Plans for next year

Yesterday was my homeschooling yearly review.

WOO HOO IT'S OVER!

LOL

*deep breath*

Every year after that day, I say BREAK TIME! and the kids enjoy the good weather while I gather information for next year.  Maybe it's the ADD in me and my kids, but by April we are itching to stop what we are doing, take a break, and start up with a whole new set of books and ideas for the next year.  Now that it's May, almost June, I feel positively DONE (mentally) with the year and have enjoyed using my spare time (and not so spare) dreaming up 2011-2012 plans.

Excuse me while I break up a fight over nail polish...

OK, here is what I've decided for this summer into next year.  Most is pretty set, my thoughts on history are tentitive.  I'll give a little    way too much   some background here and there to help explain why things are chosen the way they are:

Juliet and Maggie are 13 and 11 (will both have birthdays in late fall).  Next year's grades are 8th and 6th.  Due to their specific strengths and weaknesses I can combine them in almost everything this year and hope to continue that for awhile.

Math:  Summer will be spent nailing down fractions, decimals, and percents using Math-U-See DVDs (Epsilon and Zeta).  They have already covered these topics in several other ways but *still* don't seem to understand just WHAT they are doing and why.  An expensive backtracking, especially when I accidentally bought Zeta used --twice--, but hopefully worth it in the long run.  I don't want pre-algebra and algebra to bomb because they aren't solid on the precursors, YKWIM?    After that I have MUS pre-algebra on the shelf so we'll start there.  When the new Teaching Textbooks pre-alg comes out I might use that. Depends on what I think of MUS (I'll preview before starting with the girls).  I didn't like MUS for the early years because a whole course on just addition or subtraction really didn't work for us. Hopefully it's just the ticket for us now!  Onward...

Language Arts:   Covered somewhat by Maggie's CLAA's Grammar (Latin) class which I'll review with Juliet even though she is not taking Latin.   Liturature and writing will be through Lightning Liturature 7 and 8, and Skills for Literary Analysis.  Juliet will continue to work through Apples and Pears spelling and Megawords.

Science:  Apologia General Science, then Physical whenever we finish General. I'm not going to rush it, but I'm not going to hold back either. I know there are complaints about how accurate their science is, but I need this level, I need it laid out for me, I need it on audio, and honestly I love that it seems to hold God first, science second.  These two kids are not science lovers, nor do I think they will go into scientific fields, so I think we're good with this for middle school.  Besides, I *am* a science lover, and I know that "truth" in science ebbs and flows as we discover more and disprove more.   We'll use other sources here and there if we have time for other viewpoints, particularly as we get into high school. But we are not there yet. So moving along...

History:  Ugh.  First I thought we would just do Sonlight Core 6 or 6/7 (or G or H  or whatever they are calling them now! LOL) because we've done K-5 in one form or another.  Then I said, NO, let's do Core 100 since it is best for middle school or beginning high school and my 11yo *loves* the History of US by Hakim. I've heard Core 100 isn't always considered high school level so I wanted it in middle school. But then I realized that I've never done the middle ages with anyone! Besides, I'm pretty sure Juliet will need "late middle school level" for grade 9 anyway, so Core 100 is off the table until maybe next year.   At this point, my  weird plan is to have Maggie continue her CLAA Chronology class and have Juliet listen in while I read it aloud.  CLAA demands 100% mastery and memorization which would just not work for Juliet unless all her other work comes to a grinding halt, so I'm not signing her up.  I'll throw in historical fiction from each time period using Sonlight and these plans from Classical House of Learning.  CLAA keeps the Catholicism in it so I'm good there.  Maybe I'll buy the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia since Juliet has enjoyed reading through the Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia this year.

Religion:  Since we are woefully bad at living the liturgical year, we use textbooks for fear of dropping it altogether.   The children have all liked Seton's Religion series (links to Religion 6).  It's repetitive but they don't mind and it drills it into them.  We do CLAA Catechism 1 as a family and Maggie and Grace are signed up for the class so take the tests, memorize, etc.  Juliet will most likely move up to Seton's confirmation book even though our church doesn't start confirmation prep for another year, and Maggie will read through Religion 6. I'm also thinking of signing up for CLAA's Biblical Studies as a family. I've heard it's a great course.

Music: CLAA Music Theory 1

Art:  Juliet might do an art camp this summer.  Otherwise? NOT SURE.  We are still hoping to finish Seton's Art 5 which is art history.  I think Art 7 is as well, maybe I'll get that.

Health: Our state requires it.  Maggie's working through Care and Keeping of You and Juliet's in the middle of  the Joyful Mysteries of Life. I probably should move on from there...

This looks like a lot all piled up on top of each other, but hopefully in practice it will be simple.

I think I'm missing something too...

The two little girls have a much more simplified curriculum:

Grace (8 and going into 3rd grade) and Leah (6 and entering 1st)  will be signed up for CLAA's Common School which will hopefully open in the fall.  This will cover language arts, math, and religion.  History will be historical fiction at their level corresponding to what the older girls are doing and/or listening to me teach the olders, and for science they will listen in to me doing science with the others and help with experiments. Netflix videos should round it all out nicely. They are already excellent readers so don't need a lot of hand holding in that area.

Last but not least I'm thinking of signing us up for Discovery Streaming through the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op (warning, video starts when you open link). That will definitely help me cover all the topics in a nice visual way for my technology addicted kids.

Thanks to anyone that made it this far!  I mostly wrote it for my own record keeping. :)  My mind is not what it used to be (see note above about buying Zeta twice in one week).