I was relieved to learn that my stepdaughters will both be in a private school this year. I love doing little-kid projects, but it is infinitely easier to do academic things with my older boys if there are no little people afoot.
FOURTH GRADE for T
T's program this year is inspired by Waldorf schools, especially in choosing content to cover, and The Latin-Centered Curriculum, particularly in choosing how to organize and present that content.
Math
T will be tackling the workbook series, Key to Fractions, Key to Measurement, concepts typically taught to 4th graders in Waldorf schools because these children are starting to want to organize the world with some precision. This series from Key Curriculum Press is slim, unintimidating worktexts that do a great job of using pictures to explain concepts, introducing ideas slowly and letting them build up, as well as providing a variety of practices. I appreciate that he can curl up next to me on the couch and work through these without me, just knowing I'm nearby "in case." That's been a good first step for transitioning the other boys to independence with schoolwork.
Science
For science, T will deviate a bit from the typical Waldorf approach of covering "man and animals" in fourth grade, mostly because it's pretty mystical in a way that creeps me out, foreshading the notion of lighter skin people being more evolved spiritually that is unfortunately still sometimes taught in the upper grades at Waldorf elementary schools. Instead we'll focus on the skies with a schedule of readings and activities from HA Rey's classic Find the Constellations. Here is where I'm most worried about being rigorous enough. I am still looking for a good single book to cover the physics behind what he will see up there. Suggestions would be welcome.
Main Lessons
For reading, T will be working through D'Aulaire's Norse Gods and Giants, Roman Myths by Geraldine McCaughrean, V.M. Hillyer's A Child's History of the World, and a lengthy list of traditional European fairy tales (in their original form). These stories will also provide fodder for learning about social studies and literary elements, for writing assignments and art projects.
I had scheduled Draw Europe for T so he can learn the physical geography behind much of what he's reading in history, but I might switch that out for Draw the USA, because his father expressed concern that T hasn't got the states and capitols memorized. Normally I would wait until a child has completed world history before getting into any nation's own individual story. Whichever he ends up doing, along with learning physical geography by sketching maps, T will read the relevant sections on people groups in Dorling Kindersley's How People Live, a fascinating encyclopedic look at all the very many ethnicities of the world. This sort of integration of art, geography, history, and literature is what I love most about homeschooling.
For other English language arts, T will also:
- memorize several seasonal poems and prayers
- study A Midsummer Night's Dream and memorize a passage
- practice handwriting by neatly copying the above poems and passages
- discuss one grammar concept a month from The Dowling Method essay, in anticipation of beginning Latin next year
- practice punctuation, capitalization, spelling, organization and other mechanics in the context of writing weekly letters, short stories, book reviews, journal essays, and summations of his readings
For Spanish, I figure T can read through PowerGlide lessons with me and work on DuoLingo. Nothing fancy, just progress.
T is hoping to take a class on spinning woolen thread with an old-fashioned wheel, since our angora rabbit is producing so nicely. He will also participate in Sunday School at our Unitarian Universalist church, using the Toolbox of Faith curriculum this year. He'll stay a regular at our library's afterschool STEM club, take his usual once-a-week all-day wilderness survival skills class in winter, and have a membership at the YMCA so we can swim all year round. We've had a heck of a time pinning down a fiddle teacher for him, even though I have three good candidates who all say they want to do it; if I possibly can I will make sure he has fiddle lessons as well.
EIGHTH AND TENTH GRADE
B's and V's programs, I kept simple, in a conscious decision to give them maximum time to focus on following their interests, and their friends. They're also working together, to make sure they have good discussions, to keep it easier for me, and to prod each of them into more effort with the things he doesn't care about as much. V gobbles up projects that are really hard in the sciences, for example, but I don't hold B to as high a standard. Likewise with B, I can give many writing assignments, but I tend to slack for V because he hates it. By giving them the same program, I make sure I don't slack off in the direction of their inclinations.
Main Lesson
Build Your Library is a curriculum company offering prewritten, detailed daily lesson plans that use real trade books such as you'd find in bookstores to cover literature, history, geography, the arts and, in the case of the program we chose, science, all in an integrated way. V and B will be working their way through BYL's History of Science, a one-year overview of world history told as a story of knowledge. I chose this because it would be easier for me to teach from a prewritten plan than try to plan as I went or ahead of time, during this year of homesteading projects. Also, I became worried that we would never get to modern times, as slow as we have been moving through time; this curriculum will have given the boys the whole story, so we can go in and focus on a specific period of their choosing next year. It is labeled as an eighth grade program, but when I emailed the author about beefing it up for a tenth grader, she said she thought it was plenty. I'll list what I've added.
Science
Both boys will be working through Bridget Ardoin's chemistry labs. There's a lot of good reading on science in BYL, but the labs are solidly eighth grade level. I think B will only benefit from doing the chem labs with V, even though he doesn't need to, so I'm getting enough stuff for them to both do it.
Math
BYL does include a number of interesting books and projects in math, but the boys needs to progress in sequence as well. I'm not sure where they'll be each at the start of the school year, in Geometry or in Algebra 2, as we've been working on it through the summer, but I anticipate continuing them in the Teaching Textbook series. Since the purpose of working through a sequentially progressive program is not to teach the boys math, but to cover any gaps they may have had while they read every math book they could get their hands on when they were younger, I'm not worried about the lack of rigor in TT. My boys have read Life of Fred Linear Algebra over and over at bedtime for fun. They'll do fine.
English
There are many writing assignments in BYL but I think the boys need more sequential instruction to be ready for college-level writing in a few years. So V will take a class with an outside instructor, and both boys will work through Jensen's Format Writing and A Workbook for Arguments. The boys know enough about literary elements and analysis that we can converse about whatever books they read, and I think taking this year off from reading Big Serious Classics, to focus on analysing the more everyday reads they're likely to encounter as adults, is a great idea. Many many books are scheduled into Build Your Library, and it does include the pretty big deal classics A Midsummer Night's Dream and To Kill A Mockingbird. It's not my usual great books program, but it'll do for this year.
Extra Arts
Because B is so artsy, and really because I think all human beings should have the skills to build what they envision, I'm adding the new book on making large-scale sculptures from Artistic Pursuits. I'm pretty excited. Hopefully the kids will want to make bobblehead masks of paper-mache for Halloween!
B also is lobbying to do a Blender class through Youth Digital. Blender is a software program used to created 3D animation. I'm not sure if it's a good idea to add this, but maybe.
V will continue with what I've dubbed "Maker Intensives" -- annual 1/4 credit classes in engineering, robotics, electronics and programming. These are really just ways to catch credit for his hobbies, though I am investing in a college robotics text for him to read this year.
V and B will both work on grammar in their chosen foreign languages, V using Grammar for Students of German while working through DuoLingo lessons, and B the Practice Makes Perfect series for Spanish.
Outside the House
B goes to Sunday School, too, and will be doing the Heeding the Call curriculum this year. He will attend game programmers club meetings, take classical guitar and, if we can find an instructor, Celtic harp lessons, run a Dungeons & Dragons campaign at a homeschool center, is enrolled in a three-hour-a-week science and math club, and has a membership at the YMCA down the block.
V will continue attending the weekly youth meeting at our city's Pride Center. He will attend our public library's afterschool STEM club, play in his brother's Dungeons & Dragons campaign at a homeschool center, teach a weekly robotics class to other kids, is enrolled in a calculus and physics discussion group with other homeschoolers and one of their professor dads, and has a membership at the YMCA down the block. In spring I expect he'll take a class on library skills for research through our community college's College In The High School program. He also wants to take up beekeeping, so we'll be sorting out something about that.
ROUTINE
Even though my goal for the rest of the year is to settle into a quiet even cadence of home-based activity, I haven't made a schedule for our school days. Instead, I took note of my daily rhythm and figured out where teaching will fit in there, and made a list of the things to get around to teaching each week. The boys will have their own planners and can set their own schedules. I'll keep a close eye on it to make sure they don't slack off.
Possibly some of this will change between now and October, but I hope that you'll hear from me around then that I'm implementing all the above and it is going swimmingly.