School Year 2009-2010

I think I have finally gotten it all figured out–at least this year’s course of study for the kiddos.  And gee it’s only September!  I usually have this mostly nailed down (at least on paper) by May…better late than never.  I think my mantra for this year will be One thing at a time, one day at a time.  I really want to slow down and savor these last few years of hs’ing The Boy–but he moves at full steam all the time.  He doesn’t want to slow down and savor–he wants to be OUT.IN.THE.WORLD.NOW!!  So, I just tell myself, over and over: One Thing. One Day.

And here for all it’s worth is my “plan” for the year:

The Boy:

History Odyssey, Middle Ages, Level III

Teaching Textbooks, Pre-Calculus

Apologia Chemistry, 2nd edition

Rosseta Stone Spanish, level 1

Greenleaf Guide to Literature, Middle Ages (we get to read Beowulf, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Hamlet, Canterbury Tales and more!!!)

Memoria Press’ Traditional Logic, book 2

Bravewriter’s Help for Highschool  Writing Curriculum and online BW courses (his history curriculum is very writing heavy as is the Greenleaf literature curriculum…so I think that will be all he needs  for English and Composition)

LaLa:

History Odyssey, Middle Ages, Level II

Teaching Textbook, Algebra 1

Rainbow General Science

Bravewriter resources for writing

Mother Tongue Grammar

Rosetta Stone, Spanish, level 1

Piano

Mimi:

History Odyssey, Middle Ages, Level 2

Right Start Math

Nature Studies (Ambleside Online suggestions)

Bravewriter resources for writing

Simply Grammar and sentence diagramming

Tink:

History Odyssey, Middle Ages, level 1

Right Start Math

Nature Studies

Phonics Museum

We will use AO suggestions for Artist and Composer Studies. I also hope to include more poetry and recitaions in our weekly schedules–but only adding one thing at a time!

Coram Deo. Lola

A new year looms

Well,  sporadic blogging seems to be my fate.  I just can’t get into a rhythm of blogging. And here we are with the start of our  new school year just around the corner.  Can anyone say,”ahhhhhhhh!”?  I am completely unprepared.   Add to that an unexpected  week long (but really two weeks of no-school due to when they arrive and depart) visit by out of state family commencing on the day after I planned to start school and you have one very Nervous Nellie mom.  Good thing The Boy has his head on straight.  His suggestion: “Mom, let’s just start math and science (the two subjects for which  I do have all that I need in place) at the first of September and start all the other subjects after Auntie and Uncle’s visit.”  Smart boy…he must get that from his dad.  So glad that he’s around to keep me from going nuts.  What I’ll do when he leaves in 3 years for college is too much for me to even comprehend right now.  So I think I’ll  delude myself and pretend that his college days are a looong way off–for now!

I hope to have my schedule and course listing up very soon, but right now I need to finalize the menu for Tink’s  birthday Tea Party this Saturday and purchase paint for my guest bathroom.

Coran Deo, Lola

The end is near…sort of

Well, we are nearing the end of our school year…in a way.  We school  all year ’round only taking the whole month of August off.  We do take time off throughout the year but the bulk of the time is August.  That being said we are nearly done with the lessons I planned for this school year.  In fact the Boy has completed geometry and already started next year’s pre-calculus.  He’s nearly done with biology and has finished his history.  Likewise, the girls have nearly finshed their language arts work and math is almost completed, too.  That really only leaves history reading and nature studies.  We took a brake from formal science for Mimi and Lala has continued working through general science…she’ll finish it up next year (8th grade) as planned.  We took it a litte easier this year as it was our first year doing high school and I wanted to be sure to get a handle on that with as little stress as possible.  Tink’s kindergarten was rather stop and start but we did succeed with reading as she read her first book by herself two weeks ago.  We still have a bit of work to do over the summer to get her ready for next year…but the good thing about homeschooling is that she can work through everything at her pace.  She is our youngest Kindergartener thus far and the difference that a few months in the age one starts formal schooling makes a huge difference.  I really feel that I should have waited to “start” Kindergarten until she was at least 5.5 yo.  Ah…hindsight is 20/20.  However, she did well and we are proud of her accomplishments!

The alphabet continues…

What do you do with a kindergartener and a pre-schooler for “M” week?  Monkey Bread!

I had this great idea this morning only to realize we didn’t have the  main ingredient for Monkey Bread: refrigerator biscuits.  Never fear! teen age daughter to the rescue…she stayed home with the younger ones as I ran up to the store to get the biscuits.  Once home the two littles and I cut, shook, plopped,  melted and poured our way to this  afternoon’s  teatime treat.  This, our first foray into the delights of Monkey Bread.   I’ll let you know later how it turned out…but if the aroma eminating from the oven is any indication, then I’m sure they’ll be great. Pictures to follow, too!

Lola

Nature Study

This is our 9th year of homeschooling.  We started with The Boy’s 1st grade year using the Classical method ala The Well Trained Mind and Christine Miller’s Classical Home Education website. We truly felt is was the perfect method for our family.   However as we added the girls to our school roster I felt the need to make things more gentle so we started home educating our children using both the Classical approach with  a smattering of the Charlotte Mason.  One of the first books we purchased was Anna Comstock’s Handbook of Nature Study…an intimidating tome if there ever was one (to say the least).  In fact after all these years I’ve never really used it!  I’ve tried to incorporate Nature Study into our schedule but have always given up after a few failed tries…there always seems to be something more pressing to get done.  This year, however, I really feel the need to add it in to our week.  Perhaps it is because Tink is our resident Kindergartner and I feel that I’ve been given a second chance at doing grammar school again (hopefully doing it better this time around)–and I want to get in the habit of Nature Study now, not later.  I have given up hope of ever getting the Boy to join in–he didn’t like it in 1st grade and he doesn’t care for it now in 9th grade; but the girls  seem much more willing to try.   So imagine my excitement when I stumbled upon this website…it seems tailor made just for me!!!  I think we will start the exercises next week. And I’ll be adding my name to the Outdoor Hour blogroll.  Won’t you join me?

Coram Deo,

Lola

Day by Day

Well, here it is the second week of high school for the Boy…and he’s bored! He doesn’t have enough to do!  He says his Geometry and Biology are TOO EASY…his Ancient Literature is boring and that history is the same old stuff.  So I did what any good homeschooling mom would do..I’ve ordered  a logic course…not too easy now; I’ve added  Plutarch, Josephus Thucydides,and Livy to his history reading: not the same old stuff anymore!  And he’ll be starting a Spanish course in the next couple of weeks…I don’t think the Boy will be bored anymore.

Moral to this story:  Be careful what you wish for!

*as an aside…this isn’t punishment…the Boy is definitely up to the reading…he reads a couple of grades higher than his own, and the other courses…I was actually waiting to add them as his year progressed to see how he would do with the added pressures/expectations of High School…he just wanted them sooner than later…so I obliged.

School Year 2008-2009

Well, I’ve been planning and planning some more. I think I’ve finally narrowed down our curriculum choices for this new school year (and I use that term loosely as we school year ’round…one year just blending into the next…works for us).

All of us:

History–Greenleaf guides to Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome

Spanish–Postponed until January 2009

Art and Music appreciation–Ambleside Online selections

Shakespeare–Love’s Labor Lost

Nature Studies

Geography — A Child’s Geography

The Boy: Freshman:

Teaching Textbook Geometry…he’s already finished Alg. 1 & 2

Bravewriter’s Help for High School writing guide and online classes.

Ancient Literature from Greenleaf press….we’ll be doing this together…starting with the books of Daniel and Genesis, followed by Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, Antigone and the Oedipus Cycle…I can’t wait!!

Apologia’s Biology, 2nd edition

LaLa: 7th grade

Teaching Textbook Pre-algebra (finishing it up) and Algebra 1

Bravewriter language arts program-The Boomerang and online writing classes

The Rainbow–General Science

Mimi:5th grade

Making Math Meaningful

Bravewriter language arts program -The Arrow

Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures of the Fifth day

Tink: Kindergarten

Well,,, this one’s hard as I am trying to really enjoy her early years, so we break from our ‘Classical” approach and are embracing a more gentle way with:

Five In A Row**–selections from books 1 and 2and lots of play time and books and art projects and nature walks

Along the Alphabet Path from Serendipity–with just a few minor changes (mostly doctrinal–the owner of Serendipity is a devout Catholic and we are Protestants). Despite the changes we are very excited about this little story…filled with fairies and songs and poetry and flowers…what’s not to like if you are a 5 year old girl! And we’ll be adding our own faith filled ideas to show God’s Glory in His creation!

Oh, and she wants to join Mimi in studying Swimming Creatures so she’ll only do as much as she is able and willing!

Now if I can just make finish the lesson plans…

Coram Deo, Lola

**UPDATE–Well, Five in a Row is just not going to work for us…I just can’t get it to fit…so we are staying with Along the Alphabet path and adding Alphaphonics to learn phonics and just using the FIAR books as read alouds…I think this will be more doable as I strive to live more simply and purposefully as we move through our school days.

I’m still trying…

to be more  consistent in   posting  to this  blog…I can barely keep up with school  let alone blog  about  it!  I hope to  be  a ble to  add  more   pictures,  too. Like this picture  of a beautiful  cosmos  growing in  a pot  in  my backyard.

Science with the little one’s

We always enjoy looking at God’s creation….even when His creation are creepy crawlies.

We received a  ladyb ug habitat and a butterfly garden in the mail this past Saturday. The little   critters   have grown amazingly fast. The ladybug larvae were about a third this size when we received them as were the caterpillars. Tink and Babycakes are eagerly awaiting the emergence of ladybugs, however they are still not convinced that the bugs they enjoy looking at are truly ladybug babies!!

Mystery Class

I wanted to let you all know about a great online Geography resource. It is called Mystery Class. It is a free online line “class” the purpose of which is to use the changing sunset and sunrise times to track down the location of 10 “Mystery Classes” scattered throughout the Northern Hemisphere (or maybe the whole world–I think I’d better check that out…LOL). I copied this directly from the website:

‘Somewhere under the sun, kids at 10 secret sites are watching how day length changes with the seasons. We challenge you to find the 10 Mystery Class sites using sunrise and sunset clues.’

It is completely free and looks very fun. I just signed up this morning and will be working with my three eldest children to track our daylight times and graph them appropriately. Hopefully we’ll be successful and solve the “Mystery’.

Additionally, the site has other programs that utilize the sightings of various harbingers of spring (migrating birds, butterflies, melting ice, etc…) to track the changing seasons. There is even a “botany” related experiment involving the planting of tulips and charting the first sprouts….unfortunately we’re a little late for that one but there is always next fall.

HT: to Melissa over at Here in the Bonny Glen