I'm so excited about this upcoming year of home school. For one thing, it's nice now that my kids are all going to be doing it. We can hopefully make the great feasts of the Church an integral part of our time. For us this will mean getting up at 5 am on the feast days to make it to the 7 am Divine Liturgy. I plan on making these days "field trip days" so that we do something special, extraordinary, festal...but still life-giving and educational.
For science, I'm taking the younger three through Botany. I'm excited about the textbook I have purchased. I myself will learn much from it. Botany is always something that has fascinated me, but I've never done more than have a unit on it in fifth grade. My oldest is doing Biology for her Science, and will have the opportunity to do her Labs at Asbury College. I'm happy about that, too. She's also threatening to listen in on the Botany lessons. One aspect I love about schooling my kids is the things that I learn along the way.
Math and English are still grade level Rod and Staff curriculum. No frills, but very very solid. I found myself knowing grammar that I never knew there was to know after last year with a daughter in fifth grade. This will be even more the case as time goes on. Again: Mom gets to learn. Except for my oldest. She's doing geometry, so I ordered her the kit from Teaching Textbooks.
History, ah! One of my favorite subjects. Boring, but necessary, we are doing ancient history this year and then Medieval next year and so on (I'd much rather learn about Charlemagne and Byzantium than about ancient Iraqis who killed even more ancient Iraqis). Ancient goes through the Roman Empire, which will at least include some early Church history...and of course lots of Old Testament, which I love, so it won't be all bad. I ordered some cool history portfolios for the kids to put together, time lines, that sort of thing. Hopefully we will enjoy the process, and continue on with the portfolios, until all four of the kids have a complete history set to keep as keepsakes. The neat thing is, these are ideally adaptable for each person to work at his or her own grade level.
And last but not least, I'm positively giddy about getting, for a mere $30.00 per year, on-line access to Rosetta Stone. Any and all languages they have, which are many. I have two who will be definitely studying Spanish, another who has expressed an interest in German (yay!) and me who would also like to learn Spanish, brush up on some French and start delving into Russian. We shall see what my time looks like, and how the lessons go. I dream big.
So, that's what I'm planning and dreaming in a nutshell. Things like spelling and penmanship will get filled in around the edges...oh, and lots of good literature. I'm going to make the kids pick books from a "great books" list.
Nothing gets my blood pumping at this time of year quite like a stack of freshly sharpened pencils, clean paper and never-used erasers, and the smell of new dry-erase markers!
For science, I'm taking the younger three through Botany. I'm excited about the textbook I have purchased. I myself will learn much from it. Botany is always something that has fascinated me, but I've never done more than have a unit on it in fifth grade. My oldest is doing Biology for her Science, and will have the opportunity to do her Labs at Asbury College. I'm happy about that, too. She's also threatening to listen in on the Botany lessons. One aspect I love about schooling my kids is the things that I learn along the way.
Math and English are still grade level Rod and Staff curriculum. No frills, but very very solid. I found myself knowing grammar that I never knew there was to know after last year with a daughter in fifth grade. This will be even more the case as time goes on. Again: Mom gets to learn. Except for my oldest. She's doing geometry, so I ordered her the kit from Teaching Textbooks.
History, ah! One of my favorite subjects. Boring, but necessary, we are doing ancient history this year and then Medieval next year and so on (I'd much rather learn about Charlemagne and Byzantium than about ancient Iraqis who killed even more ancient Iraqis). Ancient goes through the Roman Empire, which will at least include some early Church history...and of course lots of Old Testament, which I love, so it won't be all bad. I ordered some cool history portfolios for the kids to put together, time lines, that sort of thing. Hopefully we will enjoy the process, and continue on with the portfolios, until all four of the kids have a complete history set to keep as keepsakes. The neat thing is, these are ideally adaptable for each person to work at his or her own grade level.
And last but not least, I'm positively giddy about getting, for a mere $30.00 per year, on-line access to Rosetta Stone. Any and all languages they have, which are many. I have two who will be definitely studying Spanish, another who has expressed an interest in German (yay!) and me who would also like to learn Spanish, brush up on some French and start delving into Russian. We shall see what my time looks like, and how the lessons go. I dream big.
So, that's what I'm planning and dreaming in a nutshell. Things like spelling and penmanship will get filled in around the edges...oh, and lots of good literature. I'm going to make the kids pick books from a "great books" list.
Nothing gets my blood pumping at this time of year quite like a stack of freshly sharpened pencils, clean paper and never-used erasers, and the smell of new dry-erase markers!
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