Share Your Plans for Next School Year

Decided to post more definite plans.

Ds11 (6th grade)
Bible-undecided. I want him to start daily readings, but until then I am considering using Bible in Two Years from Adventures in Mommydom. We will continue the Scripture Memory modules from SCM. We may also do the Lego Matthew Challenges. Otherwise, we will continue the reading plan we have been using. Review the Books of the Bible.

Language Arts-Daily Grammar 5 from SchoolhouseTeachers.com; try moving into transcription (he has a handwriting delay which makes handwriting difficult, so we were still doing copywork this last year). Transcription/copywork 2x; writing prompts/lessons, including editing and revision 2x. Word usage book (homophones, etc.) 1x. Try Writing 8s from Dianne Craft again. We’ve had trouble staying consistent with it. Spelling City/1000 common words list.

Literature/Reading–choose from booklists I’ve created from SCM, AO, and other sources as well as his own interests

Poetry-limericks, Longfellow, Visit to William Blake’s Inn, maybe Kipling

Math-continue planning our own. This year will focus on long division, fractions, decimals, word problems, area/perimeter/measurement (if we get to it), and elapsed time.

Science-ABEKA Health. We will be using parts of all the books (gr. 4-6), focusing on the human body. I will probably also be preparing him for “The Talk” that his father will give him in the next year or so. Supplement with other books or videos. One day a week we will learn or review material for his 4H contests (Forestry and Wildlife).

History-finish US History, focusing on wars/military, since he’s interested in that right now. Finish learning state abbreviations and begin learning capitals.

Foreign Language-undecided. Probably Foreign Language for Kids by Kids (Spanish)

Character Studies-Max Lucado children’s books; Melody Carlson’s children’s books; Child’s Book of Faith

Fine Arts-nothing scheduled. I will work in anything he shows an interest in.

Handicrafts–nothing definite. He says he wants to learn to sew, so I am looking for resources that don’t look too “girly” in that area.

Dd8 (in July). 3rd Grade with special needs.
Bible: Continue reading through our Bible story book. She likes to read it aloud, then I read the same story to her. If I use Bible in 2 Years with ds, I will add that in for her as well. Begin learning the books of the Bible.

Language Arts: she is very independent in this area. She likes to “do her own thing” by writing her own stories, so copywork is hit or miss (more “miss.”) I will continue to work toward more structure in this area. She may be ready for learning about proper punctuation and capitalization.

Reading–picture books and select easy readers. She wasn’t interested in Little Bear, but will try Arthur the Chimp, Frog and Toad, and a few others.

Literature-begin longer works with her. Possibilities include Little House in the Big Woods, Charlotte’s Web, All of a Kind Family, and the Paddington series.

Math–focus on multi-digit addition and subtraction, place value, and counting money. ETA: We’ve been working on place value this summer, so we may not have to do much with that.

Science–use The Let’s Read and Find Out series and similar books for Human Body, which will take about 2 terms. Then switch to either plants or earth and space science.

History–This month we began a study of the 50 states using a booklist I prepared several years ago.

Foreign language–nothing planned. She may watch Salsa as she takes an interest.

Character Studies–same as for her brother as well as Aesop’s Fables

Fine Arts–nothing scheduled. Will do art/craft projects as interest is shown.

Handicrafts-nothing scheduled. Will try to encourage her to use jersey loom or make jewelry

I also hope to incorporate more learning centers this year, especially in the Language/Social area.

Wings2fly,

For abbreviations, I just made worksheets. I did five states at a time. Originally, I made four different activities–multiple choice-state to abbrev, multiple choice-abbrev to state, word bank, matching–and had ds do one per week. But my son said he knew them after the first week or two. We have 20 to go, so this time, I’ll see if he can retain it after only one week. We will start capitals when we finish abbreviations. I plan to use Yo, Sacramento by Will Cleveland.

Thanks Nebby. I will have to review the “everything” book again.

Robin

Visits to North America from SCM covers the states, abbreviations would be simple to add on if they aren’t covered.

Hello Everyone! We are new to CM, so I am sticking fairly close to SCM for this first school year. Although, I am already eying some resources on AO. I may add some AO science recommendations a little later.

I have four kids, twin girls that are 10 and have challenges with dyslexia. My oldest two boys are 12 and 13.

We started our school year last week and it is going great. We school year round really. We always take a month off during summer break to enjoy swimming. We will take another couple weeks off in October to frolick around.

Family: History: SCM Early Modern & Epistles

Music: Mozart, Beethoven and I have yet to decide on our third. Using a mixture of SCM music studies and Who was? book series combined with google music subscription selections. Also doing hymn study. I picked 10 hymns and found info/lyrics and using youtube videos with lyrics to sing along.

Art: We are using art hub for kids dot com. Love that website and it is independent.

Picture study: I followed the charlotte mason help dot come recommendation and made my own copies of pictures, using wiki and google to learn a brief bit about the artists themselves. We are studying Monet, Velasquez and Vermeer this year.

Science: Living books and nature study. My oldest boy is studying aerodynamics to go along with his Civil Air Patrol. He is interest led currently. Other son is just reading living books until something grabs his attention OR until we start Apologia General Science.

Language Arts: Spelling Wisdom, Using Language Wisely and Painless Grammar.

Math: for my girls, they are still using Rod and Staff Arithmetic. My boys are doing Lial’s Basic College Mathematics as a pre-algebra course.

We are working on copywork and typing for all.

We do have a stack of family read aloud selections. We are currently reading Anne of Green Gables and loving it.

Handicrafts will have to be pondered on some more but currently just artsy fartsy, interest led activities that doesn’t involve electronics until 5pm 😉

Sportswise: my girls are into gymnastics. My boys are both into Civil Air Patrol.

It’s been a year since this thread was started and  I thought it would be fun to revisit this thread and see how everyone’s plans worked out. What was a hit? What was a miss?

We ended up ditching most of our plans-lol. We did finish up Apologia General Science and Math U See Pre Algebra; both of those went really well. I am still so surprised that both of us like Apologia upper level books so well. We read many of the books I listed but several of them didn’t turn out to be our cup of tea. We did cover the same time period but we switched out many of our living books for others.

We also started using SCM’s Visits To series for geography and we are enjoying those.

Overall, it’s been a great year! I’m very pleased with my daughter’s progress and thankful for all the wonderful books we’ve been able to read and the great discussions we’ve had as a result. We homeschool year round so my daughter just finished up the last of her 8th grade work on Friday. We are officially starting 9th grade today!

I’m looking forward to hearing how everyone’s year has gone!

Great idea Melanie!  Here’s my “report”:

History: Famous Men of Middle Ages wasn’t a hit with the kids, so we used SOTW 2 with the rest of SCM’s guide, instead of FM of Renaissance.  As usual, we didn’t get to all the books I was hoping to.

Bible: We’ve gone back to using a children’s Bible for our readings, but are reading from the Bible for our evening devotions.

Geography: Visits hasn’t gotten done as much as I’d like, but we’ve enjoyed what we’ve fit in.

Science: We read a few science books, did most of the Burgess study, and have been working on CKE Earth & Space.  I think CKE is a good fit for us, because I can do as much or as little of the program each week, as time allows.  We’ve been able to fit in some fun science kits as well!

Habits: We’ve only managed to fit in one habit study this year, but it went well.

Handicrafts/Art: We made it through the first year of Paper Sloyd for the Primary Grades.  Everyone loved this and it was very easy to fit in!  We also did some of the Draw Squad lessons and picture studies from Harmony Fine Arts grade 6.

Shakespeare: I decided to study Shakespear as our poet for the year.  We read through the Poetry for Young People book on Shakespeare and it was a good read.

Foreign Language:  We have finished up Prima Latina, and it’s going to be a big part of our day next year.  My younger ones will re-start Prima Latina and the older ones will be using Visual Latin.

Math: MUS is still going well.  I plan on continuing with this through high school

Language Arts: ELTL has been a great fit for us, although we didn’t get to all the literature selections.

Kindergarten/1st grade:  We’ve gone through a Starfall workbook and early readers booklets. She’s also finishing the McGuffey Primer and reading lots on her own.  For math, we’ve done some of Liberty Math K, but she didn’t care for all the writing.  A much better math choice has been R&S Inside and Outside workbook!  She’s working through it right now.  I picked up 4 R&S workbooks at the beginning of the year, and she’ll be finishing them up this summer.  Finding the Answers is one of my favorites since there’s lots of cutting & pasting activities.  We’re also reading through the Bearenstein Bears Big Book of Science and Nature, a few pages at a time.  She loves this one!  We’ve read some other books during the year as well.

Individual planners: These haven’t been going like I’d hoped.  I’ve switched to a digital planner, so I can print these out ahead of time, instead of writing in their planners.

Read Alouds:  We just discovered Edward Eager’s Half Magic and are thrilled to see there is an entire series of them!  I so often do “heavier” books for read alouds, since I want to read what they can’t on their own.  However, reading something more “fun” has been a nice change of pace!  I’m taking that into account for the coming year.  🙂