If you didn't start your school year earlier in the summer, I'm sure yesterday was your first day of school for the 2013-2014 school year!

    While I usually spend a good majority of the summer doing school planning and scheduling, this summer was different.  I was in charge of my parents' 50th Wedding Anniversary party, and boy, was that fun!  :)  We also had lots of company, both for daily visits, and overnight guests.  We did a lot of sorting and organizing, preparing for a big garage sale.  I worked hard to keep the house clean and picked up because people were coming over almost daily throughout the summer.  I also started planning an educational family trip to Washington, D.C. for later this school year.  Whew!  It was a busy summer.

    Instead of presenting my girls with their year-plan in their educational subjects on their first day of school, they just dove into starting out for a new school year.  By next week, I should have their year plan arranged and printed for them.  Kelsi will be relieved.  She loves having her year all planned out.  Brittany will find that the year plan is a bit more stressful for her.  She just wants to graduate.  :)

    Brittany officially passed up her big sister in the height department this summer.  There was a lot of teasing and boasting (in jest) about this amazing event, as you could imagine. 

    Kelsi and Brittany both really enjoy the Dr. Who television series.  Can you tell?  I decided to include Dr. Who-themed decorations into our first day of school.  Each autumn, I try to pick something that appeals to them, and this time, "Dr. Who" fit the bill.

    All in all, it's going to be quite a busy year for our family.  The girls will teach music lessons to their private students on Tuesday afternoons.  Kelsi will also volunteer with our county youth court program on Tuesday evenings.

    On Wednesday evenings, we'll all be at church, helping out with our Awana youth program.  My husband, Elmer, is the "Commander" or "guy in charge" of our church's Awana program.  I'll be assisting him this year as the Awana secretary.

    Thursdays will be our music days.  The girls will have private lessons in violin and piano on this day, and Kelsi will work for our local youth orchestra as well as be a helper and also participant in the program.  She's in the Intermediate and Advanced groups; it's hard to believe that this is her 8th or 9th year of being in our local youth orchestra program.  (I can't really remember how many years it's been!  Can you tell?) 

:)

How is your family's school schedule shaping up for this year?

    I haven't decided if I will take these to the local printshop and have them wire spiral bound - or not.  I think I'll try this in a 3-ring binder this year, and see how it all turns out.

    I hope these science lab record notebook pages work well for you this year.  Please let others know about these free downloads that will help homeschoolers with their science studies!  Thanks.

 

  

    These schedules didn't provide a class day to study before a Module test, so I decided to shuffle the days around for every two weeks so that one full class period or day was available to study for the tests. 

    I also changed the format slightly to not have any week lesson plans to be split between two different pages of paper.

    For the Apologia Biology vocabulary words at the bottom of each week plan, you'll notice that in parentheses, you'll see the page number of where the word may be found (with its definition).  This should help students find it easier to go back and look up a key concept within the module.

    For the study sessions, your high schoolers are free to fill out the Apologia Study Guides, use online flashcards, or any other method you prefer for studying for Module tests.

    If you have questions, please let me know.  I may not be able to answer all of them, since we are just starting out with this book, but I'll at least give it a try! 
☺