Back to School Studies

I've been enjoying reading what other home educators are planning to use in the upcoming year, and rather envy their nicely laid out plans, so I decided to play along.

The children's ages and grades for this school year will be:
Briana, age 17, senior
Destry, age 16, sophomore
Easton, age 7, 1st grade
Kiana, age 6 (the end of September), Kindergarten
Tyrell, age 3 "preschool"

Since I tend to break the children into "bigs" and "littles" in our areas of study, I will do that here as well.

First the younger children:

• Bible--Reading, Memorization, and studies using Bible Study Guide for All Ages as a guide
• Character--Marilyn Boyer books
• Math--Math U See Alpha for Easton and Cuisenaire rod fun for Kiana and Tyrell
• Reading--Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons for Easton (lesson 75) and Kiana is just starting.  We use Bob Books for fun as well, and have many readers to practice proficiency, which Easton is moving into.
• Penmanship/Copywork--Draw, Write, Now books, Bible verses, quotes from our studies

• Science--Bats, Flight, Nature Study, and other topics as they have interest
• History--Beautiful Feet, Early American History (using D'Aulaire books)
• Literature--Five in a Row and read-aloud chapter books (currently working through the Little House series)
• Physical Education--with homeschool group
• Children's Musical--with homeschool group
• Art and Music Appreciation using a variety of resources

And the big kids:

• Bible--Ecclesiastes and Christian worldview books by Brannon Howse, Francis Schaffer's "How Should We Then Live", daily personal Bible reading
• Math--Math U See Algebra II (Briana has five lessons remaining and has decided that will be enough math for her) and Destry started Algebra II this week
• History--Notgrass American History, miscellaneous supplemental books
• Literature--Tale of Two Cities, To Kill a Mockingbird, In His Steps, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Crime and Punishment, other?
• Government--TeenPact (alumni, state, Destry plans to staff), Briana plans to page for state legislature, Constitutional Law by Michael Farris, Constitutional Literacy videos

• Economics--Uncle Eric series, Economics in One Lesson, Great Courses videos
• Art Appreciation--Cornerstone Curriculum, Great Courses videos
• Music--violin, piano, youth symphony, jazz combo
• Life Skills--pickup, pruning apple trees, garage roof, 4wheeler, tractor clutch, transmission in van, skid loader operation (Destry)
• Home Economics--gardening, preservation of canned goods, menu planning, budgeting, sewing pillowcase dresses for ministry (Briana)
• Public Speaking--Communication 170 textbook, Jeff Myers public speaking course
• Logic/Vocab/ACT prep using miscellaneous resources

This will be our first time using any of the Great Courses videos and I might have gone a little overboard choosing three sets!  We'll see how we like them after this year.

If you're wondering how we're going to get all this in. . .well, yes, so am I!  I really need more time (both hours in a day and years with my kiddos).  There is so much to learn, and so little time!  But it looks like it will be a great year learning together if we can just keep what is most important most important.