History - This is the biggest change. After deciding on Sonlight Core 6, a friend offered to lend me Tapestry of Grace Year 4 (Classic) for free. After thinking about it, I decided to take her up on that generous offer. I spent some time with it, but found that going from Redesign to Classic was not that easy for me. I love all the updates in the Redesign version! However, after looking over Year 4, I also found that I did not want to go back to my original plan of Sonlight. So, I discussed it with Griff and he agreed that I could get TOG Year 4 Redesign DE if it fits in my school budget. After checking out the list of books needed for Term 1 (first 9 weeks), I saw that I would only need to buy 2 books. I either own them or the library carries them. That makes TOG much more affordable than I would have originally thought, and I made the purchase.
I am keeping my friend's Year 4 Classic through the end of the year. That way, if I find that I cannot continue to purchase the DE edition, I can go back to that.
Grammar - We will finish Rod and Staff English 5 as I mentioned before. However, we will not continue into English 6 as I had originally planned. Instead, I am going to take the opportunity to lighten our load a bit and alternate grammar with writing. Which leads me to...
Writing - We're going to continue with IEW. I'll be alternating a chapter of grammar with a unit of IEW. I want to get through Unit VII this year, and this will work out very nicely.
Literature - This is part of TOG, so we will use that part of their program. I may still buy some Total Language Plus guides if they fit into the budget, just because I like them so much. We'll see...
Math - We did switch to Bob Jones. I put both of them in Grade 6 math and I teach them together.
Science - Robert is doing Apologia General Science. Ruth is doing BJU Science 6.
Bible/Devotional - We will be using the following books, alternating them through the week.
Bible study - How to Study Your Bible, for Kids - I took the adult version of this class years ago and really like this Bible study method. It will not take us the full year to get through this guide, so we will hopefully use the methods learned to study at least one book of the Bible.
Devotional - Boyhood and Beyond (for Robert) and A Girl of Beauty (for Ruthie)
Composer and Artist study - I want to study 20th century composers and artists, but I haven't quite worked out the specifics.
Art - A friend and I are going to do Meet the Masters together. We'll get together once a month or so and do art projects. (Actually, this may impact our artist study, too. I'll have to take a closer look at it before deciding about that.)
Music - The kids will continue with private lesson instruction. We are not doing homeschool orchestra this year, so I will be looking for other opportunities for them to perform. I am thinking of nursing homes and our church's preschool program.
Health - We've never done this formally before, but I think we need some guidance in this subject. I want to keep it simple, though, so I just got the grade-appropriate A Beka Health textbooks. The kids will read from them, and we'll discuss what they read. That's it. Easy-peasy (and not too time consuming).
We have finished our first week of school and I hope to post a weekly report soon, so stay tuned!
2 comments:
Your plan sounds so good! I'm curious as to what made you decide to switch to BJU Math. How do you like it? Are you starting up in Aug or Sept?
It has been so cold here in MN all summer. Like 60's and windy! This has been the first hot week we've had. I know, I know, you live in TX, cry me a river because it hasn't been hot enough, right? ; )
Have a great week, Rhonda!
I decided to switch to BJU because the kids really need personal instruction. On their own from CLE wasn't working for them. I love the BJU teacher editions, and I knew it would give me the help I needed to teach them in an age-appropriate way. (I actually have a degree in math, but I'm not good at explaining things.) We started two weeks ago and it's going well so far.
You've had a colder summer and we've had a hotter one. It's been 100+ degrees just about every day, breaking records that have held since 1980. It's been brutal! Want to switch for awhile? :)
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