Before you know it the new year will be here and for us that means a shift from Greece to Rome in our history studies.  So I have been looking over our books and resources as well as inspiration from other mom's on treating our homeschool as a serious business.  And here are our plans for the new year.

We will start our day with jump start activities.  Kumon workbooks for both girls and penmanship will get us started working and having fun.

Then we will move into memory time.  This is where we will review phonograms, do grammar definitions and other information.

Next, we will have seatwork time for my oldest.  Starting with SWR or FLL/copywork, then Rightstart math, Greek and finishing off with Piano practice.  At some point we will add Prima Latina into the mix here.

Then we will have read aloud time with Story of the World or Story of the Pilgrims and looking at the topic of the day in the Earlybird science books and then finishing off our day with hands-on history, science and/or art projects.

It should take us from 1 and a half  to 3 hours to complete our day. I think that with the hands-on activities and the Kumon books that we will have a lot more fun but we will also get the serious work done in a timely fashion as well.

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I hate to say it but with being sick at this time of year and having planned to spend December on Christmas.  I am going to throw in the towel and start again after the holidays on any serious schoolwork getting done.

Once I am better, we will be filling the month of December with lots of fun stuff like opening our Advent Calendars everyday, making Christmas cards, decorating the tree, telling Christmas stories and watching Christmas movies.  The season of joy is decending upon us. 

I am pretty sure that Thanksgiving is going to be a flop.  We're all too sick to enjoy the season and the food. 

So what lies ahead for us.  We will try to plug along with Rightstart math, Spell to Write and Read and do a little of Cursive 1st.  My youngest just finished her HWT book and I am going to move her to the Cursive 1st letters.  My oldest just finished up re-learning to write her numbers. 

So we will do the 3 r's and lots of Christmas projects.  After the first of the year we will pick up history with the Romans.  I am looking at adding in BJU Bible, Singapore Earlybird Science and more Kumon workbooks for my youngest.  She loves those Kumon workbooks.

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We start the school day:

Handwriting practice with Cursive 1st for older and HWT for younger child

Coloring pages or copywork while I read from Christian Liberty Nature Reader or Story of the World

Younger child works on phonograms and numbers

Memory work time--days & months, definition of noun & verb, books of the Bible, our first bible verse in greek and phonograms

SWR with older child/or grammar on weeks we do copywork

Rightstart Math C

Greek Vocabulary from Bible Verse

Early Edition Newspaper

Science project or Art project

We started the school year with 100% bad attitudes and as we have worked on them we now have 75% good attitudes.  So it is looking good and we are doing well.

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I know, I know.  It is early but our state's homeschool convention is in March, so I want to have a list of what I want to look at.

This next year we will be doing the Dark & Middle Ages with plenty of time for King Arthur and Robin Hood.  We want to fully explore being princesses, castles, knights like Joan of Arc, the Cantebury Tales and the crusades. 

So we are looking at:

Story of the World II with activity Guide and possibly with Biblioplan

D'Aulaire's Norse Myths

Beautiful Feet Early American History Semester II

Children's book of Tales from Chaucer

A good book about King Arthur that will take several week to read but is interesting

And one about Robin Hood as well.

Real Science 4 Kids  Pre-Level 1 Chemistry

Christian Liberty Nature Reader II

Copywork for Little Girls from Queenhomeschool   Or

Copywork I from Memoria Press

Prima Latina

Bob Jones Univeristy Bible Truths

Easy Grammar 2nd & 3rd grade.

We will continue to use Rightstart Math, Spell to Write and Read and Cursive 1st.

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Now, that we are into October, I can safely say that we are getting into a nice routine and are happy with our outside activities list.

This year we are doing:

Oldest--Ballet, piano

Youngest--Ballet

Togther we also go to the library once a week for storytime and to pick out books.  Also, through our homeschool group we get together for field trips and playtimes.  We are looking at going to see an art exhibit on our own this Friday.

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We just recieved yesterday from Britta at MorningstarLearning.com, our newest level of Rightstart and Cursive 1st.  We are very excited about these. 

Oldest dd is excited about cursive.  When we read the Year of Miss Agnes, they talked about learning cursive and now dd is all for it.  We have had trouble with reversals and starting letters in the wrong place for some time.  I have looked through these materials and they look great. I have already cut out the cards and am laminating them with clear contact paper.  We should have the entire alphabet introduced by Christmas and be writing our spelling lists in cursive after that.

After looking at Level C in rightstart, I can see that this is where oldest dd has needed to be for some time.  Many of the concepts will be new to her while some are old hat.  I think she will like a lot of the geometry and higher maths ideas that are introduced.  Looks like we will have a lot of fun with this & it may take us the full year to complete the book.

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