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Shalom,
So today I am writing about some things planned for this year. It's a bit late but I have been writing and developing my behind off so forgive me. This year I have 7 students and one tag along. Their grade levels are 8th, 7th, 6th, 4th, 3rd, 1st, kinder, and my tag along is a toddler. This year is particularly demanding because I am developing our homeschool method and curriculum, there are three middle schoolers, a couple GT kids, and two emergent readers, plus my tag along wants to learn his letters and numbers.
This year we are using a new method that I kind of smooshed together to facilitate a learning environment that focuses on the how and why versus the "fill an empty bucket" methods that education is normally used to. This method is applicable not alone to education but life in general. The goal is to raise children who are self-aware and have deep thinking skills to become adults with the same attributes. Our goal is to question, understand, explain, and develop ourselves as well as others.
Our schedule this year is awesome. We have six six weeks for a total of 36 weeks like public schools, but we take a week break between each six-week period. We will have our first break next week and all of us are looking forward to it! We also have breaks for holy days i.e. Rosh Hashanah,Yom Kippur, Sukkot, etc. We will also break for the Christian holidays only because dad is off of work those days and the kids will enjoy spending QT with him. All in all our year will run from late August to mid-June.
The subjects we are learning this year are pretty much the same. The kinder and first-grader will continue to focus on reading and math with some science and historical literature. They will also join us in Torah. Our 3rd through 8th-grader will have the subjects of Torah, Hebrew, speech, math, literature, history, geography, science, health, and art. Torah is our most important subject and we have some great discussions that come from our readings. Hebrew is mainly biblical so that we can truly understand our Torah. In speech we are learning not only to read and speak well but to have good posture, project our voices, and engage an audience. For math we are using a hands on, real life approach that is in tune with deeper thinking. Since we are an AA family our literature will consist of primarily AA books and we will develop our grammar, writing, and spelling skills from books. The only true curriculum I am using is from another homeschooling mom. It's called Our History Revealed and we are really enjoying it so far. It is written by Morah Alizah. You can find it here. (<---click). We are using MapTrek U. S. edition for geography. Science is experiment based and we do written scientific reports. Health will focus on mental, emotional, and physical health. Art is a BLAST of course! We are doing painting, drawing, etc using different techniques.
Another new thing this year is that we have moved our homeschool to our guest house. This has been a huge improvement because at the end of the day when we want to relax there isn't home school stuff lying around to distract me or the children. Out of sight out of mind, right? Also dad doesn't come home to projects, art work, books, etc all over the table, couches, and chairs. Our homeschool has been quarantined to a space away from our everyday lives.
This year I am also writing a new approach to educating yourself or students and literature guides for AA books that are on our reading list. I am one busy mama! I am praying to HaShem for a year that is blessed and bountiful beyond measure.
Many Blessings,
T. Henderson
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