Since school begins next week, I thought I would share what our school year is supposed to look like. At least I have a plan. Will I stick to it? Hm.
Boy is 13 and in 8th grade. He will be doing Classical Conversations Challenge B.
There are six seminars plus a Bible study.
- Bible: AWANA Trek
- Math: Singapore New Elementary Math 2
- Logic: Introductory and Intermediate Logic
- Science: Research scientists for 10 weeks, science fair for 5 weeks, and then Creation/evolution debate for second semester
- Writing/Literature: A semester of Children’s Literature and a semester of Short Story studies
- Latin: Henle 1, Lessons 1-20
- Debate: Current events and Mock Trial.
Logic, Math, Bible, and Latin have to be done in daily increments, including lots of flash cards and memorization. For Math, I have him do each lesson twice, each day doing 6-10 problems from the lesson. If he gets every one of them quickly the first day, he can move on to the next lesson instead of repeating it the following day. (6-10 problems in Sing. NEM is about an hour’s worth of hard work, usually.) Logic is a lot of reading and making flashcards, and re-reading, and a few exercises each week. Latin is the same–read, re-read, do an exercise each day, and I will also have him listen to the week’s news in Latin here a couple of times a week. All his daily work should take him from about 8:30 to 11:30 each morning (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday–Tuesday we have to get up early and get to Classical Conversations community day.)
On Wednesday, after his daily work, we have band, and then will be doing a PE class with friends. Thursday afternoon he works on his current event for Debate, Friday afternoon he will write his report for science, and Monday afternoon he will finish reading his book and discuss it one week and write a paper on it the next week. He will also have a timeline book in which he will record everything–Bible people he encounters in AWANA, scientists he learns about in research, authors and characters he reads about in literature, composers whose music he plays in band and piano, famous Romans he reads about in Latin, and current events if applicable. The timeline book will grow with him all the way through high school. Every morning I will spend an hour with him, going over his work for the day, especially Math. In the afternoon, I am available to check his essays. He has to show me all his work and go through his checklist before he can go play in the afternoon. Since he will begin earning high school credit this year, everything counts, and record keeping is key, so I will be using this gradebook to keep track of it all. I also plan to join American Christian Academy to help with the record keeping.
Girl is going into 3rd grade, and has become a strong reader, but is still reluctant to write. She is really excited about school since she saw her science book and her science notebook though. I think she will have a great year. She will be attending Classical Conversations Foundations program once a week and will have memory work and presentations, science projects and fine arts there. At home, we will be taking a big step up from last year, as she did only AWANA, memory work, math and reading at home in second grade. This year she will go from 4 subjects to 9.
- Bible: AWANA TnT
- Math: Singapore Primary Math 2B, 3A and hopefully at least part of 3B
- Foundations Memory work
- Science: God’s Design for Life, Animals and Plants 1st semester, and God’s Design for Heaven and Earth, Planet Earth and Weather and Water 2nd semester
- History: Story of the World Volume 1 and 2 (we will read very quickly through the books so we can cover each one in a semester)
- Phonics: Funnix
- Spelling: Blue Back Speller copy work, study, and test each week
- Writing: English for the Thoughtful Child 1 and 2
- Spanish: PowerGlide Junior Spanish
Most of these don’t take very long. 20 minutes each for Bible, memory work, Funnix, spelling, writing and Spanish. I will spend an hour each morning and afternoon with her. On Wednesday morning, we will go over her math, spelling, Science, and writing for the week. Thursday and Friday morning we will recite her Bible verses and read Story of the World (to her and her sister), add to her timeline book (she has one, too) and color pictures for a history notebook. Monday morning she will show me what she did in Science, and we will review and answer questions about the topics studied, and touch on her Bible study for the week. Each afternoon I will spend an hour reading to her and her sister. We will see how it goes having her do most of her work independently. She is a pretty independent child, and I think this will be good for her. She will read her science book to her sister and they will work on their science notebooks together. She will not be allowed to go play each day until she has shown me all her work and had it checked off on her checklist.
Baby is 5, and ready for Kindergarten. She will do Funnix, listen to Story of the World and color pages for her history notebook, listen to her sister read science and work on her science notebook, and attend Foundations once a week. Every day she will also do a few pages in a Kindergarten math book and a kindergarten skills workbook–just to keep her busy. Those days that she would rather play, she will still be allowed to just go play. Next year she will have to do a full day of school every school day.
Our school schedule is a bit shorter than most. We cram a lot of formal schooling into a short period of time, and have a lot of unschooling the rest of the year. We have 2 semesters of 16 weeks each, and just Math and phonics during some of the breaks–just enough to finish the books. We do a lot of reading during our breaks, too, and watch educational videos, go on field trips, etc. This morning’s educational play for Baby is coloring and cutting out a kangaroo picture, and then playing kangaroo by tucking it into a “pouch” formed by her clothing. Girl started learning to play Bridge yesterday, and Boy was studying and teaching Bridge. All of this takes place without any prompting from me. Last week they watched the Planet Earth series over and over, as it was too hot to play outside. All of them are often found with their noses buried in books.
When I get all my organizational stuff finished (got to hurry up–we start school next Thursday) I will post about that. I have had a friend over all week helping me declutter and organize my home. We did all the visible and really annoying areas. There are still some drawers and corners–and the bathrooms–that will have to be done later. But with the big obvious stuff done, it is easier to consider maybe emptying one drawer or shelf every weekend to declutter it. Maybe later this week I will also post my science notebook and show some pictures of how their timeline books came out. I have to go get them bound.