Oh, this poor neglected blog of mine, ignored completely since Christmas. Life does not leave much time for writing! Nonetheless, I wanted to make note of what we're using for this school year (at least for now; I had a good chuckle reading over last year's post and realizing how much we ditched along the way!).
Levi: 7th grade
Math: He'll finish up pre-calc through EMF this fall, and then I'm going to have him go through the Modern States college algebra review so he can take the CLEP test. I estimate that'll take us through about Christmas. After that, I'm still not sure. Maybe Counting and Probability or Number Theory from AoPS?
Science: Apologia biology. As much as he loves other sciences, he hates biology, so we're hoping he can CLEP this in the spring and be done with it forever.
History/Literature: Biblioplan Ancient History Companion, study guides, geography, literature. We're also going through parts of the Omnibus I textbook from Veritas Press as a literature and Bible guide. He complained last month that he doesn't remember how to write in cursive very well, so occasionally he'll do some copywork from Draw and Write Through History.
Foreign Language: Second Form Latin (and maybe starting Third Form by spring, depending how fast he works) and Rosetta Stone German. Please note: it was his choice to do both!
Language Arts: Writing With Skill 1 (he's halfway through the book, having started in January). For grammar, he's doing one page a week out of Editor in Chief. I'm not quite decided yet whether this is enough.
Bible study: Fruit of the Tongue, then Do Right
Fine Arts: ARTistic Pursuit Art of the Ancients; piano lessons
Physical Education: karate, fall soccer
Owen: 6th grade
Math: He'll finish up Math Mammoth 6th grade this fall, and then move into AoPS pre-algebra (unless the placement test doesn't go well, in which case we'll do Math Mammoth 7th grade first, but I think he's ready).
Science: Science in the Beginning. Friends, I am shamelessly not even trying to complete a whole science curriculum. This year we're doing the lessons that relate to biology, to get back on the ancient history/biology classical cycle. I like that it has comprehension questions for different age groups. I'm not great about doing an activity every lesson, but since we're only doing it once or twice a week, it seems manageable.
History/Literature: Biblioplan study guides, geography, literature, but using Mystery of History as a spine. In addition to Mystery of History, we're using the Vos Child's Story Bible, the Greenleaf Guide to the Old Testament for discussion questions (free to download here!), assorted notebooking and coloring pages I've found online, and dozens of library books.
Foreign Language: Hebrew
Language Arts: Writing With Ease 3. I'm still debating over grammar.
Bible study: Do Right
Fine Arts: ARTistic Pursuit Art of the Ancients; art lessons with a local homeschool mom
Physical Education: ummmm . . . he jumps on the trampoline a lot and rides his bike sometimes . . .
Silas: 4th grade
Math: Math Mammoth 5th grade. Last year I said that a spiral approach was good for him, and I've completely reversed my position on that. I've been really happy with Math Mammoth since we switched in the spring (as evidenced by the fact that I have three kids using it now!).
Science, history, literature: same as Owen, with some variation in literature choices and writing assignments.
Foreign Language: Rosetta Stone Spanish
Language Arts: Writing With Skill 2. First Language Lessons 2. Silas got lost in the shuffle the year Tessa was born and did little-to-no language arts at all. So while FLL 2 is probably too easy, I'm just not entirely sure what he knows!
Bible study: Exploring the Bible
Fine Arts: ARTistic Pursuit Art of the Ancients; violin lessons
Physical Education: karate
Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting cursive
Silas asked over the summer to do vocabulary, so I got him a Wordly Wise book, but now that it's school time, he's not so sure he wants to do it. We'll see. :)
Toby: 2nd grade
Math: Math Mammoth. He's finishing up 1st grade this fall and will go right into 2nd grade.
Science, history, literature: same as Owen and Silas, with some variation in literature choices and writing assignments.
Foreign Language: Spanish (a silly workbook series that's not teaching him much besides vocab, but I don't have the bandwidth to do something more interesting at this time, and he doesn't mind)
Language Arts: First Language Lessons 2. If FLL goes well and I'm still on top of things overall, we might start Writing With Ease 1 in January.
Bible study: He's still working through this Bible reading plan, adjusted to fit a five-day schedule (basically, we're skipping the prophets for now). Actually, all of the kids are still chipping away at it, by their own choice.
Fine Arts: ARTistic Pursuit Art of the Ancients; piano lessons (with me)
Physical Education: karate, fall soccer
Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting transition book (manuscript this year, cursive next year)
Calvin: pre-K
Calvin turns 5 next month, and I'm fully aware he doesn't need to be doing anything at all. But as the fifth kid always trying to keep up with his big brothers, he has begged to learn to read, have a math book, know how to write stories, etc. We do about 25 minutes of seated work, three times a week -- just enough to give him some one-on-one attention and start developing some academic skills.
Math: Mathematical Reasoning A
Reading/Phonics: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. As of this writing, he's on lesson 82 and doing great! He's also doing a bit of Explode the Code.
Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting K
Other preschool: at Grandma's house once a week!
And that about covers it. I have other things on hand -- social skills, logic, poetry, vocab -- but no immediate plans to add to our workload. It can be nice to pull out something new and different when the temps drop and we're stuck inside for the long MN winter!
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