I wanted to quickly share this free printable homeschool planner from Lara Casey. It looks beautiful and seems so practical not only for the day-to-day notes but also for goal setting. Lara Casey is the creator of Powersheets, so it makes complete sense that this would be a great resource for planning. If you don’t already have a planner you love, it is definitely worth checking out.

As for us, we are starting to get back into the swing of things this week. We were still in full holiday mode until 3 Kings Day on January 6th, so we tend to start back to school a little later than most people. I always try to use this first week back to our regular schedule to evaluate how things have been working and what we need to add or change.

This year my kids have been going to a co-op 2 mornings a week where they are learning Spanish, history, geography, science, and art. While having to be somewhere 2 mornings a week was a big adjustment, I think we finally have found a good rhythm and the kids are really enjoying it. That means I only need to focus on the core subjects at home.

One thing I really felt was lacking this year was our language arts. To me, it always feels like there are so many different aspects of language arts that I have to be missing parts. I decided that it was worth it for us to buy the family subscription to Reading Eggs for the next year. I have talked about Reading Eggs before when we did the free trial, but this is the first time we have purchased a subscription. I really do love it, especially for my older kids. They are using the Reading Express part of the program which covers reading comprehension, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and writing skills.

That is the only major addition I have made since getting back into school so far. I did purchase some of Brave Writer’s curriculum back at the start of the school year and am hoping to find some time to incorporate a few more of those principles and activities into our writing as the year goes on. I have been using some of it, but I would love to use it more fully.  We will see how it goes!