6th grade

The boys are about to enter 6th grade. It doesn’t really mean much since we homeschool. We probably only know what grade they are in because they are grouped by grade at church. Then again, my former public school teacher brain definitely keeps up with what grade they are in!

Middle school.

Long ago I was a middle school teacher. I taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grade science during my years in public education. I taught 6th grade exclusively for 3 years, 7th grade for 2 years, and 8th grade for one year. I loved every minute of it…except for state testing…I didn’t like that part.

Middle school is my place. It’s funny to think I am about to enter that time period with the boys. It seems different. Then again, homeschool is very different that public school.

Months ago when I started thinking about the 2020-2021 school year, the plan was to follow the schedule we did this year. 9 weeks of school, 1 week of fall break. 9 weeks of school, 3 weeks of Christmas break. 9 weeks of school, spring break. 7 weeks of school so we finish at the end of April with an optional few weeks of May if we were to need it. This schedule worked great for us this year.

The original plan was to start on July 27th when Nathan went back to work.

Last week Nathan’s contract was changed and he now goes back to school on the 15th of July. Provided schools open with the increasing numbers of COVID-19 in the state.

The boys decided we should start then too because it gives us an extra 8 days to use during the school year. The hope is that by early 2021 we can get shots for this virus and get back to doing things in a more normal way. Those 8 days would be used for trips to the zoo and museum and such. Or maybe just a random day off after a particularly hard week!

I am a little sad I haven’t recorded more of our homeschool journey somewhere to look back at one day. But, we have 6 years to go so I might as well try to do that this year.

I think I will make a tab at some point for this year with a run down of our subjects and what material we are using. I am always interested in seeing what other people do and maybe someone else would like to see how we do school. This year is a definite increase in workload…as it is in public and most likely private school. We are closing in on the high school years and leaving elementary behind. I expect some pushback, however, we have also been implementing things over the last couple of years to help ease the transition.

I will post a link here when I create a landing page for our coming year.