Homeschool Planning 2015-16

Last year, we continued our Multi-Grade curriculum in My Father's World.

So far, we have completed:

• Exploring Countries and Cultures;
  

• Creation to the Greeks;
  

• Rome to the Reformation; and
  

• Exploration to 1850.
  
  

We have been extremely satisfied with this curriculum and it has worked well for teaching several children in various grades. However, last year, we didn't find it as satisfying.

Exploration to 1850 seems to be a little repetitive in information I didn't feel was important for my children to learn. The kids bored easily of much of the reading and I'm pretty sure Charlotte Mason would have considered some of the reading material "twaddle". By the end of the year, the kids were so done (moreso than usual) with school, and I could tell, as an 18 year homeschool veteran, that it was time for change.

I sat down with my elementary aged kids and had that "so what do you want to do now" conversation. When I asked them what was the most fun they had had learning, they described things Charlotte Mason would have been doing in her classes. I went back and brushed up on CM methods, and started paying more attention to the things the kids were naturally interested in. As we went for walks down our dirt road, I listened to the questions they asked and the things they talked about.
For instance, "Mom, look at that yellow bird over there. What kind of bird is it?" or "Look at the clouds! Don't they look cool today?"

I know in my heart that the Charlotte Mason Method is and has always been the best way for MY family to learn. Her ideas resonate with me and I have seen success in my kids. As soon as we closed the books and got our homeschool evaluations out of the way, I sat down and started planning out what I hope is to be the BEST HOMESCHOOL YEAR EVER!!!So here's what we're doing when school starts the end of this month...

My 10th Graders:

I have two 10th graders. One chose to do Cyber School last year and was not happy at all by the end of the year, so she is going back to traditional homeschooling this year. The other high-schooler used My Father's World 9th Grade - Ancient History and Literature.

After hearing rave reviews of Easy-Peasy All in One Homeschool from friends, we have decided to use a combination of My Father's World - World History and Literature - High School Year 2 curriculum for Bible, History and Literature and Easy-Peasy for Geometry, Chemistry and Spanish.
They will be working independently for the most part, with scheduled parent meetings on Fridays.
They will also be working on a Research Paper in the first Quarter, and I will be working on that with them. (As a former English Major, I can't let them have all the fun without me!!) :)My 7th Grader:
I had my whole year planned out for my 7th Grader, 5th Grader and 4th Grader to work together, until my Intrapersonal Learner begged me to let her do Easy-Peasy 7th Grade on her own, (Besides her learning style, I also know that her best friend is doing Easy-Peasy. ;)) SO, knowing that I have to do what's best for HER, we sat down and planned out her year.

I am sad that she will miss out on all the fun things I had planned, but I also know that she doesn't share my opinion of what's fun on a lot of things, and that's fine because God made her the way she is because He plans to use her in an area she has strengths in. :)

My 5th and 4th Graders:

While my older kids are pretty self-motivated and need me only to keep them accountable and help where needed, these two still need hands-on teaching on my part, so my mornings will be spent hanging with them and my Kindergartner and my Pre-Schooler. The 4 of them will be my dream team and we'll be having lots of fun together.

Here's a subject by subject breakdown of what our year will look like:


BIBLE: Our whole family (with the exception of my oldest son who will be spending his mornings at the local high school in Vo-Tech) will be doing Bible all together, right after breakfast. We will be using The Picture Smart Bible - New Testament. This is an awesome program and I am super excited to use it.

In this innovative Bible study program, an overview of an entire book is illustrated on a single page that you can keep as a reference. When you are finished, you will have an illustration to save and an imprint on your mind to remember. 

ENGLISH: We will be using Write from Early Modern History and Write from Modern History for the last Quarter.  Since we will be studying Early Modern History in History this year, we will use this material for their English so that everything goes together.  Their Art and Music will also correlate with the History that we are studying.  This material uses the Charlotte Mason Method to introduce Copywork and Narration, Studied Dictation, Poetry and Grammar. 

Character Study will also be a part of their English course.  We will study 3 different character traits each quarter and do copywork, scripture memorization and hymn study based on each trait.


MATH:  Each student will be doing Math for their grade level.  This year we will be using K12 Math Workbooks to learn and practice concepts.  For 14 weeks beginning the 2nd Quarter and part of the 3rd Quarter, we will be doing a Simply Charlotte Mason Business Math program where the kids will pretend they own a Pet Store and they will manage all the inventory, paying bills, having sales, etc. to put their math to use in an every day situation.


HISTORY:  I am so excited about history this year.  As I said, they ended up not enjoying history much last year.  As a result, I don't think they really "got" all the important stuff because there was so much unimportant stuff mixed in,  We're going to go back and recap some of the things I think they need to take a fresh look at in a way that they will enjoy.


We will be using the American Girl Historical Book Series to teach history this year.  We will begin the year by recapping some of last year's history and do a little more intensive study on Daniel Boone in the first week.  We will be capping that week off with a trip to Fort Boonesborough in Kentucky.On the way to Kentucky, we will be listening to the Audio Book, Daniel Boone Frontiersman, from the Heroes of History Series by Janet & Geoff Benge.

• 1st Quarter: When we return from our trip and family reunion, we will begin the series on Kaya, Kaya is a Nez Perce Indian growing up in 1764 in the Northwest. Kaya’s stories are set at the height of Nez Perce horse culture, before direct contact with whites began changing their way of life. Her stories show what it was like to grow up as a Nez Perce. As we read all six books in the Kaya series, we will be learning about Native American culture, not only in regard to the Nez Perce tribe, but also the Native Americans that lived in our area. (We'll also spend some time on a unit study on horses while we learn about the horses of the West.)
  

• 2nd Quarter: We will learn about Colonial Williamsburg and the Revolutionary War, the French and Indian War, George Washington, Paul Revere, Ben Franklin, Betsy Ross and other events in Colonial history as we read the American Girl Book Series on Felicity, a girl who lived during the American Revolution. We are hoping to be able to attend the Spring Homeschool Days at Williamsburg to cap off this study!!!
  

• 3rd Quarter: We will be entrenched in Pioneer Times while reading about Kirsten, a Swedish immigrant whose family settles on the prairie in 1854. We will cover the Westward Expansion, Immigration and Pioneer Life, the Oregon Trail, the Gold Rush and Midwest America.
  

• 4th Quarter: We will be studying the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. We hope to end the year with a trip to Gettysburg where we will read the Gettysburg Address in the same spot that Lincoln originally presented it. In this quarter, we will be reading the Addy books, the story of Addy Walker, a nine-year-old girl born into slavery who escapes to freedom in Philadelphia during the Civil War.
  

SCIENCE: This year in Science we are doing child-led learning, based on the topics the kids have been interested in. We will be learning Constellations throughout the whole year as the seasons change. We will do this 1 day a week throughout the whole school year.

We will also be doing a weekly Nature walk to study our local plants and animal life at various seasons of the year which we will record in Nature Notebooks.

• The 1st Quarter, we will be identifying backyard birds. We will be visiting the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History and the Audubon Society.
  

• The 2nd Quarter, we will do a study on Weather which will include recording the weather daily and comparing the forecasts of several weather services. We hope to visit the Weather Center in Punxsutawney.
  

• We will be studying Moon Phases in the 3rd Quarter and taking photos of the moon each night to document the phases.
• The final Quarter of the year, we will do an intense study on Clouds, including experiments, observation and identifying cloud types and formations. Cloud poetry and art work will be included in our unit.

SPANISH:  Charlotte Mason believed that one should learn their second language the same way they learned their first...first, by hearing it spoken, then speaking it and finally writing it.

We will be learning Spanish using this method. We will incorporate Spanish into various parts of our school day. We will begin each morning by reciting the day of the week and the month and day of the year. As we study weather, we will learn weather terms in Spanish. We will learn vocabulary for bird watching and clouds and constellations. We will look for opportunities to use Spanish throughout the day.

We will also be using two different texts. Poca A Poco is a book written in the early 1900s that uses the full immersion method to teach. We will also use a Textbook called The Fun Spanish which uses the Charlotte Mason method to teach one phrase at a time. We will be learning a new phrase each day.



ART: Our Art Classes will consist of three parts this year. 

• First, we will be keeping an Art Journal while learning to draw, paint and use other mediums to make Art we enjoy. We will be using the book, The Lamb's Book of Art by Barry Stebbing. We will also be Keeping a Nature Journal as part of our Science Lessons.
  

• Secondly, we will be doing Picture Study as prescribed by Charlotte Mason to teach observation. The pictures we study will be famous works of art by well known artists in themes that coincide with other things we are learning. For instance, we will study the art of Roger Tory Petersen and John James Audubon in our first quarter as we study birds. We will study various works of art containing clouds as we do our cloud study. This will include Vincent Van Gogh's Wheat Field Under Threatening Skies, George Inness' Passing Clouds and Clouds, Lake Superior by Lawrence Harris.
  

• Thirdly, we will be making art as part of our History series. Part of Charlotte Mason's Method included time for Handicrafts. In the 1st Quarter, we will be making several Native American crafts. Our 2nd Quarter will include various Colonial Era crafts, and our 3rd Quarter will include Pioneer crafts. Our final Quarter, we will study Civil War Era crafts.
  

MUSIC: Our Music Classes this year will also consist of three parts. 

•  First, we will be doing Composer Study. We will be studying the works of a different composer each quarter and learning a little about them. We will listen to their works while we draw, paint and work on handicrafts. This year's composers are Bach, Handel, Beethoven and Debussy.
  

• Secondly, we will be learning music theory. One day a week will be spent learning the names of the notes, types of notes, rests and scales. We will then apply that knowledge to a piano keyboard.
  

• Thirdly, we will listen to, discuss and study three different Hymns each Quarter to correspond with the Character Trait we are learning. For instance, in the 1st part of the 1st Quarter, our Character Trait is Gratitude. We will learn a Thanksgiving Hymn. We will learn a corresponding Hymn for each trait we are focusing on. If time permits, we will also learn some folk songs and songs from the eras we are studying in History.
  
  
  
  

My Kindergartner and Pre-Schooler:


Charlotte Mason said, "The chief function of the child--his business in the world during the first six or seven years of his life--is to find out all he can, about whatever comes under his notice, by means of his five senses; that he has an insatiable appetite for knowledge got in this way; and that, therefore, the endeavour of his parents should be to put him in the way of making acquaintance freely with Nature and natural objects. . . ."


My 5 year old is already learning to read and write and is ready to get to work, so we will take things slow and work on reading and phonics and other subjects as she shows interest, but mostly we'll just do things that she enjoys.  I don't plan to use a Kindergarten Curriculum, but instead, fill their days with as many outside activities as possible and lots of reading of living books.


My 3 year old also is showing interest in a lot of areas proving her to be developmentally advanced for her age, so we will just follow her lead as to what she wants to learn.


They will both go on Nature walks with us and keep their own Nature Notebooks (which they started in July because they found some flowers they wanted to put in it).  They will sit in on the history reading and Bible lessons and Art and Music and they will definitely be part of the Science studies. They won't be forced to participate and they can come and go as they please, but they are already showing a great deal of curiosity in a lot of areas.  I think the two youngest already know more Spanish than their older siblings! :)


I want these early years to be fun and exciting and filled with joy and laughter as they learn through their curiosity.  I did buy them some workbooks (Pre-School and Kindergarten) for them to work on at the table while the other two are doing book work.  I think this year will be lots of fun for them.
So that's it.  I'm excited about School this year and I have to admit, while in previous years it seemed like the Summer just flew by and school was starting before you could blink, this year, I've really enjoyed our Summer and I can't believe we have a whole month left before we start school August 31st.  I hope to keep up with this blog throughout the year and highlight fun projects and adventures we go on.

"Children in these early years should be working with concrete objects from the real world, like planting a flower and watching it grow. Between hearing great stories and spending time with nature, you'll be amazed what they'll learn. "