Okay, so it has been forever since I last posted, so what have I been up to? Well I started officially homeschooling my 6 year old with Wisdom Homeschooling board. Let me tell you it was very confusing. I wasn't sure what all I was supposed to do! Once I got a little help from my local support group I felt so silly for stressing. So here is what I had to do.
First I had to find a school board that will work with me here in Alberta. This website helped me with a lot! They had sample education plans too. Some schools have their own templates they want you to use but Wisdom accepts any. I took the grade 1 one from the site and added a subject column and of course personalized it for my specific goals. That site has so many other resource you can use.
Next, I sent in my notice to homeschool to the board with the appropriate documents. From there they messaged be with my conditional acceptance. The facilitator then contacted me and we discussed my education plan.
What is an Education Program Plan?
I was confused by this at first too, until I downloaded one of the samples on that site. Just scroll down to where it say "Alberta Programs of Study (APS Outcomes) Curriculum Summaries" You do not have to use the exact program the way they have it. The important part is to include the materials you want to receive funding for and that your plan is personalized for your own specific goals. These template are a good start for us newbies. I removed the history part and add some life skills programs (sewing, sign language just to name a few). Keep your goals simple and achievable. Do not forget to include how your goals are measurable. For example; by the end of the year the student should be reading level 1 books or student can add and subtract sums of 100 etc. The most important part to remember is you do not need this done when you enroll, it just needs to be done before you can get funding.
So what curriculum and I using?
For the most part my plan comes from this website. I am also using the TinkerActive work book, resources at education.com, and the Star Wars phonics set. The dollar store is great for finding supplemental workbook too. In this Independent Study Packet there is a guide for a reading log. I took that page and glued it into a notebook that pages had the top half blank and the bottom half preschool lined. I think these packets are good for reviewing. Note when printing from these packets some pages are rotated in the PDF and some printers do not recognize this and will cut off some information.
Schedule?
That is totally up to you! You can make school time take as little or as much of the day as you want. I prefer to get it all done in one sitting but you do NOT have to! For us school time takes as little as 45 minutes on a good day when she is focused but can take 2+ hours when she does not want to work. on those days I either come back to it later or we reschedule it on to a day off. Here is my daily schedule:
We have a lot of stuff scheduled by no means do you have to follow this schedule this is just what works for us.
Space?
Our setup takes up my sewing table. I have a sewing machine that folds into a table. I got a bunch of desk baskets from the dollar store stacked them on top of each other and have all our workbooks separated by day. All our crafting stuff is placed in the drawers. The work I plan to take with us to our interview with the facilitator is in a backpack close by.
Evaluation?
I have a OneNote notebook created to keep all my homeschool stuff organized. I have a page with a material list for each subject with the lesson number attached to it. My daily evaluation page is where I write every day what we do. Some facilitator like this step but most do not require it, for me it is just so I have a log where I can see how she's progressing. My entries look like this:
But like I said you don't have to do this, any worksheets or projects you do will work as the evaluation for your child. I started the year with a minute math page and have a couple copies of it printed to see if her adding speed increases throughout the year.
Interview?
I have not had our first interview, but I did talk with other homeschoolers and my facilitator about how they go. So basically we will meet at the library or a coffee shop and go over the plan for the year. The next interview will happen in the spring and we will talk about whether or not she is meeting our goals. Aside from that the facilitator will pretty much let me do my thing. I can reach out to him if I need help with a program or any question I have but there is no other interference.
Basically that is all I have to write about for now.
