Well, 2016-2017 preparation has begun for us! :) I thought I would share about what our upcoming year will hold! :)
For Bible this year we are going to be using a curriculum from Praise Hymn 
Phonics/Reading will be a big emphasis for us this year. We are going to be trying a program I have heard amazing things about with special needs children as well as typically developing children! I am quite excited about this program and that it is multi sensory and moves at our pace. All about Learning Press really is confident in their All about Reading program and they have a FULL 1 year guarantee if you are not satisfied you can send it back for a refund! That is better than I have ever heard before. I am prayerful this is going to be wonderful for Noah :) It is based on Orton-Gillinham Approach which I have also heard very good things about. :)
Noah has improved so much with his motor skills and is able to copy letters now :) He is very much loving that and has spent a good bit of time this summer copying letters and numbers from signs, packages, etc because he is so excited about writing :) For Handwriting for this coming year I have found a new program that we are excited about :) We will be using Exploring Handwriting through the Scriptures :) 
For Math this year another change :) We are going with Shiller Math Kit 1. This is through 3rd grade math all in one Kit. It is again multi sensory and it is based on the Montessori Method. I have a friend who uses this program and did a few lessons with Noah and her son and Noah was very responsive to the lessons. I love that it will really help him learn the concepts and not just to know facts. 
For our History/Geography We will be using a wonderful program from Confessions of a Homeschooler! :) Road Trip USA! We will be learning all kinds of wonderful things about each state :) We are trying to have people from each state send postcards, trinkets, whatever they can that will scream that state!! We will be taking more time than is called for in each state so that we can really enjoy the "trip" and so we will be using this program for 2 years :) If we love it as much as I think we will COH has a World Geography/History as well called Exploration Earth and we will most likely do that after Road Trip USA is complete :) 
We will also be using COH progam for some of our Science this year!! We will be doing the Scientists and Inventors program which uses the book series Getting to Know the World's Greatest Scientists books :) I love that we will be learning from reading real books :) We will also be doing some Animal Studies on Animals from each state that we will be learning about as well :) and a few Lapbook Studies as well. Should be a really fun time with science this year :)
We are also adding in some Composers and Artists Studies with COH. 
Again we will be reading books about each Composer and Artist we study and seeing or hearing their work! :) I am so excited about all of these curriculum's from COH :) 
In addition to our curriculum we will be as active as we can be in our Christian Family Educators (CFE) Homeschool group again this year! I will be serving on the Field Trip Team this year and I hope to be a part of the yearbook committee again. We will have field trips, family activities, Moms and Dad's Night outs, Field Day, Spelling Bee, Cookie Swap, Christmas Caroling and the list goes on :) We are so blessed to be a part of CFE and are looking forward to a wonderful year with our friends :) 
Also we will be spending time with our friends in our Lighthouse Homeschool Friends group! This is a fairly new Christian Prayer Support and Fellowship group with some other Christian Homeschool Moms. We are hoping to secure a location for a Monthly meeting and fellowship as well as a few field trips and activities throughout the year. We are so blessed the Lord has put so many wonderful people in our journey of life :)In addition to all of that it looks like our Challenger Baseball League is going to hold a Fall Ball Challenger Session so we will have some baseball to look forward to :) and I am hoping to find a good Basketball group for Noah through Upwards in January if I can. He has not tried that yet and his Daddy loves Basketball so he wants to try that out :) And we might be involved in a special needs soccer team at some point if that comes about.
I am very excited about this coming school year for both boys :) Jeremiah will be as involved as he can be and of course will have a lot of fun activities of his own going on that are not a part of our purchased curriculum. He will also have his Speech, Adaptive PE, Quarterly OT, PT, and a homebound teacher who comes in and does a little reading with him. We are a little nervous about the homebound teacher because the one he has had and the other teacher for the parish both retired after many years at the end of the year so it will be very different I am sure this year.
I hope to do a much better job of keeping the blog updated for our benefit and for any others who are interested :) Also for those reading who have or plan to send things for our Road Trip USA State Study this will be a way for you to see how that is going :) I was reading back over our family blog the other day from during both adoptions and when the boys were each first home and I treasure all of those posts. I wanted to have them printed but that is not affordable so I will be copying it to a hard drive little by little when I can. I pray nothing ever happens to blogger but One true media did shut down and I lost quite a few videos and slide shows when it did so I want to make sure to have all the blogs backed up somehow.
So if you are reading along please drop me a comment and let me know :) I pray for each of you that is preparing your own schooling for the year if you are teaching your own children or in a classroom and for the families whose children go off to school praying for y'all as you gather all the needed items and begin the new year. Have a great one everyone!
