I won’t be posting detailed curriculum plans this year, one of the reasons being that 11th grade seems to be only getting planned a term at a time. 😛 I’m fine with that – as I’ve said before, planning energizes me, and I will probably need a bit of energizing come winter. 😉 But I thought I would share a few things I’m excited about as we prepare to start a new school year.
1. TalkBox.Mom French: Here’s what I posted on Instagram:
I decided to get both the book and the box subscription (bi-monthly), but you could certainly just use the book (with included audio) to start learning or re-learning your language of choice. We’ve already started learning some phrases and it’s kinda fun!
2. Our modified AO Year 8 plans: In deciding what to keep and what to change about AmblesideOnline Year 8, I had a few factors to consider. First, Mr. D needs a lighter reading load than his sister (she’s a faster reader and found it a bit much). I also wanted to include more writing from that time period (rather than historical fiction and modern devotional writing). And I wanted some church history. Here are some of the changes I made:
- I’m scheduling Calvin’s Golden Booklet of the True Christian Faith for the Term 1 devotional reading – it’s actually part of his Institutes of the Christian Religion. Bunyan’s The Holy War, which AO schedules in Term 3, will instead be spread over Terms 2 and 3.
- I’ve moved or dropped several of the biography selections, and will fill in with AO’s suggested Church History book, Saints and Heroes Since the Middle Ages (although I think we’ll cover Calvin with another book). The Voyage of the Armada will be his Geography selection for the first term and a half.
- He’ll only be reading one of the historical fiction books on the schedule, The Betrothed, and I’m scheduling it over all three terms. Instead, we’ll focus on epic poetry: Book I of the Faerie Queene in Term 1 and all of Paradise Lost in Terms 2 and 3.
3. Daily Bible copywork: My friend Dawn has written about her family’s practice of copying one verse of a book of the Bible each day, and it seemed like a good time to start that habit in our homeschool. I decided on these journals, and will be asking the three oldest kids to decide which book they want to copy. And yes, I’ll be joining in, too!
4. Shakespeare: The three older boys will be reading and acting out a scene of Macbeth with our co-op, so we will just be reading/listening to two plays during Morning Time this year. Miss A will join us for Twelfth Night this fall/winter, but she will also be reading through three of the plays discussed in Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide to Six Shakespeare Plays. She’ll answer the questions in writing and write a research paper on each play (there are suggested topics in the book). I’m also going to have her read the intros to each play in Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare.
5. Weekly drawings: I saw this idea on the Joyous Lessons blog a while ago, but sometimes good ideas just need to simmer until it’s the right time to implement them. 🙂 While planning this year, I noticed the encouragement on the AmbesideOnline schedules to do a weekly drawing, thought of Celeste’s post, and decided we’d try it. Some of my kids aren’t too keen on watercolors (and I struggle myself), so I bought a pack of Prismacolor Scholar colored pencils for each of us, which they can also use in their Nature Journals if they’d prefer. Miss A says her Prismacolor Premier pencils break easily and are hard to sharpen, so this seemed the better (and cheaper) choice. And I’m hoping that the small paper size will help overcome the “I don’t know what to draw” problem I’m sure we’ll encounter. 😉
Look for a Morning Time post soon, where I’ll share a few more things I’m looking forward to!
