Nadia started Kindergarten in 2013 so we have already completed nine years of homeschooling, and if Oliver is in 12th grade in 2030-31, then including this year I will have nine more years of homeschooling at least one child. The past five years I have said that the kids were each two grades apart, but since Oliver is spending a second year in fourth grade, my kids are in grades 9, 7, and 4 this year, which means none of them will be taking any standardized tests this year as those are required in grades 3, 5, and 8 in Pennsylvania. This will be my first year of creating a report card for any of my children as I need to begin documentation that will become Nadia's high school transcript. Here's an overview of what we plan to do this year. Here's to hoping and praying that the kids will grow over the coming year - physically, spiritually, musically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially.
Today we are attending a homeschool expo that is being held a little less than 25 minutes from our home. It's been a while since I attended any kind of homeschool meeting or conference. Tomorrow will be our "first day" of school. We had our first field trips for the 22-23 school year last week. On Friday night we attended an outdoor performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The kids weren't excited about going to see it, so I made the outing more enticing by telling them we'd stop at Sweet Frog first. Paul took the day off of work on Saturday to join us on our field trip which included a visit to the Lehigh Valley Zoo, the National Canal Museum, and a Native American festival being held outside the Museum of Indian Culture. We rode on a canal boat pulled by two mules for 45 minutes while we were at the canal museum. The two favorite moments at the zoo were feeding the giraffes and watching a porcupine climb down a vertical surface. Our admission was free at the zoo because of the membership I bought in Delaware in June. I paid $15 for all three kids to feed the giraffes. We also received coupons for two free Dippin' dots, and the kids were very excited to use those because none of us had ever eaten Dippin' Dots before, and Oliver in particular had been asking me to buy him some at other places. Oliver chose the cotton candy flavor, and Ian picked cookie dough. We had breakfast at home, packed our lunches, and planned to get our dinner at the festival, but we ended up just sharing one order of fry bread and stopped at McDonald's (using a gift card) on the way home.
Handwriting - Oliver is the only one who has a handwriting textbook this year. I will require Ian and Nadia to copy a very small number of passages in cursive throughout the year just to maintain that skill.
Math - Nadia and Ian are using a Teaching Textbook app on the iPad to complete Algebra I (Ian) and Geometry (Nadia). Oliver will be using a variety of resources including Beast Academy 3C-3D and 4A-4C. I am hoping that by the end of the school year he has really mastered his basic facts with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Spelling - Oliver will be working through All About Spelling level five.
Science - Oliver will be working through Exploring Creation with Earth Science, which is a textbook that his siblings never used as it only came out earlier this year. Ian and Nadia will be studying Biology. At the moment, Nadia's plan is to earn a Bachelor of Science in Zoo and Wildlife Biology at Liberty University. Hopefully this biology course this year will help her confirm in her mind if that actually is the direction she'd like to head. Faithfully doing experiments in science has not been our strong suit, but I am determined that they will be doing the experiments in Biology this year!
Social Studies - We will be studying AD 30-1460 this year through Mystery of History and a variety of other resources. We watch a ten-minute news show for students every day (M-F) all year long. I am going to have the kids each create a display for the Living History event one of the homeschool groups hosts every winter.
Physical Education - Ten weeks of ice-skating lessons for all three of them. At least eight weeks of a weekly Ninjastics class for the boys. We hope to go skiing once or twice this winter.
Art- Ian and Nadia will participate in a weekly art class at the homeschool co-op from January 16- May 8.
Drama - All three kids participated in a theatre camp July 11-15. Nadia will be participating in a weekly drama class at the homeschool co-op starting in January.
Finance - Nadia will complete the High School edition of Foundations in Personal Finance, Ian will complete the Middle School edition of that same course, and Nadia will also complete a Foundations in Entrepreneurship course.
Spanish - The kids and I will continue to use Duolingo to make progress with learning Spanish.
Language Arts - This year the kids are going to be required to write every day even if it's just a few sentences. They will continue to read every day, and we will also continue to listen to audiobooks together. I've also been reading a series by Eager out loud to the boys. We're going to read Australia, Begin Teaching, Classes, and Dreams (Life of Fred) together. Oliver will work through Fix it Grammar: The Nose Tree while his siblings will use Chanticleer instead. A few of the read aloud books for this year will include: The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Nelson Mandela’s African Folktales, Macbeth, Henry V, Wulf the Saxon, Midwife’s Apprentice, Morning Star of the Reformation, Catherine, called Birdy, A Single Shard (reread), Henry IV, Mad Wolf’s Daughter, and Hunt for Mad Wolf’s Daughter.
1 comment:
Happy School Year, Ruth!
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