Plans for next Fall?

I’ll post what I know 🙂 Our new year (grade 5 & 2) will start September 5th.

DS, Grade 5

• Language Arts: not 100% sure on this. We’re currently using Joyful Heart spelling (which I love because of the rules) and CHC Language of God for grammar, and then doing daily copywork and oral narration. We may continue this, or we may move into SW/ULW, continue copywork and start written dictations.
• Math: CLE 400
• Social Studies: Genesis to Deuteronomy
• Science: Nature Study and interest-led science experiments, projects etc…
• Literature: continue Shakespeare, poetry (we encompass our poetry study in our daily reading of poetry), assorted classic novels, fairy tales & fables.
• Enrichments:
  – Picture study will be more of an art history approach, reading through Vincent’s Starry Night.
  – Music study I think we’ll focus on the 3Bs: Bach, Beethoven and Brahms.
  – We won’t really do hymn study as we learn them well through church, but I do want to do a Folk Song study, focusing on Canadian and American folk songs
  – Art itself, will continue to be practiced through our nature study journals, working on pencil drawings and watercolor techniques.
  – Music itself, I would like to enroll my son in voice lessons.
• Languages: I’m not sure on this one, either. I would like to start Latin, which I would probably use Prima Latina. But, we live in a bi-lingual province (French), and my kids have French cousins, so, on the other hand I’d like them to start learning some French basics. And I just don’t have time to do two languages….
• Extra Curriculars: basketball

DD, Grade 2:

• Language Arts: continue Alpha Phonics and just work on reading fluency. Unsure if we’ll use anymore more formal than this or not. Then she’ll have daily copywork and of course oral narrations.
• Math: CLE 200
• Social Studies: I will not be requiring anything formal for her. We’ll focus on stories of our country, and work on learning the basics of Canadian geography.
• Science, Literature, Enrichments will all be the same as my son.
• Languages: if I do French with my son, I may include my daughter in some of it, since she’ll want to learn. But, I won’t require it.
• Extra Curriculars: basketball and dance

Ok so planning is my favorite!

Family:

Geography: we are taking a year off history (between modern and ancients) to do a thorough covering of people and their cultures. We will use all 6 Visits To…series and accompanying books. We will do map work but probably more of “color these countries” and the following week adding to it by coloring in the next ones.

Narration- we are really going to focus on this with both kids this year using our geography reads and Literature and Aesop. We are reading Narnia series alternating with whatever Lit book looks good.

nature Study- our other focus this year. I really want to focus on nature lore books along with nature study and nature journaling.

Poetry- Cristina rosseti

hymn- hymn group 3 along with modern worship songs

Memory- Bible verses and poems that fit with life’s needs as we choose them

Feast- artist- Monet, composer- Mozart, habits- still deciding, folk song- finishing up with classic American songs, BOC- I always schedule this in our loop subjects so it gets done and it is one of our favorites

DS6/7, grade 1- MUS Alpha and Beta when he finishes, daily copywork from McGuffey Reader Primer, continuing daily reading practice with me using McGuffey primer.

DD8/9, grade 3- finish MUS Beta, begin Gamma, a language arts rotation- literature and narration 2x week, copywork 1-2x week, dictation (per her request) 1-2x per week.

We will have our 3/4 year old taging along and are due with baby #4 in October, I plan to take 2-3 weeks off completely and then do lite schooling until after the new year

Nerakr-I am scheduling our math as recommended on the Delectable Education website: 2 days of geometry, 2 days of algebra, and 1 day of Consumer math each week. I highly recommend listening to the podcasts on math. They are fabulous and the featured speaker is SCM’s very own Richelle (can’t remember her last name off of the top of my head) who wrote the SCM math guide. She is wonderful!

3 streams of math just makes so much more sense to me. I’m excited to try it!

Holly-Please keep us updated as to how things go with the CMI Alveary. I, for one, want to hear all about it! It is so exciting to see more choices out there for the CM homeschool! What are you planning on doing with your eldest since they haven’t finished their highschool program?

Next year I will have a 5th grader, 3rd grader, 1st grader and one in kinder.  I’m planning to go a slightly different direction and use a lot of self taught material. (ACE and/or CLE) I’ve decided I need more time to be mom and less time as “school teacher.”  I want to do the living books and great read alouds as family time, not school time.

This year we’ve gotten into the best school routine so far. (After my 3rd and 4th babies I had really bad PPD and then developed extreme adrenal fatigue, so it’s been a challenge.)  We’ve made our hymn study book (A Mr. Pipes book) last all year and the kids have been really excited about it. If I forget to read it, they remind me.  This year’s read alouds have been a huge hit and it’s just been a great year.

So, I’m working on finding great books for read aloud time, but not doing family read alouds for official “history and science.” 🙂

I’ve just begun planning. We’re still only about 1/2 way through, not ending until August.

Son-10th:

Geography: finishing Runkle’s Physical Geography. Begin Human Geography using Great Courses and other human and cultural geography GC and documentaries.

Science: Finishing Apologia Biology using the Instructional DVDs.

Formal Logic (fall sem.) at MyFunScience  using Nance’s Introduction to Logic

Formal Logic (spring sem.) at Memoria Press Academy using Martin Cothran’s Traditional Logic

Foreign Language: Latin 1B (last half of Latin Alive 1) at Big River Academy; Hebrew 1A self-directed, refresher using Hebrew: A Language Course by Ora Band
Math: Alg. 1 using Tabletclass and supplementing with CTC Math for more practice problems

Composition:Writing ER at Big River Academy; Summer 2018: Windows to the World with me, 1 sem. time frame, to teach Lit. Analysis essay

American Lit.: w/Center for Lit. discussion only; meets 1/mth. I require annotating. I may add an extra 2 or 3 books when classes end in May of 2018.

American History: self-designed using A Patriot’s History of the United States and its Reader as spine, and a primary sources site. I’m trying to figure out how to pull it together using Classical Historian methods from Schoolhouseteachers and Larry  Schweikart’s website.

Science Fiction Book Club: Leisure reading: 1 book/mth; meets 1x/mth with Excelsior Academy for discussion

Typing: either Mavis Beacon or SchoolhouseTeachers

Shakespeare: TBD; live shows at a local Shakespeare Tavern Theater

Poetry-included in Amer. Lit

Music – Professor Carol. Either America’s Artistic Legacy or Exploring America’s Musical Heritage.

Bible: together. Our normal yearly Torah Portion cycle, with NT added and commentary.

Spelling:Megawords; also he will be required to show me words he circled while annotating with their definitions.

Jewish Studies: TBD

Personal Development: TBD

P.E.: hopefully, swimming at our local Jewish Center or at a local charter school.

That’s all I can think of at the moment for him. He’ll take PSAT in the fall.

I’ll chime in with dd later.

Sounds great Holly! I’ll be looking forward to hearing how your year goes. 🙂

I also wanted to add that we are using SCM’s Visits to North America this year as well as reading from a living geography book once a week.

We’ve settled on a science plan. We are going to continue our Apologia Biology (which is nearly done) once a week, do Sabbath Mood Chemistry 3 times a week for the first term. We will switch Chemistry for Physics the 2nd term, and Astronomy for Physics the 3rd term.

After reading more about doing 3 streams of science, I have decided to go with recommendations (as far as scheduling goes) from Sabbath Mood Homeschool. The Biology is obviously not a living book but we are nearly done with it so want to finish it up. I decided we’d just go ahead and use it for the once a week scheduled Biology lesson. Sabbath Mood hasn’t come out with a high school guide for Biology yet but I am excited to see what she comes up with!

I am actually working on setting all of these plans into action as soon as possible. I am waiting for my Patty Paper Geometry book to come in and then we will begin our new math schedule. We are already doing the history schedule and will begin the science schedule next week.

Next fall, my dc will be ds10 (grade 5), dd9 (grade 4), ds6 (grade 1)  and dd4 (Mama’s helper).  We have used the SCM curriculum guide for the past 4 years and have thoroughly enjoyed the materials (I’m not ready to part with them yet), but Mama needs change for at least 1 year!

This coming year we plan to use the Charlotte Mason Institute’s Alveary. I I will probably put ds10 and dd9 in the same grade (Form IIB or possibly IIA) and ds6 will be in form IB.

Tweaks:

Math-U-See Delta and Epsilon for ds10

I really like SCM’s Using Language Well and Spelling Wisdom, so we will include those for the 2 older children.

There will be more tweaks, I will do more planning once we finish this term.

Mother’s Education:  Read Charlotte Mason’s volumes for at least 10 minutes every day and narrate in journal; nature journal (daily walk and notes, weekly drawing or painting); listen to A Delectable Education podcast on Thursday afternoons and compose a written narration; continue to attend Charlotte Mason mother’s group which meets monthly to study Charlotte Mason’s 20 principles;  attend at least 1 CM retreat by the end of 2017; save up to attend CMI’s conference in England next year (I think that is happening in 2018).  Other daily reading plans:  the Bible and then whatever appeals from the big stack of books I have!  I find that if I make plans for myself and put them in my planner, I actually get it done!  I also enjoy gardening, calligraphy, and playing the piano (I desperately need to practice), so I am hoping to include these in my plans as well.

To those of you who are overwhelmed with planning (I get overwhelmed at times), here are some scriptures that might encourage you:

Philippians 4:13; Psalm 121; Hebrews 13:5-6

Thank you to everyone for sharing.  I learn so much from you all!

–Rachel