We have turned in our paperwork for this past year.  Now it is a waiting game until we can pick up our portfolios.  We went ahead and turned in our affidavits for the new school year.  Now all I have to do is send the coordinator our objectives for the new year.

So I am deep, deep, deep into planning for the new school year.  My goal is to have everything planned for the year by the time we pick up the children up from Music and Arts camp in July.  Some courses are pretty straight forward because they are laid up by the year for me.  So I can basically say Week so and so and then day so and so or so forth.  Others will be slightly more challenging because based on how they perform on the assignments, they will either stay put or move forward.  This is especially true for the Life of Fred Math books.  My younger two are really enjoying them.  

Rebecca has completed all of the Elementary Series books, and is about finished with the last of the three intermediate books.  Then she starts on Fractions.  Nathan is currently working on the Elementary Physics book.  I have a feeling he will be completed with both of the Pre-Algebra books before the year is over.  

Then we have some courses (like Introduction to Criminology and Introduction to Forensic Science) that Joseph is going to take.  Those courses are going to need to be created from scratch by me.  I have bought the books I want to use for the courses, but I have to create the lesson plan and make sure I know the answers to the questions.

I have found several things for this new school year that I have fallen in love with:

The first is A Simple Plan Homeschool planner by Mardel.  Here is a picture:

This planner is set up where I can even add weekly plans for the children.  This is a place for general plans for the year for each course.  I love this feature.  So I am starting to fill out the planner in order to be ready.  It begins with July 1st.  So that is when I will officially begin using it.  Mardel also offers an online version of the planner.  It does not have a lot of extra frills and unnecessary additions.  So I am really excited about this.  

One of my favorite publishers is Notgrass Company.  My older two have completed Exploring America and are working on finishing Exploring World History.  After Music camp is over, we will begin Exploring Government and I will add in a Civics course that still needs to be determined.  My youngest son has completed and my daughter is in the process of finishing the America the Beautiful curriculum.  I just discovered they have created a Civics course for Middle School, so our daughter might be doing that. 

Here is a picture of the course:

Our youngest son is doing Trisms Historymakers.  We have already started this and will finish it up this year.  Then my daughter may do Mystery of History as well.  

We will be doing Latin. Institute for Excellence in Writing courses for some along with WriteShop for others.  So I know we are going to have a full year.  I will come back and add more about the rest of the curriculum we will be using.