Thursday, June 15, 2006 -
All good things...

... Posted in Homeschooling

Well. Here we are, at the end of another year. The kids are seeing that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel-- a few lessons left here, a few there-- and boy, are they relieved! Maybe I might be too, a bit more than they are!!! Nine years, and here we still are. The wierd thing is, as relieved as we all are about this year coming to a close, we're that much and then some excited about plans for next year! Isn't that funny?  And my son, who is about the most relieved of everyone, really, about this year ending, has just started taking (free) guitar lessons from a friend of the family. I don't think he realizes it's learning... heheh... and we actually had to tell him that he'd practiced enough! No pulling teeth on this, I figure. I also have to toot his horn a bit more-- we use Saxon for math, and he's really struggled with it. Here comes the toot-toot-- he got a 90% on his last test! We are sooo proud of him.

About those plans for next year-- I'm still chewing on a couple of options, but this is a breakdown (more or less) on what we're doing:

DD5 (Kindergarten)

Rod and Staff preschool series

*Listen in on history and science with older kids

**music, French, art

DD7 (Grade 2)

BJUP English 2 (older edition- it cost me the postage)

Explode the Code, books 2 and 3

Christian Liberty Press phonics readers (still working on them from this year)

Horizons Math 2

Mystery of History vol.1 

Exploring Creation with Zoology

**music, French, art

DS10 (Grade 5)

BJUP English 5 (older edition- it cost me the postage)

Pathway reader, Living Together, and workbook (other link here)

Building the Basics spelling

Saxon 65

Mystery of History vol.1

Exploring Creation with Zoology

**music, French, art

DD12 (Grade 7)

Learning Language Arts Through Literature, tan book

Easy Grammar 56 (second half)

Daily Grams, grade 7

Saxon 87

Mystery of History vol.1/ Streams of Civilization vol.1

Exploring Creation with General Science

**music, French, art

DD14 (Grade 9)

Learning Language Arts Through Literature, gray book

Key to Algebra (although those Teaching Textbooks look really good...)

Streams of Civilization vol.1, and maybe some of the activities in Mystery of History as well)

Exploring Creation with Physical Science

**music, French, art

**Music, I'm hoping, will be a bit of the appreciation you find at Ambleside Online, but focusing mostly on theory, ear-training, and instrumental. The older girls really want to learn piano, and as I've already told, my son is learning guitar.

**French-- this is a hard one. Rosetta Stone looks like a lot of fun to do, but #1 it's expensive as all get out, and #2 is Parisian French (living in Canada, in a largely Acadian region, creates this problem-- pronunciation as well as some vocabulary are a bit different here. It's a little like the difference between British and American English. One can more or less understand the other, but it's awkward). The other program I'm considering is Le francais facile. This too is expensive, although not as much as Rosetta Stone, but the main problem I see is the fact that you are given a cd and you have to print out your own workbook. Might be more convenient, in a way, but ink is really expensive. By the time I print out enough for all 5 of my kids (and more, should we have any), it could be well above the cost of Rosetta Stone. Plus, in the samples section of the website, I saw a few grammatical errors. The actual product might not have any, but it did cause me to stop and re-think it. However, the real selling point here is its emphasis on learning a language in order to share the Gospel. The other programs I've looked at have been all secular. This would be my ideal program if it a) were cheaper, and b) used workbooks I didn't have to print off.

**Art-- hmm. I have absolutely no interest  in doing the whole "famous artists" study thing (no offence, AO users). It just doesn't seem to serve much of a purpose. However, I have one child (dd12) who loves to draw (and does it well) so I'd like to capitalize on that. I have something someone gave me called ArtPac, and we've done a little of it, so we may continue with that. Or, maybe, I'll find something else. The How Great Thou Art program/ books look interesting. This will be decided on when I see how overbudget I am... lol Come to think of it, I'll probably use what I have.

So, there it is. More or less.

anybody seen that curriculum fairy????

:: leave me a message

Comments

Friday, June 16, 2006 - Untitled Comment

Posted by HouseMouse

I minored in French in college, and I got pretty good-- not fluent, but I could handle most conversations. Then one day I was in Paris with my French friends and some French-Canadians stopped to talk to us and I had NO idea what they said! They made no sense. The wierd thing is, Haitians I can understand!

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Tuesday, June 20, 2006 - Looking Good

Posted by Canadagirl

I like what you have picked for this comming year. It looks like fun. I am courious about Streams of Civilization vol.1. I have been looking at that in the HS catologs for a long time. I would love to hear what you think of it. Well I hope you stop by sometime soon. Been missing you.
In Him,
-Canadagirl

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