IsabelC Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 OK this is what I think we are going to be starting next week for new school year (ds11 6th grade, dd9 4th grade, dd6 2nd grade). Is it too much (bearing in mind that we have been more 'unschooly' in the past and this will be more structure than they are used to)? or too little? Have I missed anything major? Arithmetic: All kids have MM at their own level, plus Timez Attack, LoF once per week and Murderous Maths when we get to it (mainly for elder, but the girls like it too so I'll keep reading it with everyone). Spelling: AAS (everyone) Grammar and writing: Fitzroy Word Skills (different level for each kid) + letter writing for all kids, creative writing for Ms. 9, penmanship for Ms. 6, and additional work from I hate to Write for Mr. 11 History: prehistory (spine: Children of Time) then SOTW1 all together + possible immersive unit studies on Australian history. Science: unschooling and/or unit studies - bio + chem, various practical workshops eg using the miscroscope, culturing bacteria Geography: our own combination of Core Knowledge elements and cartography, Seterra, country studies (with international food days), Culture Swap and tie-in movies/lit for each country studied. Art: Core Knowledge art appreciation, + art lessons for Ms. 9 Music: Music appreciation: Meet the Great Composers (+ Ms. 9 recorder and vocal, Ms. 6 piano, violin and music theory, Mr. 11 composition and sound engineering). Both the girls will be going back to Girl Guides, and Ms. 9 will continue with horse riding as often as possible within budget limitations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IsabelC Posted January 17, 2015 Author Share Posted January 17, 2015 And stuff I have got on the back burner for now (at least until the kids get over the shock of this much structure) LOTE: German - Duolingo and a hodgepodge of written resources Latin - Getting started with Latin (kids) Latin Intensive (me) I would love them to do both (and I am doing both), however I don't think Mr. 11 or Ms. 9 are capable of learning two LOTEs without a lot of pushing, and while Ms. 6 probably could I am trying to minimize her seatwork, so I am thinking of giving them a 'taster' of each and letting them choose which to continue. Logic - I have quite a few resources, but currently I haven't managed to fit it in. Religion - not sure where to go with this. We have already covered Bible stories (pretty extensively), and basic tenets of the major world religions, also attending houses of worship (churches, mosque and synagogue) so don't know what should be next? Physical education / sport - not sure. Kids all decided they didn't want to go back to Athletics, so it'll probably be lots of swimming, games and dogwalking until I have the money to put them back into swimming lessons. Drama - will start again as soon as we can afford it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aurelia Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 It sounds good to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joyoustxmama Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Looks thorough and flexible to me! And has some interesting resources for those of us newer to this who are trying to gather ideas for our littler homeschoolers. Must go read about this "I hate to write" program now as my crystal ball of momstinct is telling me we may have need of something like that in the future for ds1 :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alisoncooks Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 What Core Knowledge resources are you using for geography and art? (Just curious... :)) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IsabelC Posted January 20, 2015 Author Share Posted January 20, 2015 I'm not actually following the CK Teacher Handbook or following the grade level suggestions, but instead I use the Art Resources packets 1-4 as a jumping off point for our own discussion / investigation. How this works is I select one A4 card to display on our 'Learning Wall' and depending on level of interest, time available that week and other resources I might have found, we might have a little as a 5 minute talk about the work and the artist, or as much as a few books and audiovisual items, and/or creating our own art in that style as well. Geography I have a real mixture planned, but one thing I am determined to do again is the 'Blob' lessons again. (NB When I went to pull out the activities for this I found it was CC, NOT CK my bad memory! So in fact the only bit of CK I'm going to be using is the checklists of mountains, lakes, etc from the Sequence book) We started this some time ago but didn't keep up with it, and I just think it's a fantastic idea. I am hoping that with really pushing the Blob drawing map of the world, plus working on Seterra and a few other resources, the kids will get a better idea than I had about what the world looks like and what nations are where. I never really picked this up through school; in fact it was only quite recently that I read a book about Armenia and felt embarrassed that I had no idea where that was (well I had some idea it was in Eastern Europe, but that was it). That got me started on practicing identifying all the countries of the world on a map, and I thought how handy it would have been to have learnt that at school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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