Category: Homeschool

Homeschool

Back to School!

Middle Creek Mama

Our first day back to homeschool was September 11th. We were all prepared for a beautiful day! We went to bed early to get a good night sleep. Everything was perfect.

And then my son was up ALL NIGHT with leg pains 😭 he cried all night. We tried all the tricks, magnesium lotion, pickle juice, a hot shower, massages, drinking water, walking around, etc. we tried it all. It was an exhausting night, not at all conducive with a great first day of school.

So, my plans to get up early and have everything pinterest worthy didn’t quite work out.

HOWEVER! We had a great day. We woke up to foggy, rainy weather, which is my absolute favorite. We had our electric fireplace going and just enjoyed each other and the new curriculum while cuddled up.

We started out with chocolate chip muffins, mini cupcakes, and tea and hot chocolate!

Then, we dug into our baskets to check out the new curriculum! (And yes, we stayed in our pjs, because it was cold and we wanted to be comfy!)

The kids were both excited and engaged the whole time. We had such a wonderful day. I’d even go as far to say that it was our best first day yet!

The whole first week is done now and we really just had a blast. Just within the first week, K man has learned SO much. He’s already reading simple three letter words! His writing skills have already improved a lot, and his willingness to actually stay engaged has gotten much better! We are using all The Good and The Beautiful Kindergarten curriculum. I am beyond impressed with it!

Bob is using The Good and The Beautiful for Language Arts and the amount she’s already picked up is incredible! We started their Booster C cards earlier this summer to make sure she was ready for this curriculum. Those cards alone boosted her reading confidence tremendously! (No pun intended 🤣)

After we finished our regular curriculum, we sat outside under the awning reading our book for our fall study and drinking more tea and hot chocolate listening to the rain.

It was an incredible day!

Homeschool

Best Homeschool Planner!

Middle Creek Mama

*some links may be affiliate links. By clicking them, I may receive compensation.

Planners are hard! I’ve been through so many. I think at this point I’ve thrown away just as many as I’ve actually used all the way through!

I am a planner person. Or at least I want to be 🥴 but when they don’t meet my needs, I lose interest and just stop using them.

I found A Simple Plan Homeschool Planner at Mardel. I LOVE Mardel and am blessed to have one a couple hours away! I try to source asany homeschool supplies from them as I can. I even was able to snag these awesome baskets to help organize a very large cabinet in the camper! *none of the Mardel links are affiliate! I just love their stuff 💕

Last year, I used the dated planner. It was beautiful! It had earthy/deserty tones and just everything I wanted to look at.

This year, I went with the undated version. We’re homeschoolers, we don’t always keep a strict schedule, so it’s nice to be able write in our dates.

This planner has everything homeschool families need! I am so impressed with how well organized it is. It has spots to keep track of multiple students’ schedules, places for lists of supplies needed, even a place to track the costs of curricula and such! When I say it has everything, I mean it.

Each month starts with beautiful scripture, a prep page for the month, and then a full monthly calender.

Next, it has weekly homeschool scheduling. It is set up for a 5 day week, and each day has 6 subject places.

I organize our subjects by: Morning Basket, Reading/Language Arts, Math, History, Science, and Extras. Our morning basket isn’t really the traditional “basket” that homeschool moms have been posting about recently. It’s more just our family time. We have family prayer time, a devotion, and then we will be doing a family study on The Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The study is from Home and Haven and is from their Fall Bundle volume 3.

I like to color coordinate our days. Each kid gets their own color and then everything we do as a family gets another color. It seems small, but I let the kids pick their own color and it’s always a fun thing for then and gives them a bit of ownership in their work each day.

Now, one thing this planner does not have is weekend days. Every now and then I do wish it had weekends on them, because we do some activities I consider school. I just write them in the notes section on the side. This really is strictly a planner for just school. It works perfectly for us.

They do also have student planners. My kids aren’t quite old enough to utilize them, but I am looking forward to when they are.

If you like this planner and would like to purchase, I would be awesome if you used my Amazon link! Best Homeschool Planner! I do receive a kick back from it. However, if you would rather purchase through Mardel, that’s okay, too! Either way, I just wanted to tell everyone about this planner. It really is the best one out there for homeschool families!

Homeschool

Falk Flock Homeschool

Middle Creek Mama

Hey there! I have been told that it is important to name your homeschool. While I don’t buy into that it’s THAT important, it is fun!

I’ve been posting to the social media under the name of The Falk Flock Homeschool for quite some time. I actually post fairly regularly, but try to keep it to just homeschool or kid content. There are a few things here and there about everyday life things and even some faith reels, but I’m trying to get better at keeping just homeschool related.

So, if you find yourself scrolling the social media, and want a new homeschool inspo account to follow, one that is disorganized, not aesthetically pleasing, raw, and portrays real life, give me a follow. But if you’re looking for color coordinated, Pinterest worthy homeschool days, run the other way 😂

Homeschool

Back to School!

Middle Creek Mama

Is it that time already?

It hardly seems possible that it’s time to get back in the swing of things. We have had a lovely summer break full of fun and a lot of work. We are in transition from our house in town to a camper at our mountain property! It’s been whirlwind of “what should we do?” and “oh boy, we’re really doing this!”

It’s been great though! We are settling in well in the camper and are learning how to organize and make life work in such a small space. We are loving it!

Having said all of that, I want to touch on curriculum for this year.

Brinley is 8 and going into 3rd grade. Kaston is 5 and will be working his way through Kindergarten (he started some Kindergarten work during last school year, so he’s starting where we left off). We have already started review work, just to ensure they remember things from last year and to make sure they’re where they need to be, as we are starting new curriculum for a few subjects. We have traditionally used all Masterbooks for all subjects, however, we are switching things up this year to meet the needs of each kid.

This year, we went with The Good and The Beautiful for Brinley’s Language Arts. We have discovered she is struggling with dyslexia of some sort. We have been having evaluations done to see exactly what we are dealing with. She has improved greatly in her reading skills over the summer, I just will feel better to have an exact diagnosis to know how to better help her. While tossing options for curricula back and forth, I ultimately decided to give TGTB a chance. We have been working through their Booster C card set to make sure she’s is on par to start Level 3.

For math, we are sticking with Masterbooks. Brinley really loves following along with Charlotte and Charlie and was adamant we stick with them! Following along with their story keeps her engaged and motivated to push through. I really appreciate that about Masterbooks’ math!

For Kaston, we are doing The Good and The Beautiful for both Language Arts and Math. He is a challenging kid. Nothing interests him more than guns, hunting, cowboys, and cattle. So, when we find, say, farm related curricula, but its filled with cutesy, cartoon critters, he will not engage. He wants nothing to do with “little kid” type stuff. When we received his Language Arts from TGTB in the mail, he groaned! But after looking through the books and seeing all the wildlife, he changed his attitude and can’t wait to get started.

I chose Masterbooks’ America’s Story 1 for both kiddos to participate in. Just flipping through the books, I can tell we are going to love it!

We will be doing God’s Design: Life for Beginners from Masterbooks for a science that is more on Kaston’s level, but both kids will participate. We also have a Mammals Science unit study from TGTB, again, both kids will do.

One other thing I’ve decided to add to our curricula, is this Fall Bundle from Home and Haven. Their Bundles are absolutely darling. This bundle includes an 8 week study on Laura Ingalls’ Little House in the Big Woods. We have been reading Laura Ingalls books all summer, so when I found a family study that went along with one, I jumped right on it. There are tons of great activity sheets for both kids’ development levels and even a cooking section that mirrors recipes Ma makes in the book! We (probably mostly me) are excited to get started on this one. I am in the process of having it professionally printed, as well. I will make another post about that!

Other things I want to include this semeseter are Fall Feast studies (Biblical Feasts) and an Exuma critter study. We are headed to the Bahamas in December! On the Exuma website, they have a “safari challenge” that challanged people to get photos of their top favorite critters around the islands. So, to keep things educational and exciting, we are going to be studying one Exuma critter per week in the weeks leading up to our departure for vacation!

*none of the links I posted are affiliate links. I get no compensation for your clicking on them! They are just products I believe in. If you do check these products out because of my suggestion, let me know! I want to hear if you love them as much as I do!