Panic! My school is online this Fall! How do I home-school?

Is this the first time you seriously have considered home-school for your kids?  You aren’t alone.  Panic!  Our local public school is focusing on Math and Language Arts for elementary students.  Parents are considering all options.  First, focus on core classes: English, Math, Science, and History.  Begin with three hours of class from 9-noon.  Add a half hour of reading and a weekly book report.  Look for a curriculum.  Start with Cathy Duffy.  Many families use Apologia science textbooks.  Use Donna Young to set up a schedule.  Many families use Saxon Math with a Schedule.  We use Catholic Textbook Project for History with the teachers’ manuals.  BJU Heritage Studies are widely used by Protestant families.  Both programs offer student workbooks and teacher’s manuals. 

 English is a little more work.  We use Sadlier Workshop for vocabulary.  (The colors and levels can be confusing.  Red is Grade 1.  Purple is Grade 2.  Green is Grade 3.  Orange is Grade 4.  Blue is Grade 5.  Grades A-G coincide with Grades 6-12.). Our vocabulary schedule is one page a day.  Buy both the student and teacher editions to obtain all of the answers if your own vocabulary is not robust.  Memoria Press has composition courses, such as the  fourth grade Fable set.  We use Zane-Bloser for Handwriting. We did use Easy Grammar before I switched to Warriner’s Grammar and Composition.  (First course is about seventh grade level, second course eighth grade, and third course ninety grade.) Our schedule is one exercise a day.  Read the classics.  We use older anthology series for Reading, such as Houghlin Mifflin Reading Grade 4 or these, or this.  The practice books can be hard to locate depending on the grade.  Additionally, the teacher’s manuals are even harder to find.  

We use Exploring Creation sets.  The notebooking journal has a daily schedule and answer key for the vocabulary crosswords.  I bought the textbook used and paid full price for a new notebooking journal.  We are working through the Zoology, Chemistry and Physics, and Astronomy series this summer.  This Fall we will switch to Harcourt Science.

We use workbooks with History, Science, and Reading.  The schedule is easy.  Do a page each day.  When you complete a chapter, take a test, make a spelling list, ask for a summary, complete a time-line, draw a comic page, do a lab.  Start with the basics.  By all means, get started!