Planning...

....another year of home education.  As we begin another year the children will be 14, 9 and 7 years of age!  I am amazed that we are starting our eighth year of education at home.  What an adventure it has been!  I dislike assigning "grades" to the children but if they attended traditional school they'd be entering 8th, 4th and 2nd grade.  With such a broad span of years, I'm often asked, "What curriculum do you use?" 
Here is what I'm planning for the upcoming year.

First and foremost, PRAYER.  I am convinced that God has called us to educate our children from home. It has become a lifestyle for us.  Therefore, I must remember to always rely on Him to provide the resources we need.  It is often tempting to compare what we are doing at home to what our traditionally-schooled friends are doing.  This often ends with me worrying that we are not doing enough, not following a proper scope and sequence etc.  However, as soon as I begin to fret, God puts something in my path to assure me that I am following His will. He is faithful to me, I must remain faithful to Him. My part is to remember to put Him first each day and to call upon Him for guidance. 

And guidance is what I am concentrating on this year with Reese.  Reese will be completing his first high-school credit this year in American History.  YIKES! It is important for me to get him working more independently and taking on more of the responsibility for his own education. We will be using Sonlight's Core 100 for History, Bible, Geography and Literature.   The Institute for Excellence in Writing will supply the instruction for composition with the American History Based Writing Lessons, Volume 2.  Grammar and vocabulary will be incorporated into the writing assignments. We will team up with the Delcharco family in this venture and to do literary analysis on the books we read. All of this combined should supply a very thorough high-school level American History course.

For math we will continue using Teaching Textbooks.  However, I am also going to purchase Life of Fred for him to read.  I've heard great things about this series and since math is not a favorite in this household, it may be just the thing for us. Apologia Science has become a favorite of mine. This year Reese will be doing Physical Science.   I will be starting All About Spelling with Sophie and Drew and will probably have Reese follow along as we do need to improve his spelling skills.  Finally, for electives, Reese will continue his music lessons by starting drums this year at Christ's Church Homeschooler's, play tackle footbal with the Junior Development League and will most likely attend a homeschool PE class at the YMCA. 


Sophie and Drew are close enough in age that I can combine many of their lessons.  They will share Sonlight's Core C (recycling that from back when Reese used it) which will cover Bible, History, Geography, and Literature (readers and read-aloud books) with a focus on World History.  Both children will get even more history along with elementary Latin at our co-op where I will be co-teaching a class we call Friends, Romans and Countrymen.  Will be using Prima Latina from Memoria Press, along with other resources and activities to reinforce the lessons . 

I'll also combine Sophie and Drew for science using Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy by Jeannie Fulbright.  (Many thanks to Lanaya Gore for loaning me that book.)  This is a living book that uses the Charlotte Mason philosophy of narration and I just love that.  So I guess our nature study will be of the stars this year.

For the Language Arts I'll be using  All Things Fun and Fascinating from IEW with Sophie.  Drew is still working on proficiency in writing so he will continue with copy and dictation exercises.  I use Explode the Code to reinforce phonics and as I mentioned earlier, we will start All About Spelling this year.  I'm also going to try Junior Analytical Grammar that I picked up second-hand from the HERI Bookbuster. 

For art and music appreciation I'm planning a six week rotation much like we did when we tried Classical Conversations a couple of years ago.   The first six weeks will be picture study Charlotte Mason style a few of the master artists work and simple drawing instruction/practice. The next six weeks will be studying a few of the great composers and VERY basic music theory.  I'll be working on my plans for this over the summer break.  But is hard not to jump right in and start.

Physical Education at the YMCA, piano, violin, football and Girls on the Run will round out the plan for the younger guys.

Whew!  When I sat down, I thought this would be a quick post. Now that it is all in writing, I guess I'll have to actually follow through on these grand plans.