice she needs will be covered this way. For the grade 1 curriculum the themes include telling the time, money, patterns and basic addition and subtraction. I purchased a learning clock, play money and some pattern blocks as recommended to support the curriculum.

So far, we’ve been loving it. The lessons are short and simple with lots of hands on, engaging activities within the teachers guide. The workbook is only a tiny part of the curriculum. We’ve been completing 2 lesson a day (even on weekends) as she’s been asking for it – can you believe it???

I imagine we will finish the grade 1 and potentially the grade 2 as well this academic year.

Language:

I’ve been slowly teaching reading for just over a year now and we’ve mastered basic phonics and phonetically sounding out words, so it’s more a case of improving fluency. We’ve used most of ‘teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons’ which I highly recommend. However, after falling off the band wagon following a few months of sickness, naturally there has been a bit of a regression so I’m keen to get us back on track.

This school year I’m bringing in explode the code alongside our boxset of bob books (set 3 and 4) to hopefully help get her confidence back. The explode the code books have been great for independent work too, they follow a pattern with the activities so she can easily figure out what is expected of her.

I also found some great free resources on TPT including this roll and read mat which just makes for some extra fun practice.

Handwriting:

I really struggled to find anything for ‘print’ handwriting, every resource seemed to be for cursive, so eventually I settled for the ‘200 essential sight words activity book’ for handwriting. It’s nothing special but with a simple sentence to complete each day at least it provides some independent practice!

I also have a budding artist, she loves her tiny A6 sketchbook and is constantly drawing. So I ask her to label her drawings herself as extra writing (and spelling) practice. The sketchbook makes for a nice momento to keep as she’s been doing this since she was 3 and being able to see how her writing and drawing has improved is so special – highly recommend!

Morning basket:

Our morning basket includes all our non negotiables above plus a few extra fun activities to choose between, if all we do in a day is the morning basket then its a win. Anything additional is a bonus in my book.

Inside of our morning basket I include our morning menu, handwriting, maths and reading practice. There is always some (optional) games and picture books to compliment the season or thematic unit we are currently studying. Read my morning basket blog post for more ideas and inspiration.

There is always a read aloud too, I don’t plan these in advance, we just have a stack that I allow them to pick from once we finish our current read. For some of our favourite chapter book read alouds for younger children check out my ‘Enchanting Read Aloud Chapter books‘ blog post.

Spanish:

We’ve purchased the Home-school Languages Spanish level 1 to do as a family. Despite teaching my kids little bits of Spanish since they were tiny, it’ll be our first time using a curriculum. Our intention is to complete it as a family. The recommendation is to do 2-3 lessons a week, my plan is to complete the lesson then recap or review it regularly throughout the week. We are also starting a group Spanish class with some of our home-ed friends which I think will help immerse us in the language a little more too.

To supplement the programme I’ve created a little Spanish vocab flipbook with all the basic vocab in one place and a worksheet pack to help solidify our knowledge. We will put this in our morning basket for a quick way to review.

Nature study:

For science, we focus mainly on nature study. We use this nature journal for prompts and as a springboard to explore different topics. However, a lot of what we study is focused around whatever we are able to observe in the current season i.e pollination, animals preparing for winter, plant or bird anatomy, animal habitats etc…

I aim to answer any questions that arise and if I don’t know, we find out together through reading books and field guides. I encourage the kids to draw or paint pictures of what we discuss or observe and add labels (this I’m sure will evolve into more note taking as they get older). Personally, we love using watercolours best in our journals as there is WAY less mess than traditional paint and it still gives a lovely finish. Plus, I find this super therapeutic myself too – win win!

Unit studies:

For science, geography and all the extras I intend to sprinkle in various units throughout the year. I make these myself so my kids are well versed with this method. I find it a great way to incorporate many different subjects and to learn something new as a family. They can easily be adapted for younger siblings to join in and even I tend to learn something. The beauty of home-school is that we can pick topics based upon our children’s interests. Some example of unit studies we’ve done in the past include the ocean, human body units, hibernation/migration and plants! We can definitely revisit all of these areas and cover them slightly more in depth as she gets older.

human body jigsaw puzzle for anatomy unit — Dr Livingston’s 100 piece 4ft body puzzle!

Alongside home-made materials, I always try to provide lots of books, puzzles and crafts on the topic we are studying to really help bring it to life! For our human body study I was lucky enough to find this gorgeous Dr Livingston puzzle, it is often out of stock but the same brand do a phenomenal set of anatomy puzzles!

Extra curriculars:

For us, swimming is a non negotiable. We’ve been in swimming lessons for nearly a year now and we plan to continue with that. It’s also a great opportunity to socialise and for her to take instruction from someone other than me. Aside from that, we also do gymnastics, we only started this year but she’s been loving it and has made some wonderful new friends. In addition to these clubs, we will continue to attend our outdoor forest school / stay and play sessions, mostly for the socialisation and all important time outdoors. There are usually a variety of books, craft stations and free play materials, the kids always have a great time!

So far, that’s our plan for our first (official) home-school year. I’m open to revising it as the year goes on so we can flex and bend with our families needs. But I’m confident it’ll be a successful start and provide us with some much needed structure now she’s getting a little older. If you have any home-school must haves i’m missing please drop your suggestions down below in the comments!