Going well so far, oh, except for the washer machine breaking down and the barely enough milk left for one cup of coffee. We began by designating our notebooks and binder for our subjects, science, math, English, social studies, and Spanish. We will be completing the work in those subjects in about that order, and we will give each subject about 45 minutes a day. That makes for roughly a four hour school day, with time for wrapping up, looking ahead, putting away materials and taking out new ones in between each subject.
We are using
Science Fusion from Harcourt for Amara's science curriculum. There are 11 modules that last approximately 6 weeks each. She chose to start with The Human Body and Ecology and the Environment. The textbooks/workbooks come with a year of online access to online lessons that supplement the material in the text in an interactive lecture, quick labs, video based projects, quizzes, learning about various scientists and their professions, etc. So each week in science, she will do some reading, filling in the workbook, taking online lessons, watching videos, performing labs, and etc. Also, I have found lapbooking/notebooking sets for The Human Body that we can use to fill out her science notebook with diagrams, foldables, charts, etc. of each body system and information about how it works. Week one is on an overview of the body systems and the "big idea" is homeostasis. She did well on her pre-test and is working in her textbook/workbook now.
For Math, we are using
Saxon 8/7 with Pre-Algebra. We have the ultra-comprehensive homeschooling kit from Harcourt. Each full lesson is slated to last about 45 minutes, and has a set of activities that will establish order and routine and build on facts practice and concepts from lessons over time. We will supplement with
Aleks online lab/tutoring. This first week, it looks like the activities will likely be a bit of review from where she left off last year.
For English, we are using
English From The Roots Up (I &II) in order to learn the Greek and Latin roots and their derivatives. This is so that when Amara comes across new words, she can intuit their meanings not only through context, but by understanding the meaning of the root morpheme and its etymology. This has been used by homeschooling families an students studying for the SAT/ACT, etc. for years and years with wonderful reviews. We also have a card game,
Roots Rummy, that will allow us to practice with the roots. We will work on one root per day, building a box of index cards according to the system that the text sets out for parents and students working together. I anticipate learning a lot more about roots, too.
Amara is also going to be completing various units of Language Arts lessons/activities in her notebook, the first being
Close Reading for Figurative Language. We also have units on
Reading Literature,
Reading Informational Texts (non-fiction), Study Skills/Research, Types of Irony, etc. lined up. They have a combination of worksheets, readings, foldables for notebooking, etc. Amara also has an independent reading log that she has already logged her first book into,
City of Bones, which is a YA Fantasy text recommended to her by our friend who recently visited from Wales.
For social studies, Amara elected to continue with Ancient Civilizations, rather than doing American History (snoooze) so we will revisit these in more depth than she did in 6th grade SS class. We are starting with Egypt, and are taking a unit studies approach to this subject. She will do notebooking and writing/research projects incorporating texts from the library, websites, etc. into her study. We have texts on Mythology and World Religions to supplement.
For Spanish, we are using Baron's
Spanish Now! (Level I) with accompanying cd's for listening practice. It is a mixed text with lessons/workbooking built in, and she will do some notebooking in her own notebook, especially for grammar charts, cultural studies, geography, etc. We also have the same curriculum for French, which we will start when we finish Spanish.
Some extra curricular activities that we have planned thus far are an after school pottery wheel-throwing class in September, a class at AOC Community Media in October on filming/producing TV shows and movies, and we will check out other community classes that come up. Of course, when my school starts back up next week, Amara will be trouping up to campus with me, and maybe she will want to sit in on Introduction to Academic Writing. She is a bit averse to taking another graduate course, Major Authors: Twain sort of shocked her little system over the summer with a graduate reading level.
Something to look forward to: we are planning a trip in October, over my Fall Break weekend, which will be a nice reward for hard work. Right now, we are down to San Antonio or Destin Beach, and will decide soon based on lodging setup that we can get together at this point in the game.
Well, there it is. Our plans are laid out and we are excited to see how week one goes. This way, we can gauge our expectations, and have a bit of a schedule set before ULL instruction begins. I will update this blog semi-regularly, and it will be as much for my reflections along the way as it will be for celebrating milestones and keeping family and friends updated on our progress.
