Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Plans for the 2011-2012 school year

If you're a homeschooling family, 'tis the season for planning. Or rather, finalizing the plans that you started back in March when the planning bug usually hits. Or is that just me?

Anyway, Little Man will officially be a kindergartener this year and Z-Man will be in fifth grade. Which means he'll be in junior high next year. How is that possible?!

Here are our plans, more or less:
(Click on any of the pictures or links for more information.)

Subjects we'll do all together:

Bible
This is technically not a school subject. I tell my kids that it's way more important than school.
As a family, we're currently reading through the kid's Bible story book illustrated by Tomie DePaola.



It's a good one to read at night because the pictures aren't scary.
Z-Man and Mark have been getting up early to work through one of the Kay Arthur Bible study books for kids.
We'll also continue our Bible memory using the Seeds Family Worship CDs. Love those! And we'll hopefully continue to learn some great old hymns.

Science
We plan to use some really fun books that I found at the convention this year:
Forces and Motion, which explores physics with fun experiments like figuring the speed of various wind-up toys,


and The Earth: Its Structure and Changes


I'm also planning a rather lengthy study of the human body with TONS of hands-on projects using primarily these three books:


My Body - Trace your kid and paste on all their body systems!

Considering God's Creation - which is just a wonderful natural science program all by itself, and


Reader's Digest How The Body Works - this book is just staggering. There are so many cool projects and experiments that you could easily work on it for a full year.

History
We'll be continuing with TruthQuest History, which made history my absolute favorite part of the day last year. We read so many great books! Z-Man will be in the second American history book which goes from the Constitution through the Civil War. There are some new products available this year on the TruthQuest site: a series of notebooking pages, lapbook pages, maps and timelines that correspond exactly with the guides. The end product should be a nice book of our history studies for the year. Little Man will be encouraged to listen in!

Art
We'll try to work through Evan-Moor's How to Teach Art to Children


and also Drawing With Children.


We'll continue with our artist studies, focusing on two artists per semester.

Music
We'll continue our composer studies, focusing one two to three composers per semester. We listen to their work, listen to shows on Classics for Kids, and read a biography like the series by Mike Venezia or Opal Wheeler.

Separate Subjects:

Math
Z-Man will continue to work independently through Saxon 65. Little Man will do "living math" from our FIAR studies and real life problems that we make up for him.

Language Arts
Little Man would like to continue to learn to read. He seems to progress in spurts. We use a plethora of things to help him, including letter magnets, Bob books, Starfall, Leapfrog videos and more. He will also start Explode the Code this year.



Z-Man will work on the book, All Things Fun and Fascinating, from the Institute for Excelling in Writing.

Little Man will have his own special time to read all the great FIAR books! I am SO glad that I get to go through them all again! What a wonderful program. Z-Man has such fond memories of all these books that I probably should have included this in the "subjects we'll do together" section of this post. I'm sure he'll want to sit in on it.



So there you have it! I think it's going to be a great year!

If you're like me and you love seeing what others are doing, hop over to the "Not Back to School" Blog Hop at Heart of the Matter! The button doesn't seem to bring you to the right place, so click the words instead.


Not Back to School Blog Hop

14 comments:

  1. It's not just you.
    hee hee!
    I am totally digging your list, and whoa! we have a lot of the same stuff, including TruthQuest!
    Have a blast on the Hop, enjoy the year and I hope you'll pop on over to my pad and see what craziness I am planning on getting us into :)

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  2. I love Leap Frog letter factory and we have that Tomie DePaola Bible story book, too! Looks like you have a great year planned for yours. I have a K-1ster and PKer. I think I'll follow you for moral support!

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  3. I love seeing everyone's books and curriculum. We have two of the sets of BOB books and think they are great!

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  4. Thanks for stopping by!!! I am planning on doing a post on what I use for Japanese on Thursday, so make sure to stop by!!!! And thanks for reminding me about The Letter Factory, that is a must for every Pre-Ker right, lol!!!!

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  5. We do a lot of the same things as you! I'm really excited about art this year. Hope you have a wonderful year!

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  6. That's a great list! We started out our homeschooling years with a year of FIAR. I remember it fondly! :)

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  7. Thanks for stopping by my blog & you are right, we share a lot of the same favorites! Hope you have a great school year.

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  8. Looks like a good list! While we do a lot of science (tons of biology and some chemistry mostly), I have a tendency to skimp on the physical science. That Forces & Motion book looks pretty interesting.

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  9. It's not just you! (I'm sure you've heard that already!!! lol!!!) I hope you have a wonderful year.

    ~Lynn

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  10. Looks like you all are going to have a fun year!

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  11. I really appreciate your comment about the other items TruthQuest has to offer. I will look into that.

    Have a wonderful year!

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  12. nice choice on science books! i'm getting so excited to teach with those. we loved Explode the Code, too. looks like it's going to be a great school year :)

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  13. Hello, I found you through starlightwriter
    L

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  14. We are going to be studying the body too using 2 of the same books that you are. It should be interesting and hopefully fun. Looks like you've got a great year planned!

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