Winding Down Summer Break

I just realized two days ago that our school year starts in 1 1/2 weeks. I've been so busy planning everything out, writing lesson plans, entering work into HST+ and organizing books that I failed to realize the actual start date was quickly approaching. ARGH!

I ordered TallBoy's health/science book last night and will get that planned out when it arrives. I ended up saving $5 in shipping by ordering from the company via Amazon compared to their website. Hopefully it arrives quickly. Amazon is normally pretty quick with shipping.

HorseGirl almost threw a fit when I told her we were starting so soon. She quickly calmed down when I explained it was only for this year since we are moving mid-year. She also found out that her best friend started this week, making our start-date look even better. Her lease days for the horse just changed and she now has two weekdays and one weekend day. This will alleviate one weekday so she isn't out of the house four days each week. She previously rode Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and had co-op on Thursday. She ended doing most of her schoolwork in the afternoons and evenings.

The biggest change/challenge for this upcoming year is for me to be more involved in TallBoy's schooling. He simply is not able to take his assignment sheet and go off on his own. He is easily distracted and does not take pride in his work. He would be perfectly content to do the bare minimum on assignments and take whatever grade is given. Most of history, science/health, math, and writing will be done together.

I made up my own version of a school planner for him. I made a two-page blank monthly calendar to be printed for each month, followed by weekly two-page spreads for assignments. Each day has 12 lines to write assignment details. I printed out all of the pages going through the end of August. It's nothing fancy, but hopefully by following it, he will learn time management. I plan to sit down with him each Monday morning to fill it out. HorseGirl prefers to have HST+ open on her computer and go off of that.

More School Planning

Ok, I'm probably going about this the wrong way, but I've decided to reorder all of TallBoy's schoolwork for the upcoming year. He only has one more year until he turns 18 and I can pretty much guarantee he will be moving out and not looking back. So, we have one year to work on maturity, responsibility, real-life living skills and whatever schoolwork I think he needs to survive in life. Oh, my!

For the past five years, he's done TOG with his sister and that took a huge weight off of my shoulders as far as planning went. When it came time for discussions, though, it was a nightmare. He simply does not care about doing the work or getting a decent grade or keeping my blood pressure in check.

For history I searched my shelves to see what I could come up with and found a ton of books and a DVD. Last year at some point I ordered (for FREE) America: The Story of Us, the 12-part DVD from the History Channel. I'm combining it with Joy Hakim's Freedom: A History of US and lesson plans from PBS. The PBS lesson plans coincide with a series they did on the book, but unfortunately their DVD is $200! I think I've spent four pretty solid days so far cutting and pasting text, questions and lesson activities into a Word document to use as a lesson plan. But, that covers roughly half the year, so I'm pretty happy. I have lesson plans starting with the Pilgrims and will eventually cover present-day. We should be able to accomplish this all in one year.

For science, I'm still debating. We have Physical Science (he's already attempted it twice) and Biology, both from Apologia. Physical Science bores him and Biology is over his head. I again headed to the internet to do some searching. I found some mapping lesson plans from USGS which will cover about 2-4 weeks. I haven't looked closely at them since printing them out to determine a time-frame. I was thinking, though, of ordering Nutrition 101: Choose Life. I can use this as science and health and was going to use it with HorseGirl next year anyway. It covers the brain and nervous system, digestion and elimination, respiration and olfactory, muscular and skeletal systems, cardiovascular and immune systems and the endocrine system and emotions. It has a ton of information in it, including recipes in each chapter to strengthen whichever system you've just studied.

I think it is very important for TallBoy to be knowledgeable about his body and how everything works. He has recently been putting nothing but junk into his body, sugared cereals, Toaster Strudels, cookies, ice cream, juice, soda, etc. I know, a lot of this is partly my fault for buying all of the junk, which is why I'm going to stop. My husband just gave me permission to stop buying all the sugared snacks. I've also been insisting TallBoy eat a fruit or vegetable as at least one of his snacks each day.

HorseGirl will be doing Latin in the Christian Trivium I next year, so I will have TallBoy do it as well. It won't hurt him to know the meanings of words and may actually benefit him at some point. If nothing else, it will serve to expand his vocabulary.

For math, well, that's something I haven't quite figured out yet. I bought VideoText Algebra for HorseGirl and was going to have him use it as well, but I think he may be better served by learning real-life math. He needs to know how to make and keep a budget, and how loans are structured and how to avoid being ripped off (ie. payday loans and Rent-A-Center). I'm sure there are other math skills he will need, such as measurements that we should cover. I posted a query on one of my Yahoo groups and got a couple of recommendations for curriculum. I don't want to spend a lot of money, though.

For writing, we will be using Paradigm Online Writing Assistant at the beginning of the year to work on writing in general and how to write different kinds of essays and then will start National Novel Writing Month. We will begin that in October in preparation for the actual writing in November. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. There are lesson plans in the Educators section that go over character, plot, setting, etc.

For literature, I'm planning to use Teaching the Classics by IEW and will choose literature based on what we're studying in history. I have several classics and other good books already chosen based on the time period. Even though we're studying American history I plan to include authors from all over the world.

School Planning & Summer Break

I am pretty much done with school planning for next year, but I still find myself drawn to the computer and curriculum books looking for ways to streamline and organize things for next year. Since we will be starting the bulk of our schooling mid-July, I want to make sure everything is as planned as possible. I typically plan things out and then find myself falling apart several weeks into the school year. My problem is that I like to research things to the extreme, but lack the follow through to put my plans and research into action. This year I'm going to try a few new ideas for staying organized.

1)I made a list of supplies for science labs and will purchase everything I need for the first quarter at one time and put it all in a bin. Lack of supplies will no longer be an excuse to get out doing labs. Luckily, physical science does not require things like bananas and lima beans.

2)I've already done through every course and made a syllabus, writing down every book to read, map to fill in, chart to complete, etc. I then entered everything into HST+ so I can quickly transfer it to assignment sheets. I also made sure to give a Points Possible value for all graded assignments so I will know at a glance what needs to be graded.

3)We use Tapestry of Grace for history, geography, and some literature and writing. I went through next year's curriculum and cut and pasted all of the General Information pages, Accountability and Thinking Questions for both history and geography and all the Reading Assignments I'm planning on having the kids read. Everything is gathered together in one Word document, ready to be printed out. In the next few weeks, I'm going to print the information out for each week and put it chronologically in a folder, ready to be pulled out each Monday.

4)I've gone through every book we own and have organized them according to subject. My shelves were already organized by subject, but I cleared out space on another shelf in order to organize specifically for next year. The kids and I should be able to see at a glance where each subject is and whether the required resource is available.

5)I have a used-book sale to attend this weekend where I hope to pick up a good quantity of my history and literature books. After that, I'm going to add a reminder to my Google calendar for each week that I need to reserve books from the library. This past year I was constantly forgetting to reserve books in time.

If you have any additional tips, I would greatly appreciate hearing about them.