Saturday, June 23, 2012

Next Year's Homeschool Plan-Reveal

It's that time of year again, when homeschool moms like me are making their choices for next year.  Actually, I think I'm a bit late in posting this, as I rounded up most of my choices around income tax refund season.  I am convinced that the curriculum companies plan their sales in March and April for two reasons: families are flush with income tax refunds, and burned out and looking for a change at about the same time of year.  But I digress.  

I'm listing my plans for this year.  Perhaps my plans and my explanations of my choices will help you.  We'll start with the Little Princess; her plan is the simplest.  It's a continuation of what we have been doing this year.  She just turned five on Wednesday, so, as far as I am concerned she is ahead of the game at about halfway through kindergarten.  This year, she's been doing about 2 pages a day in Explode the Code 1, and a Saxon Math K lesson every few days.  

The same math book is here because she isn't done with it yet, and she's now working in Explode the Code 11/2, which is supposed to be supplemental.  I didn't know that when I bought it, but considering her age, I think it's a good idea to take it slow.  She'll finish 2 before the year is out, and it's marked Grade 1!  The other reading book you see here is Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  We used it this year, and got up to Lesson 25 or so, but the Princess got resistant to it and so, rather than doing battle, I went back to the workbook.  I had dropped the workbook because she was resisting reading sentences, and she's over that now.  So I have learned that switching these out is good, at least for her.   The other reading instruction here is a Between the Lions tape, which I check out at the library as a supplement to whatever we are learning in Reading.  I've also got a Sid and Sam book in there, which is just something I had out of the library for her to work on a few weeks ago when I took the picture.

The real backbone of our homeschool is Tapestry of Grace.  This year we will be doing Year 3.  I only have a few Tapestry books at her level because I don't buy them; there are too many good selections at the library.  What you see here represents the era we are covering- the 1800's- from president John Adams up to William McKinley.  I bought the Abraham Lincoln paper dolls at a going out of business sale locally, and truth be told, they are for me.  

Since I mentioned it, I will tell you where I got all of these books, because learning how to find good books (Tapestry books) cheap is very important to any reader who's a Tapestry user especially.  And I know I'm not the only homeschool mom on a budget!  So...Library, of course.  Number one source!  The only thing I bought new was the Explode the Code workbook.  100 Easy Lessons, Westward Ho! and the others came from Homeschoolclassifiedads.com, Amazon.com or moms selling at curriculum fairs or Yahoo! Groups.  The Abraham Lincoln book by D'Aulaire and the Cherokee book are "found" books- I just had them around or got them out of a free box somewhere.  To do this I had to have a pretty good idea of what we were going to be looking for.

Science is not represented here.  My plan is to have her listen in on her brother's lessons from Apologia's Flying Creatures.  He loves to read to her if she will listen, or I will read to them both and she'll have a coloring sheet.  Handwriting is covered in Explode the Code, but if we need more I will get them from donnayoung.org.  That site also has pages here to go with 100 Easy Lessons.

Now for the Mayor.  I've already mentioned his Science class.  He did part of that book last year, but our local co-op is doing it this year, so he will finish it.  I plan to supplement his Science with materials about the scientific discoveries of the era we are studying in History- the steam engine, the cotton gin, light bulb, vaccine, etc.  
For math, he will continue with Saxon Math.  We were given a full set of older edition Saxon tests a couple of years ago, and although he finds it tedious, it's a strong program that we will continue with.  Math takes him hours every day, but I don't think it's the program's fault.  One problem is that he's ahead of his age, so he's writing out problems with an 8-year old hand that isn't really ready for so much writing.  I hope that this issue improves next year.  

For English we use Rod & Staff; which is an intense program.  It's not hard for The Mayor though because he's been doing it since first grade.  I used the entire Rod & Staff curriculum my first year homeschooling, and English is the only thing I still use.  Now, with the acquisition of Grade 4 this year, I have a complete collection grades 2-8.  We also use Spelling Power, and I got the 4th edition for $3.00 at a curriculum swap this spring.  Writing Aids is a handbook that comes with Tapestry of Grace, and I will use it to teach writing that covers topics from History class.  The rest of the books pictured here, as well as quite a few on our Kobo e-reader, are for History class.  The Mayor will enjoy the activity book, which has word seaches, crosswords, maps and recipes from early America.  Likewise he will enjoy the Oregon trail computer game, which has been revised just a little since I played it in junior high.  

The Girl isn't studying Apologia General Science this year.  There's a very small group her age at our local co-op who are going to take another year to get ready for this book.  I don't know yet exactly what they are going to do.  She's continuing with Saxon math, which she's doing well with this year.  I think the continual review in Saxon is perfect for her.  She got about halfway through Rod & Staff 6 this year because we had to finish 5 and her book was late arriving for 6 (through a used curriculum site).  That was my fault for not following up with the seller.  But Rod & Staff English isn't a program where you can skip the end of the book; it gets more complex each year, so we're just going to work our way through it.  I change up the order of the lessons so that the writing lessons complement the genre we're learning to write.  I also did the Capitalization and Punctuation chapters for everyone in March last year to make sure they were ready for their standardized tests, since that was a weak spot last year (we hadn't gotten to that chapter yet!).  She will also use Spelling Power as well as Wordly Wise 6 for vocabulary development.

One other thing we added this year is a Health book.  I got it at our local sale, and I didn't really shop for it because it's not a major subject.  She'll have to do about two chapters a month.  

For History, she has Oregon Trail and the Kobo like her brother.  I got the bundle of Yesterday's Classics for the Kobo, which we have accidentally nicknamed Bob, and they will share that.  We'll also listen to some of those selections from librivox.org, while in the car.  I am thinking about playing some of the selections from the past year over the summer to bring the Girl up to speed on the Dialectic level readings, because she's moving up this year and it is going to be a challenge.  The thing I am most excited about here are the missionary biographies, some of which I can borrow from church and some that I got at the local sale.  They are inspiring to read, and close to my heart.  She also has a workbook on the Constitution, which I got from paperbackswap.com.  Streams of Civilization 2 is there (found that on a "free" table), for those weeks when I can't find the sources Tapestry recommends.   We are doing our History and Literature with an on-line co-op again.
The Giant will move up to Rhetoric this year as a 9th grader.  It's a great deal of reading, but fewer different books.  I bought a bunch of them from another Tapestry mom a few weeks ago who was finished with Year 3.  That was a great find from a Yahoo! Group.  She will not be doing the Government track, just 1/2 credit US History and 1/2 credit Western Civilization.  

Like her sister The Giant has an Abeka Health book that she will need to do about a chapter a week in this year.  New York requires a half-credit in Health.  

For Science, The Giant will do Apologia Biology at our local co-op.  I got the book and the CD at a sale in April at a very good price.  I still need to order the dissection tools and specimens for the 4 dissections they will do this year.  She's not real excited about that.  She got about 2/3 through Saxon Algebra 1/2 this year and will finish that before continuing on to Algebra 1.  

There's no Rod & Staff book for the Giant; she's reached the stage where they focus on writing and we have Writing Aids and associated resources.  One interesting thing for this year is that I offered to teach all the Rhetoric Level Writing in the on-line co-op. I have four students besides my own, and I'm excited and a little nervous about that.  I have not decided yet which level(s) of Writing Aids to use, since I have 2 10th graders and 2 11th graders in addition to my 9th grader.  She doesn't use Spelling Power either but has Worldly Wise 9.

There's one more subject in that photo and it's Latin.  I'm stubbornly using Ecce! Romani because I used it in high school myself and I like the inductive approach, especially for Latin.  We did about 8 Chapters this year so we'll just pick up from there.  In addition, Fine Arts aren't really pictured but she will be studying them along Tapestry lines as well as taking a Drawing and Painting Class at co-op.  

I realized later I should have taken a picture of all the teacher's guides I will be using.  I'll be managing quite a bit with a student in each of Tapestry's 4 levels, teaching a little one how to read for the first time and helping two transition into new levels.  This is one of the reasons I like Tapestry though; although they are at different levels they are all on the same subject in History and can be combined for many things, such as geography.  But I still have to correct three math notebooks, two health books, English worksheets, etc.  I do get scattered.  We'll get behind schedule, but one of my goals this year is to do more of the hands-on projects that we love but didn't seem to find time for last year.  Check back in the Fall to see if we also get a chance to blog it!

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