School year 09-10

This may well be our easiest year yet. For the past 5 years I have been teaching 2 or 3 days a week, including Monday morning. It has been tough to get much done without a good start day to the week. Things like spelling and handwriting fell through the cracks without due diligence. But this year I will be home at least for Monday mornings. I moved the Monday classes to afternoons, but at this point it doesn't look like they will fill. That location is struggling. But I still have two days that I trust will support us.

There are other factors that will be different this year. First, Rebecca is going to public school. That is a post in and of itself, but suffice it to say this is a one year adventure for both of us and we expect her to come back home next year. Also, Bethany is graduating so we will be doing all the Senior year/college stuff for the first time this year. I am full of trepidation and excitement for her.

Well, for the nuts and bolts. I will start with the youngest since he is schooling at my feet this very minute, writing his letters in the correct spaces. Wesley is in 3rd grade. He is an eager learner and loves to read. Writing, not so much. But we need to work on writing this year, so there are several items to help us do that. His curriculum includes Singapore Math 3, ACSI Spelling, A Reason for Writing handwriting, First Language Lessons -Level 3, Building Thinking Skills -Book 1 (logic), Apologia Elementary Zoology-Flying Creatures, Egermeier Story Bible, and Sonlight's Core 4 for American History and Literature. We stopped last year just after the Civil War so we are only covering the 20th Century portion. Sonlight is very intense, so if we spread the 12 or so weeks that covers into our 36 weeks, it works for us. I have used Sonlight with all of them at various times and we love it.

In addition to these things at home, Wesley is taking Spanish and Art where I teach.

Honour is my next student. She is 8th grade now and quite the learner. She will be doing a balanced mix of home and out classes. She'll be in my Physical Science class where I teach. Also, her second year of Latin, English, and a theatre class. At home, we'll be doing PreAlgebra with Teaching Textbooks, our first time to use this program. Also a first for us will be Texas history with Switched on Schoolhouse. Both of these will allow her to use the computer to help learn things when I am not immediately available. We will continue reading through the Fallacy Detective for her logic.

Bethany and Bill are my two oldest and have very different paths. Most of their school career, they have been schooled together, being only 14 months apart. But now only about 50% of their curriculum is common. We will do Economics (Uncle Eric books and guides) and History (Sonlight's 20th century core for high school) together. Bethany will also do Speech with an Alpha Omega LifePac. I like those for electives or stand alone courses. Both will also be taking my Advanced Biology course, which is Anatomy and Physiology.

Bill will be taking Physics where I teach and Calculus and Spanish at the local junior college. Bethany will be taking Spanish and Creative Writing at the same junior college and a second year of Computer where I teach. In our district, students can take up to 6 hours per semester free during their last two years of high school. I hope to let them have a good amount of college under their belt by the time they graduate high school....... ALL free! Well, books are not free, but all the other stuff will save college dollars in the long run.

So this is a summary of our year. It will also include baseball for Wesley, Tai Chi for Bethany (her PE credit), Scouts for both boys, lots of church youth activities all year, and driving progress for both older kids. Bill drove us home from church today and we all survived quite nicely.

I'll be checking in periodically to see how the school year is going. I expect there will be some additions and revisions along the way; there always are. But this is the game plan as of August.