This Year’s Curriculum

I think I finally have our curriculum choices finally made.  Yeah, I know I already did a post on curriculum, but a girl can change her mind!!  This looks to be one of the most structured years we’ve had.  The kids requested, and I agreed to, an annual schedule that pretty closely matches the public school schedule.  (The one difference is that I work in full weeks only – not a day off here and a few days off here – too messy.)  Both kids will be taking classes at the school, so they will be following that schedule anyway.

Rosie Girl is in 9th grade now and is going to be working quite independently.  I’m in the process of making up her schedules so she knows when her work is due, but she’s responsible for making it happen.  Wild Man and I are going to be working more closely this year on Language Arts.  Now that he’s really reading, he’s ready for more spelling, grammar, and writing.  So, here’s the plan:

History

Rosie Girl – Sonlight Core 100

Wild Man – Sonlight Core 3+4

Language Arts

Rosie Girl – Sonlight Core 100 Literature, Wordly Wise 3000 Book 8, Analogies 1, Daily Grams Junior/Senior High School, WriteAtHome Online Composition 1 (OK, I know in this post, I said I was sticking with Sonlight for writing, but when I told Mr. Math Tutor and Rosie Girl, Rosie Girl spoke up and said that she didn’t want to do Sonlight and actually gave some very good reasons.  So, after some long discussions and research, we’ve decided to do WriteAtHome’s Composition 1 this year.)

Wild Man – Sonlight Core 3+4 Readers (I don’t know how many of these he’ll actually be able to read this year, but we’ll give it a try!), Explode the Code, All About Spelling with Spelling City online for extra practice, Getty-Dubay Handwriting, Grammar Ace.

Math

Rosie Girl – Life of Fred Beginning Algebra – Mr. Math Tutor is officially in charge of all Math stuff in this house!  Rosie Girl loves the Life of Fred books.  Mr. Math Tutor also loves them, but for different reasons.  I’ll get him to review them one day.

Wild Man – Math Mammoth – also chosen by Mr. Math Tutor.

Foreign Language

Rosie Girl – PowerSpeak Latin

Wild Man – PowerSpeak Spanish

Bible

Rosie Girl – Sonlight Core 100.  The Bible portion looks pretty good to me.  Rosie Girl turned her nose up at it when she saw it.  I told her that if she found a Bible study that she preferred, I’d certainly consider it.  She never went looking, so this is it.  The Core 7 Bible Curriculum was pretty good, too.

Wild Man – Bible Quest: Promises Fulfilled (Luke and Acts).  This requires a good bit of reading and writing, but I think it will be OK if I do it with Wild Man.  The Core 3+4 Bible was too juvenile for him.

Science

Rosie Girl – Singapore Science Biology with Castle Heights Biology Lab.  I’ve put Singapore Science Biology into the first 25 weeks with some of the labs.  Then, she does several weeks of just dissections.  She ends up the year with a couple of weeks of reading on evolution and Creation.  (Singapore Science presumes evolution, but doesn’t actually cover origins.)

Wild Man – Crime Scene Investigations.  This looks like fun, but is a little intense on my part.  It’s very laboratory-intense, but that’s why it’s going to be fun.

Music

Rosie Girl – Piano lessons and Chorus at the local public school.

Wild Man – Percussion in the local public school band (perhaps with supplementary lessons)

Physical Education  (Activity)

Rosie Girl – Dance classes, daily physical activity

Wild Man – Dance class (?), daily physical activity

Electives – Rosie Girl

Fantasy Literature – This is a self-directed elective in which Rosie Girl is reading a variety of fantasy literature.  She and I have an agreement as to how many books she will read and how many papers she will write to receive 1/2 credit.

Study Skills – Rosie Girl will be going through the book Learning on Purpose.  She will also take a partial practice SAT or ACT at home once a month to get used to standardized test-taking.

So, that’s it.  Right now, I’m knee deep in trying to get everything planned out in some reasonable fashion.  I am looking forward to a really great school year with these kids, though!

Check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see what others are planning for this year!