10 Reasons I Am Excited About the New Homeschooling Year

1. I have a broad range of ages of children.   For the new school year, I will be teaching my 1st grader, 3rd grader, 8th grader, 10th grader, and 12th grader.  That wide span of grades will make the school year interesting!  For example, I will be studying physics and and chemistry with my high school aged daughters, as well as teaching multiplication and cursive writing to my youngest daughter.

2. My oldest daughter will be dually enrolled in the local community college.  This means that she will be taking college algebra and English Comp I and II, for 9 hours of college credit.  These same courses will count as high school credits in English and math as well.

3. Our Back to School Treasure Hunt. Many years ago, I began this tradition to start out our school year in a fun and exciting way.  I hide clues for the children to find, and these clues lead them to a fun surprise.

Over the years the treasures have included things like new school supplies, unique pencils, and gift certificates to Barnes and Noble and Smoothie King.  You can read about one of our past Back to School Treasure Hunts by clicking here.

4. New school supplies. I love school supplies!  I have so much fun strolling down the aisles of WalMart and Staples in July.  Pencils, pens, folders, notebooks, 3-ring binders, paper, markers, glue, crayons and more all excite me about the new school year.  I inventory our school supplies and make a detailed list of what we need before heading to the store.  An added bonus is that school supplies are usually sold at rock bottom prices in July and August.

5. A new science curriculum.  Even though I will be entering my 12th year of homeschooling, I still sometimes try new products.  I have many tried and true programs that I stick with year in and year out, but occasionally I am drawn to a new curriculum.  For the first time, this year I plan to use Sonlight Core B science with my 1st and 3rd graders.  They will be doing this science course together.  I bought the Instructor’s Guide and about half of the books that the program requires.  I already owned the rest of the books.  I think this will be an improvement over what I have done for elementary science in recent years.

6. Rereading favorite books.  I am looking forward to reading our Sonlight books to my 1st and 3rd graders.  Some of these books I will be reading for the 3rd or 4th time.  Reading aloud to my children is my favorite part of homeschooling.

7. My husband will be my 12th grader’s physics tutor.  I am very excited about this!  He is already beginning to read the Apologia physics book, and I plan to give him a reading and test schedule when I prepare those items for my daughter.  I am glad that he will be available to answer her questions and assist her with difficult concepts.  My husband enjoys physics, and he is excited about this too.

8. Having a 1st grader.  First grade is one of my favorite grades to teach.  Maybe it’s because I taught 1st grade in public schools before I became a mother.  I like that my first grader is more mature than he was at age 5, but he is still so excited about learning new skills.  I enjoy helping my first grader become a more fluent reader, especially in the spring of the year.  First graders seems to mature academically by leaps and bounds in March and April.

9. A clean slate.  It is nice to have an ending to a previous year and a beginning for a new school year.  Schoolwork seems fresh and exciting at the beginning of each school year.  Expectations and enthusiasm are high.

10. Another year to be blessed by teaching my precious children.