2010-2011 Homeschool Plans

As I write this post, we are still working hard to complete our 2009 - 2010 school year. {sigh}

So on one hand I'm really not ready for a new school year to start, but on the other hand I'm ready for some change. I made most of my plans in the spring (in time for conventions and book sales) and I'm ready to open those new books.

If this is your first time visiting my blog, let me give some brief background information. I homeschool my two younger kids, while my 12 year old attends a Christian classical school three days a week. She studies at home the other two days, so it still feels a little like when she was a homeschooler too. My son has autism, which greatly influences the choices I make in homeschooling materials. We follow a classical model, with some Charlotte Mason influences.

Here's what we have planned for the new school year:

Bible

• Daily stories from The Child's Story Bible
• Jr. Catechism -- a class offered by our church, but since my two will be the only students this year, I'm teaching it myself during our homeschooling time. They will memorize portions of the Heidelberg Catechism, the books of the Bible, and Psalm 23. I'm also planning on using Phillip Keller's A Child's Look at the 23rd Psalm to supplement our memorization of that psalm.
• Sunday School lessons and memory work

Geography

• MFW's Exploring Countries and Cultures -- can you believe someone is lending me all her materials for ECC (see picture above)?!?! I am humbled by her generosity, especially since she's never met me IRL. We are soooo looking forward to ECC!

Science

• ECC -- picking and choosing. Nothing against ECC, it's just that I'm in love with...
• Apologia's Exploring Creation series -- we loved the Astronomy book, so this year we'll be starting Zoology I - Flying Creatures
• Outdoor Nature Hour Challenges -- last year was our first year to do formal nature study, and it was Grace's favorite part of the week. Barb's challenges are perfect for keeping me motivated and accountable, but I'd still like to be more consistent this year.

Foreign Language

• Latin for Children A -- Grace is still pretty young, and I don't consider Latin a huge priority for Ryne, but they both love Latin so we'll just do the first three units of the book and take it real slow. I'm pretty sure they have at least the first several chants memorized, just from hearing Anna when she used the program.

Art

• Artistic Pursuits K-3, Bk 1 -- I loved this last year, and yet we dropped it after the first 10 weeks. Try, try again...
• Sketch Tuesday -- We did a few of these two years ago and loved it. Why do I have such a hard time making art a priority? You'd never believe I'm the daughter of a former art teacher!
• Craft projects in ECC

Music

• Piano lessons -- We {heart} our wonderful instructor who comes to our home!
• Two musical events such as the symphony, a musical, etc. A BHA tradition!
• Complete The Story of the Orchestra and the Dover coloring book Musical Instruments
• Composer Studies: Chopin, Schumann, Foster, Brahms, and MacDowell
• Singing Made Easy -- I've never heard of anyone using this in their homeschool, so hopefully I didn't waste my money. I'll keep you posted...

Memory

• Classical Conversations memory program -- ???? CC is new to our metro area and we had hoped to join a class this year, but they weren't able to find a class director so it looks like it will be another year or more before a class opens close enough for us to attend. I might try doing the memory work at home, but I'm also looking at Living Memory as an alternative.

Other

• Occasional lessons from Family Math
• Typing
• Polished Cornerstones -- This is new for us too, but I love the idea of it.
• "Therapy"-related activities for Ryne -- Will blog more about this in the coming weeks.
• Extracurricular activities such as swim team, ballet, and Cub Scouts

Individual Subjects: Ryne (age 11; autism)

• Writing -- ???? (decision pending my completion of the IEW Teaching Writing DVDs)
• All About Spelling 2 & 3
• Rod and Staff English 5 -- click on link for specific plans on how to transition from FLL 4
• Map Skills for Today 5
• Math U See Delta

Individual Subjects: Grace (age 7.5)

• Adventures in Phonics B & C
• Handwriting Without Tears - Cursive
• Writing - ????? (see above)
• All About Spelling 2
• Various Christian Liberty and Abeka readers
• Map Skills for Today 2
• MUS Beta

About the writing... last year we tried using Writing With Ease, but I found it awkward, and this is coming from someone who loves The Well Trained Mind products. I didn't like that the selections were from books we weren't currently reading, so it was hard to connect with the material. Plus, Ryne's copywork and dictation skills are much better than his narration skills, so he needed to split his work among two different levels. This just added to the confusion. My options are to either create my own WWE curriculum (using the plan in the teacher guide), which is a ton of work, or hope that the IEW DVDs convince me of a better alternative. Any advice is welcome!

If reading about my curriculum choices makes your heart go pitter-patter, you're not alone! You can see what other homeschoolers are using this year at the Heart of the Matter Not Back to School Blog Hop. The blog hop just started this morning and already 150+ homeschoolers have posted their plans!

Happy Homeschooling!