It's Been a While!

I've been so busy!!!!

We've been doing all of our wrapping up of last year's materials and getting ready to begin our next phase. The kids have gone to camp and come back and we are now organizing our life to get started on Monday!

We are really ready. It's been a LOOOOOONG week of "I'm bored." When it starts to get like that I dust off the books and get to planning because I know it's time! They are actually excited to start. I'm thinking it will be good to begin new stuff.

Here's the plan so far!

History

We are starting our 2 year study of American History. This year we will be using the Beautiful Feet guide with the Genvieve Foster books as our spine. We will be reading a LOT of living books and my oldest 2 will begin writing monthly term papers based on our studies. We will tie in Art History and Music Appreciation from this time period to enhance our studies on Fridays.

Science

This has been a tough one for me (see posts below). I was struggling with what to do with my oldest who is a rising 9th grader but a very young one (she will just turn 14 in Sept.) Science has been a HUGE commitment for her this year with Biology and all. She's done well, but, it's been a lot of work for her. Also, she is a little more than half way through Algebra 1 (we had some struggles at the beginning!). The natural progression would be for her to start Chemistry this year, but, I'm afraid that her math skills need a little more work.

In the meantime, I've bought Christian Kids Explore Chemsitry (for grades 5-8) for my younger 2 for this year. I've decided to start my oldest out in that with her younger siblings and let her get her math skills further along and then once she starts Geometry, we will begin Chemistry with Apologia as originally planned. She isn't really interested in college yet, but, I want to make sure she's up to par on science in case she changes her mind.

I feel good about this decision because I think she will in the long run excel with this plan instead of struggle her way through science she really isn't ready for.

We will also continue nature journaling, which we enjoy! Another thing we will be implementing is gardening and weather.

Language Arts

This is an easy one for me! We will continue with Learning Language Arts Through Literature for the younger 2 and begin American Literature with KISS grammar for the oldest. We will also begin KISS grammar for my youngest since I forgot to order Ridgewood (my fav grammar program) and now I have to wait until someone who is coming down can bring it for me!

My oldest 2 will be doing Writing Strands and will be working on writing essays this year. This will be a stretch, because, eventhough we've done a lot of writing, I've never really required a full-on essay with notes, bibliography, etc. We will work on this all year.

We will also be doing Shakespeare throughout the year on Fridays. My kids actually love reading these plays and sonnets. They think it's interesting learning about the language and all of the historical things attatched to Shakespeare.

Math

The oldest will continue with Teaching Textbooks. I really love this program. It's been so great for a non-math mom like me!!!!

My middle child is really advanced at math and enjoys it a lot! She is currently doing an intro. to Algebra course with the Key To...books and will be moving on to Teaching Textbooks later this year.

My youngest will be starting Saxon 65. He is good at math, but, a little lazy about it. He doesn't apply himself the way he should so we will be working on that.


There are a lot of other subjects we will be working with, government, world view, etc. but, that's for later! I can only plan so much!