Countdown to School Year 09-10!

I've been busily working on the last of my school planning this week, ready to begin our 24th year of homeschooling next week.

Here's what I've done, in hopes that it will help you in your planning, too.

1. Wrote out my planbook for 6 weeks, in pencil. ;)
2. Found some books to use for readers for Thomas, copied off his Easy Grammar and Daily Gram pages, looked over his unit studies to familiarize myself with the first few chapters. Copied his writing assignments for the first 6 weeks. I bought these last year and they are very helpful to me. Bought a nice notebook for him to use for his ACTS prayertime and put that in his schoolbox along with his new math book.
   
3. Planned 6 weeks of Five in a Row and made activity plans and library lists, so I can just zoom into the library and zoom back out (love that online catalog!) Organized Abby's school box with her new reader, new math book, and Bible story book for narration. Threw in some new pencils and erasers and looked over her history. Printed off her handwriting here. This is also a good site for handwriting pages and I may use this later after she's learned to form the letters using the big cursive pages from Donna Young.
   
4. I had the bright idea of making a shelf for all of Abby's books for TruthQuest history, Thomas' readers, Anna's Beautiful Feet history books, and Thomas' unit study go-alongs. I didn't have any more shelf room, so I pulled out the first few FIAR books and the go-alongs and put them into an available drawer in my night stand, all divided up. Wish I had another book shelf, but, alas.....
5. Copied Carrie's Around the World in 180 Days geography pages and put them, along with some punched colored paper into a notebook. We've bought cloth to make a cover, which we will do during Arts Week, along with a cover for her Bible notebook. She's going to also do a unit study using Around the World in 80 Days and will make minit books, etc. to glue onto the colored paper in the geo notebook. I also fixed her Bible notebook with bright colored cardstock and bought some pretty scrapbook stickers for it. She will write quotes from her book, How to be a Lady, and will write in Bible verses to go with each chapter. I pulled out her Easy Grammar, Daily Grams, math, and copied her writing assignments. She made pretty folders for each child for my desk to hold worksheets until we're ready to use them.
6. At the convention, I bought a Dover stained glass coloring book, a Dover jousts and tournament coloring book, and cool Coat of Arms book, all to go with Thomas' unit using The Door in the Wall. I also picked up How to Draw Pirates, just for fun. All these things were from the Rainbow booth.
7. I started mapping out our first Arts Week. We will study Mozart for our music appreciation and Georgia O'Keefe and Henri Rousseau for art. We will do a bit of baking with Thomas, Carrie, and Abby, and sewing with Carrie and Anna.
8. Emily has pretty much started her new year already, but I planned out her writing unit and we have to make a decision about math. Anna's writing is planned and she knows what she's doing for the other subjects. They both work independently and keep up with their own books, so there's not much work for me to do to get them ready to start school.
   

All that's left is a trip to Hobby Lobby sometime in the near future, an order for Creation and World magazines, and the purchase of a Bible with bigger print for Thomas.

Ready, set, GO!