Curriculum for the fall school year 2019-2020

Usually after the Christmas season I start looking for what we will use for the next school year.  This helps me find the deals.  I may just have one child homeschooling but it adds up.

So this is what is on the schedule for the fall so far... our core subjects

Math- Teaching Textbooks. This year I will be using the online version.  This past school year Samantha went about 1 month of not doing math as we were using the disks.  Well her computer broke with her math disk inside.  We ended up taking it to a friend to fix and over all it was about a month of no math.  It wouldn't have been so bad if she was at the end of that disk.. It comes with 4 disks. But she had just started that disk so I couldn't push her forward.  I have compared prices and the online program is about the same as I pay for used TT disks.

Grammar-  Learning Language Arts through Literature.

Science-  Masterbooks - Survey of Geology and Archaeology.  It lists the curriculum as  7-12 grade. We should have lots of fun with this study.  We are going to add in some exciting field trips.

History-  I decided along with Samantha that we should do a year of Geography instead of period history.  We are excited to use Heart of Dakota World Geography.    EDITED to add we decided last night that my daughter loves history so much she doesn't want to do just  geography.  So we will be using Masterbooks for history and adding in a Geography study to this but not Heart of Dakota as it will be way too much to do.  Heart of Dakota is meant to stand alone and it takes a good part of the day.  As much as I have always loved Heart of Dakota I am going to go with my daughters wishes since I did ask her if there was anything she wanted to change up before I purchase everything.  I will be using along side of our history some of the reading books and the mapping through art book that HOD suggests. 

school is back in session.....(OLD POST)

Well as of tomorrow.  I am excited for a new year to start.  I think secretly Samantha is too. I gave her the option of starting tomorrow or next week and she said its up to you I am good either way.  LOL.  I think we both are craving a little bit of a normal schedule.

Time to crack open the books and begin our new year.

I think for tomorrow we will set up her math on the computer



This is so funny I found this in my list of posts.. But I never posted it.  I started writing it back in Sept of 2017.   Samantha and I both enjoy our freedom of homeschooling so much that even summer time brings us longing for school.  The routine and the field trips.

Time flies

When your having fun.  It has been so long since I blogged.   When we started homeschooling we did a mix of younger kids curriculum.  It was fun.  Then we found Five in a Row and we had so much fun using that curriculum.  My daughter thrived with it.  We used it longer then it was stated for but my daughter learned so much.  We dug deeper into many topics.  Information she still knows to this day.  It was one of our best finds in homeschooling to date.  We were very sad to say good bye to FIAR.  I still have 2 of the manuals and many of the story books.  They are so hard to let go. 

For middle school at first we kind of wandered around looking for the curriculum that works for us.  My daughter learns through multiple ways.  So a hands on book based curriculum works best for her. We did try Beyond Five in a Row and for us it just didn't work.  We tried two different books and we just couldn't find out groove with it.  So it didn't work. 

This past year we found another curriculum that we love just as much.  Masterbooks.  Its a great curriculum.  I love curriculum that is not just boring dry textbooks.  So far all we have used we have enjoyed and my daughter has learned a lot from.  I enjoy the way the curriculum has been written.  For history although its a textbook it is written more in story form.  The science we have used we have enjoyed and learned so much. 

For math we still use Teaching Textbooks.  I can't say she loves it.  I don't think anything math related will the word love be used in the same sentence.  But she has thrived with Teaching Textbooks.  For us that equals a win and a great curriculum.  Something that can turn my math hater into tolerating math is a win.

We are at the end of 8th grade this year.  I can't believe my daughter will be in 9th grade come the fall. : Recently we were at the homeschool theater group my daughter is a part of year end Progress show and at the end they held a graduation for any of the seniors.  I might have cried a little with the moms on stage as I know time really goes so fast.  You blink and they are grown. 

Coming soon next years line up of curriculum.  I am so excited.

Make way for Ducklings

Although we are mostly done with Five in a Row I had plans to be in Boston the other day.  We never rowed Make way for Ducklings.  So we rowed it and went to Boston Public Gardens.

If you plan on going there plan for time to drive around looking for a parking space. I drove for over a half hour and still didn't find a spot. I ended up in the expensive parking garage.  $24 for 3 hours of parking.  It was a real fun day.  We road the Swan Boat, then visited the Duckling statue, walked all around that park, Went over to Frog Pond and Samantha cooled off in the wading pool.  Then at the end of this part of the adventure we drove over to Sumerville to go to the Taza Chocolate Factory for a tour.  It was a very yummy tour. Many samples to taste.

Taza Chocolate Factory

Thinking Planning Ahead.

So I haven't officially started planning for the fall yet. But I do know what we will be using.  There are a few things I want to add in this year and need to work out how to do it.

Curriculum Line up for the fall of 2017

Math- Teaching Textbooks

Grammar- Fix it Grammar and the story Grammar-land
Spelling- copy work
History- Beyond Five in a Row & living books
Science- Beyond Five in a Row & living books

Tea Time Poetry and Art Tuesday- I plan on having Tea Time for lunch and we will read poetry and read from the Art History Book.

Nature Time- Weekly nature walks

Outside classes- Thursday Art and Nature Class with Daniel,  Coop with Kim that subject is still up in the air, Nature class

Outside activities- homeschool Ice Skating, Baton, Choir, Theater and other activities that become available.

Works of Art

One of the great things about homeschooling is my daughter has time to explore many of her passions.  She is a very creative person.  She does all kinds of arts. Homeschooling gives her the time each day to practice and get better at what she enjoys.  Some of the things she enjoys are drawing, needle felting, painting, using clay, sewing and really anything creative she can do with her hands.  She found a new enjoyment in woodworking. She enjoys writing poems & short stories.  I have read some of her writing and she can get deep with it or very light hearted. When I have her permission I will post some of her writing here.  

 Here is just a sample of her work.

a page from her nature journal 

when we learned about the  Aurora Borealis. This picture doesn't show the colors as vivid as she used.

 Chalk Art A looking Glass

Needle Felting A Sunset in Fall

A vase she made me 

The Scrabble words Mathias in woodworking class

Our Family as the look at the setting sun

This was a joint effort

A cat toy she sewed.  The cat loves it

another page out of her nature journal 

Five in a Row Arabella

Arabella

This was a fun book about a boy who visits his Grandpa who lives on an island.  There was a lot to learn from this row. From how to treat people with disabilities to sailing in bad weather.

We did all the discussions from the manual.  Here are a bunch of links we used for the extras. 

islands around the world  Sea Lore  history of storytelling labeling a ship   history of ships  The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner 

We watched the Reading Rainbow episode of Keep the Lights Burning Abbie  In this episode it also shows the child how they build those ships in a bottle.  It was very interesting.

I bought a rope tying kit to teach Samantha about tying different kinds of knots. It was fun.

This is the kit I bought it comes with 2 ropes and an instructions booklet.

We did origami and made a paper boat to go into a bottle.
origami boat instructions  youtube video easier to follow