CC Homeschool Planning

You may find it odd, but I sincerely enjoy the process of school planning.  Making lists, scouring the interweb for pinspiration, printing worksheets, filing, creating binders, and filling in blocks on my school planner gets my endorphins pumping.  And then there's the never-ending flow of coffee too.

I'm biting off quite a bit more than last year, but I feel ready to handle it and am so excited about the extra fine arts and literature I am adding into the school year.  I skated through that part last year by piggy backing on Classical Conversations, but am excited about what we are adding.  I am also incorporating quite a few more living books (ok, a ton more) and am thrilled about that.  I think "real" books, instead of text books, will be much more captivating for the kiddos.  We'll still use text books for references, but I am working on an awesome lineup of living books for history and science!  I'll share the list when I've gotten through planning the first 12 weeks of CC, but for now here's my ever-growing Amazon wish list for Cycle 2.  There are many more options out there, but I am choosing books that are geared to my kiddos and the time we have to read each week.

Aside from the resources from CC Connected and our text book curriculums, I want to especially thank Sola Gratia Mom for her CC plans, Half a Hundred Acre Wood for her Cycle 2 book lists (and her generally awesome CC/homeschool blog posts), and Jennifer of Teaching Boys for all of her fantastic CC week-by-week pinterest boards (her book pins are wonderful)!  I am also getting some great information from Ambleside Online's very thorough lists.

I am planning on having the first half of the school year (12 weeks of CC with breaks will take us through to Christmas) planned in the next week or so.  In a perfect world, I'd plan the entire school year before school started, but I'm not sure if that will happen.  I'll reserve judgment for now :)