Homeschool Wrap-Up August 2014

Ramadan is behind us, Eid has been fun, and we were heading toward the new school year. While it isn’t until September that I feel that crispness in the air, and it just feels like a new school year, August has become a time of planning and putting together the last pieces of the homeschool year puzzle.

Totschool

I’m starting to notice more as the month goes on that I need to find stuff for Amatullah to do. It’s really hard to do school with Aamina while Amatullah is awake, and working around nap time is not always possible. Sometimes I need that time to take a shower, or get things cleaned up! I printed out Tangrams for the girls to use, and cut out the Tangrams in felt for Amatullah. That wasn’t as genius as I thought since neither of them know what to do with them. I’ve started my search for more busy bag items, especially for a nearing 18 month old. Keep watch on the blog and I’ll share what I’ve found in the coming weeks, in sha Allah!

Preschool

Alhamdulilah, preschool has really started to take shape! Aamina regularly asks for school work, and between her workbook, lapbooks, Before Five in a Row, Kiwi Crate subscription, Ad-Duha curriculum, and printables I find from other blogs, I feel like I have a good handle on keeping her interest. Still, I realize that most of the stuff I have for her is on paper, so I’ve started to explore the montessori method, and will be getting out Mudpies to Magnets for science exploration. With summer in full swing, and how much I hate the heat, we haven’t spent as much time on Nature Study as we had in previous months. September will be different, and you can keep up to date with our adventures on Instagram. I have some fun things planned for my littles!

High school

Kira started her Chinese class with Currclick in August, but most of the month was spent finishing up what remained from last year. We only had a two week break from the end of one school year to the start of the next school year. We definitely learned some hard lessons last year!! Our first year of high school was such a roller coaster with tough times in the beginning, then it turned around, and then the end of the year seemed to drag on forever. We’ve both agreed that we do not want to repeat that this year, and we have some tools in place to ensure that doesn’t happen, in sha Allah.

Kira has started preparing for her next exams. She was hoping to take the PLAN this fall, but without proper preparation, I’m making her wait until the spring. When I was in high school, no one ever mentioned when to take the SAT, ACT, or anything of that sort, so I ended up graduating without doing any of them. Now as an adult, I have no clue the testing schedule and we’re stumbling a bit to get them done in time. Now that I have a little bit better of an idea, we are starting to prepare for the tests by first taking the PRA (Princeton Review Assessment), which will give her an overview of what she needs to work on for good scores in the SAT and/or ACT. This all makes my head spin a bit, so right now I have more questions than answers. In sha Allah that changes.

She’s still in love with her CLEP prep work from Jump Course and hoping to take the CLEP Psychology exam relatively soon. In sha Allah we’ll report back how it went!