Our homeschool schedule for term three

It seems that every term we're tweaking something on the homeschool front. Heading into the third term of 2018, we are in for a major change as S joins us homeschooling.

S's exemption to homeschool came through a week and a half ago, so she officially finished up at school last Wednesday. I baked a banana cake and S iced it to share with her class on her last day. It was a nice way to finish off her school journey. Her teacher suggested S become a pen pal to her class, which I thought was a lovely idea.

Bug Lab.

One of the reasons I wanted to bring S home was so she could join her brother and sister on family excursions during the week. I felt bad about her missing out on the fun things we were doing, so we were either waiting until the weekend to go on excursions (when everything was extra busy), or I was taking her out of school for the day to join us. This year we've already visited Auckland Zoo and the Bug Lab there, Kelly Tarltons, the Star Dome and Maungauika/North Head. We've got more trips planned in the coming months.

Our timetable this term is going to be pretty packed, but, like last term, I've managed to keep all the regularly scheduled items to just three days a week, so we have breathing room on our other days to catch up on book work and house work, or to go on excursions.

This term, S will join L at our local Christian homeschool group, where the classes for the term are in Te Reo Maori and Folk Dancing / Celtic Dancing.

She has also signed up for a couple of classes at our other homeschool group - Art Play and Computer Coding. In that same group, L has signed up for Computer Animation, Creative Journaling and Visual Art, while J will continue on with his usual Gymnastics and KiwiSports classes.

This term, S will join her brother and sister in homeschool swimming lessons too, which is good because she didn't do any swimming lessons last term and it had just started to click for her in the term before that. I've mentioned before, but these swimming lessons are great because they're much more affordable than other lessons we've done in the past, and the children get to swim in the main swimming pools before and after their lessons, getting extra swim-time and play-time with their homeschool friends.

L and S are carrying on with netball this term. They're in the same team as each other, which is awesome for me because it means I only have to drive them to one practise and one game a week. They are both loving the sport, and I love watching them play it, so it's a win/win. S has been holding her own in the Year 4 team she's playing with, and I couldn't be prouder of her.

L will carry on with her violin lessons this term, and now I've also signed S up for piano lessons.

J will carry on at Kindy two days a week. It's a good place for him to burn off energy, play with other boys his age and indulge his creative side.

For maths curriculum this term, I have been printing off all sorts of maths worksheets for the kids from Education.com, which they love. The kids also love playing Prodigy Games for maths and they are working through various other maths books, like Mathletics, Life of Fred, Primary Mathematics and Step Ahead Maths. Our maths is a pretty eclectic mix, but that helps keep things interesting.

For writing, L is still using the Level Three Good and the Beautiful Language, Arts and Literature curriculum. I will print off a Level Two course for S to start working through this term. I also plan to bring in copy-work for the girls by choosing a passage for them to copy each week.

For history, we are still working through the Story of the World, Volume 1 - Ancient Times. S will join in with that.

For science, we are still working through the Apologia Space curriculum, so S will join in with that too. She has already picked up a lot about outer space from her brother and sister, as well as from our visit to the Star Dome earlier this year.

I'm not very good at running science experiments - it's a bit out of my comfort zone - but we've had success using Pure Nature kits to make calendula balm and shea body butter. I would also like to experiment with making soap, candles and deodorant with the kids for some hands on science.

For reading, we go to the library a couple of times a week and check out as many books as the kids can carry. I encourage free reading in the kids' downtime. We also listen to audiobooks when traveling in the car for 15 minutes or more. The most recent audiobooks we listened to were Little Women and How to Train Your Dragon. The latter had all the kids riveted, and got us through a long drive to Te Puke.

Well, I think that's about everything we have in the schedule for term three. It should be a fun term, although I'm sure it will have its challenges too. It's good to have it all sorted before the term starts though, so I can relax and not think about it for a couple of weeks.