Share Your Plans for Next School Year

My 12 yo daughterr has dyslexia and other language-based disabilities, so she is not working at what is considered ‘grade !evel’. After three years of trying to find good fit for her, I have come up with a plan for this fall that I think will bring some positive results. This is what I have planned:

Bible/Character: A gentle study on purity through The Princess and the Kiss book and guide; Personal Help for Girls from Pearables; Scripture memory

Math On the Level, which uses hands-on activities and games to teach math concepts; I am also going to use a book from Landmark School, Multiplication and Division Facts for the Whole-To-Part, Visual Learner.

Language Lessons For the Well-Trained Mind, vol. 2, Spelling You See, Winning With Writing, Abeka Readers, and read-aloud historical fiction to go along with our historical time period, e.g. The Golden Goblet, The Bronze Bow, along with other stories of interest (maybe some Patricia St. John books)

History: Beginning a chronological study, Creation and Ancients, utilizing one or more of the following, Christine Miller’s Guerbers Ancients history, Truth Quest Beginnings, and readings and activities from Learning Adventures unit studies on Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Geography will be included.

Science: AIG God’s Design for Life: Plants, Animals, Human Body; may do some science activities from Learning Adventures

Art: Instruction in pastels through Hodge Podge; drawing

Music: Piano lessons and singing

PE: Hiking, playing ball, swimming, and hopefully a more structured time for indoor exercising in winter

Hi Wings2fly! 🙂 I am planning on using the Yesterday’s Classics edition. I didn’t know there was a new edition!

I just joined SCM today, but I’ve been reading here for several months. Y’all are why I finally got the guts to ditch the boxed curriculum, so thanks!

For my 6 year old son, first grade(ish)

Math: ShillerMath book 1 – we’ve already started this and it’s SO much fun! He loves it and is learning easily and without tears. Not much writing, which is one reason I chose it (kinesthetic learner).

LA: Ambleside Online’s year one for literature, The Reading Lesson for phonics, some montessori activities for penmanship (we are doing cursive), explode the code books 1 and 1 1/2 (he loves workbooks so I think he will like this).

History: Ancient Civilizations and the Bible True Tales and What in the World? (audio CDs) plus chosen reading from Journey Through the Bible and Usborne Encyclopedia of the Ancient World.

Geography: AO year 1 schedule (Paddle to the Sea, teaching some basic geography concepts).

Science: Apologia Flying Animals of the Fifth Day, plus interest-led topics from the library.

Nature: AO, and lots of family hikes and camping. Focus on birds this year to go along with science. We just got binoculars for birthdays, so we will use those a lot.

Music: Hopefully piano lessons. We will see if that actually fits with the family schedule. We will listen to and read about Peter and the Wolf, Carnival of the Animals, and The Four Seasons.

Hymns: Honestly, my plan is to choose a hymn sung in church on Sunday and just sing that every day for the week.

Folk songs: Wee Sing Fun n’ Folk. Maybe next year we will get a little more cultured with the folk songs. i’m trying to make the plan realistic for our first real school year 😉

Bible: AO scheduled readings, memorize 10 commandments, still need to choose memory verses for the year.

Art: I have a Monet book coming for first term, not sure about the rest of the year! The boys are obsessed with magnifying glasses right now so we will use those to inspect the pictures.

Will also do lots of drawing and painting, play-doh and clay (when i can stand the mess!).

Spanish: We have some DVDs and a few spanish books. I’d like to take this up a notch, but I plan to add more Spanish work in after we have everything else working consistently. So that may not happen until . . . spring?

Handicrafts: knot tying, origami, cooking basics, cleaning the bathroom well 😉

For my 4 year old son, preschool:

ShillerMath book 1: Trying to keep him going slowly in this to space the big boys. But he loves it and wants to do tons every day. This book is supposed to start with kindergarten level math, but he does great with it.

I also got him Go For the Code C, and he will tag along and listen to most of what I do with my older son. Our bible time is mandatory, but I won’t make him sit still for the other subjects.

Will also work with the montessori activities for prewriting and early cursive writing (sandpaper letters, sand tray writing, air writing, some chalkboard practice).

We will also read lots of Mother Goose and AO suggestions for year 0 with the 4 and 2 year olds.

When the weather is nice I make sure they get at least several hours outside.

I’m pretty excited about our choices for this year. We’ve already started some of it, and it’s so much more fun than the box curriculum we were attempting for K last year.

My daughter Mikaela, will be 8 in early October & my son Liam will be 3 in early September. *how can this be???*

We also do school year round (with all of December focused on the Advevt season) and we also do different things during the summer months. So currently, I still consider Fall to be the start of our school year.

For Liam, I going to try out Before Five in a Row. I only intend to do it so long as he shows interest. If he is not showing interest, I will set it aside for 3 months and then try again. But, I have a good feeling that he will enjoy it.

For Mikaela, I’m kind of backing up… a lot. What I’m planing to do might seem a bit crazy to some of you. Or all of you. It’s a bit complicated but, here is some back story for you… We relocated from FL to TX 18 months ago, leaving behind family, friends & church. This affected her deeply (to the point that she developed tics that would come and go). And major behavior problems. Her behavior got worse the longer we were there, to the point that we had her on a waiting list for evaluation for ASD. The joy & zeal she had for school & reading quickly faded after our move and it has gotten to the point that, every time I mention school, she often gets moody. Not at all what I envisioned for my 7 year old. Also, our relationship suffered a lot during our time in TX.

We moved back home to FL just last month and her behavior has been SO much better… almost a different child in many ways. And with some of the summer changes I made, she seems to be enjoying school a little more but, still, not the way she used to. And some days she seems as if it’s the last thing she wants to do. So, I just made a couple of other changes (like dropping the Little House series for now and starting Winnie-the-Pooh).

She is academically strong, doing 2nd & 3rd grade Math and reading on a 2nd grade level (though she needs more work in fluency with read-alouds.) I think, because of that, I made things way too serious, way too sokn for her. While academically advanced in areas, she is very, VERY socially young. As in, she often plays better with children much younger than herself (3 & 4 yr. Olds) and kids her age get annoyed by her touchy, graby, energetic, over-the-top excited personality. She still enjoys watching shows geared toward toddlers (not really a bad thing). And because her brother is 2, he does tend to get a lot of attention (positive & negative) and because of that, she has literally been acting like a 2 yr. Old lately. And I feel like I’m struggling to connect with her.

So, my number one goal is to reignite that spark and get her back to a place of having true joy and excitement for learning. Back to the place where she beams with pride after a job well, done. In my research, I really felt like my heart (and likely this was God tugging on my heartstrings) was leading me toward Five in a Row. So, I prayed about it and asked a close friend to do the same. She had such encouraging and confirming words for me. But, the price was a factor. Within 24 hours, I found used copies of vol. 1-3, the cookbook & the character/Bible supplement AND even Before FIAR (for Liam). That sealed the deal.

I know FIAR is not really Charlotte Mason and I know it may seem a tad crazy to do vol. 1-3 with an almost 8 yr. Old. But, I feel deep in my heart that this is something we both need. To help mend our relationship, create fond memories and reignite her love for learning.

Since she loves and excells at Math, I will pretty much keep things the same there. We combine Miquon & CLE. For the summer, we started Life of Fred for a change of scenery and she really likes it.

For copywork/handwriting she is still doing Print to Cursive Proverbs and then she will move to Hymns in Prose.

For Science/Nature Study some of that will get covered through FIAR. I am thinking about getting Outdoor Secrets and the companion at the convention next month and I will occasionally do reading lessons with the Liberty Nature Readers. (Love checking off 2 subjects at once). We are 8 or 9 chapters into Burgess Bird book which she kind of enjoys. So, I’m on the fence if I want to revisit it in a year or two or, just go through it a bit slower (I was reading an entire chapter at each sitting… probably too long for her).

For Hymns we use the book series Hymns for Kids Hearts (2 songs per trimester)

I just scored used copies of the entire LDTR series so, I’m definitely doing that for Habits along with the FIAR Character supplement.

Bible… might be the FIAR supplement or, reading through the Children’s Story Bible and/or Jesus Storybook Bible. We did Apologia Who is God last year but, I don’t think we will move on to book 2 (Who is my Neighbor) just yet. Also, maybe a family devotional called Our 24 Family Ways.

Poetry: Finish Garden of Verses, Winnie-the-Pooh Poems, Selections from Favorite Poems Old & New for Boys & Girls

My thoughts are still feeling a bit scattered for the rest. But, all in all, FIAR will be a huge focus.

Thank you so much for those sweet words of encouragement Tristan! I already figured I would take her lead with how many times we read the entire book. ?

I’m equal parts excited and apprehensive about this year’s school plans. Excited, because after this last year of homeschooling with SCM (our first year doing it) we love it even more than I thought we would, and nervous, because we are planning on moving out of the country halfway through our school year. So we’ll see how it all goes. Tentatively, our plan looks like this:

History – SCM Module 2: Ancient Greece. We’ll do this with both my ds7 and my dd9, as well as allowing my dd 5 to come and go as she pleases. Generally she’ll be nearby listening as we do our group work.

Bible – We’ll be doing the Joshua through Malachi reading that is recommended with module 2 as well, but it’s possible that we may keep reading through Proverbs as well. We started it this summer, and I don’t know if we’ll be done with the book by the end of summer. It has been a really enjoyable family discussion time, so there’s a good chance that we will continue with it. Scripture memory is around the table at breakfast, so we’ll continue with that.

Science – We’ll be doing Apologia Astronomy this year. The kids are fascinated by science in general, and space in particular, so I’m hoping that they will enjoy it. We will also be incorporating nature study into our week, but I don’t know exactly what that will look like yet. We started going through the Thornton Burgess Bird book and companion from SCM at the end of last year, so we will probably continue with that at the minimum once a week.

LA – Apart from narration, copywork, and some dictation for my dd9, we will be doing mostly Bravewriter projects. So one writing assignment a month for the older two, and then jotting down the stories/information that my dd5 is eager to share. We may also read Grammar-Land, as we have time, to expose the kids a bit more to some of the basic grammar terms. And play Mad Libs 😉

Foreign Language – will be French. We will continue doing a combination of the Speaking French lessons that we started, as well as Rosetta Stone, and, for fun, a French kindergarten website called http://www.mondespetite.fr It is pretty much perfect for a new speaker, because it’s full of basic vocabulary and everything is in French. Plus there are all sorts of fairytales, songs, and little videos to watch in French. The kids love it. The country we are moving to is French speaking, so partway through the year, our language learning will probably change, and ramp up a bit.

Poetry will be a review of a few of our favorites from RLS, who we studied this past year, and then we will be studying Longfellow. I will have them choose poems that they wish to memorize, but I haven’t decided how many yet.

Music/Composers that we study will be Hadyn, Brahms and Mendelssohn.

Math – dd9 is doing CLE 4th Grade, ds 7 is doing CLE 2nd, and dd5 will be doing a more CM approach to beginning math concepts. I know that CLE isn’t a CM type of math at all, but it has been a good fit for the older two at least, and the review seems to be very helpful for my oldest. So for now, we’re sticking with it.  I’m planning on using a mixture of the SCM Math book ideas, and Arithmetic for Young Children for my dd5.

My dd5 will be doing FIAR, which I am super excited about! I will probably let the older kids “drop in” to listen as our schedule permits. She will be going through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy lessons for reading, and apart from that she will be playing/exploring at her leisure.

For habit training we will use LDTR, and I haven’t decided which one we will start with.

Apart from that, we will be using SCM literature lists, for our read alouds, and exploring art, handicrafts and music as we can. Once we move though… our schedule may look a LOT lighter for the second half of the year. And I’m trying to convince myself ahead of time, that this is ok!

Thank you, Wings2fly. I am continually telling myself that we can cut back as needed, and it won’t be a big deal. I figure adjusting to a completely new country, culture and language should be considered educational experience even if I can’t “technically” count a lot of it.

I also meant to say that I’m trying to compile a good audio book collection before we leave. The difficult thing is that internet won’t always be predictable, so I’ll probably try to have as much as I can downloaded/on hand. I want to get the SOTW audio books before we leave so that if history falls apart when we get there I can at least pop a cd in and know they are learning something still.

I’m glad to hear that CLE has worked well for your family. We are big fans of it so far, and I’m hoping it will continue to work for us as the kids get older.

Thanks for the advice and permission 🙂 Sometimes it’s nice to hear someone else say, “It’s ok!” And also, thanks for the fix on the link. French spelling is not a strong area yet, obviously!

I’m afraid I am over scheduling the kids, esp in LA, but we will drop what doesn’t work. My kids are ages 10 (5th grade), 8 (3rd grade), and 5 (kindergarten).

Family:
Hymn Study: Hymns for Kids, Vol. 1 by Joni Earickson Tada
Personal Development: LDTR for Children
Literature: Finish Narnia Series, Wind in the Willows, TBD
Composer/Artist: TBD
Poetry: SCM’s Emily Dickinson poems

Rebekah, age 10, 5th grade:
Scripture Memory: AWANA
Bible/History: 1st semester finish SCM’s Acts, Rome, and Europe
Bible: 2nd semester Precept 4 Kids Epistle study
History: 2nd semester TQ Middle Ages w/ SCM Module 4
Geography: 2nd semester map study for S. America (or Visits if made available by then)
Science: God’s Design for Life; Nature Study Journal
Shakespeare: Midsummer Night’s Dream
Math: MUS Epsilon
Copywork: Queen’s Pictures in Cursive C, D, and E
Typing: BBC Dance Mat Typing
Spanish: La Clase Divertida, finish level 2 and begin level 3
Reading: Pathway reader 5th grade and other living books
Missionary Study: YWAM books (TBD)
Music: band
Spelling: AAS level 3 and SW
Language Arts: ILL and Using Language Well
Creative Writing: Story Starters

Joshua, age 8, 3rd grade:
Scripture Memory: AWANA
Bible/History: 1st semester finish SCM’s Acts, Rome, and Europe
Bible: 2nd semester Precept 4 Kids Epistle study
History: 2nd semester TQ Middle Ages w/ SCM Module 4
Geography: 2nd semester map study for S. America (or Visits if made available by then)
Shakespeare: Midsummer Night’s Dream
Math: MUS Gamma
Copywork: Hymns in Prose 1st semester; Print to Cursive Proverbs 2nd semester
Reading: Pathway Reader 4th grade and other living books
Spelling: AAS level 2, SW
Language Arts: PLL and Using Language Well
Spanish: La Clase Divertida, finish level 1 and begin level 2
Music: Kodaly music class I teach at co-op

Micah, age 5, Kindergarten:
Scripture Memory: AWANA
Bible: OT stories from Catherine Vos Children’s Bible w/ flannel board
Math: MUS Primer, supplement with RS games and activities
Handwriting: HWT Kindergarten
Reading: 100 EZ lessons or Delightful Reading (I may even mix them up a bit and see what works best for him)
Music: Kodaly music class I teach at co-op