Posted in Homeschooling

Mary just turned 10, and here is what she will be doing this year:

Math: She will complete Singapore 3A and do 3B.  I am planning to finish 3A by Christmas.  She is currently about halfway through the book.  Math is very difficult for her, and we take it very slowly.  Ideally, I would like to do two short sessions a day with her, but we will probably only get one in.  I also plan to get her the books Addition the Fun Way and Times Tables the Fun Way  (link here), because I think these books, which associate stories and pictures with the basic facts, will really help her to learn them.

Language Arts: We have started going quickly through First Language Lessons Level 2.  By "quickly" I mean 3 or 4 lessons a day.  This is definitely easy for her, but we are doing it for two main reasons: one, to make sure she has the basics of language arts down, and two, I couldn't afford to buy a new book and this was free (my friend lent me her copy!).  I also hope to finish this by Christmas and begin FLL3 in January with her.

Handwriting: I had planned to switch all my children to using Handwriting Without Tears this year, but when I went to the homeschool store, they only had one copy of the cursive book.  So I gave that to Gabrielle, and Mary will continue with Italic handwriting since I already had that book for her.  Eventually I will probably get her HWT.

Reading:  She will continue to read through the Seton readers.

Latin: We have started Latin the same way I did with Robert, by playing the card game Rummy Roots.  It teaches common Latin and Greek roots, their meanings, and how to combine them into English words.  Most likely in January we will begin Latina Christiana.

Swedish: This summer I got a little book called How to Learn Any Language Quickly, Easily, and On Your Own.  After reading through it, I thought it might work to use the system to study Swedish with Mary.  I'll blog about the method later, but basically right now we're translating Swedish versions of ABBA songs, and we'll learn some basic conversational phrases.

History: We just started Story of the World 3, which covers Elizabeth I to the Forty-Niners (the San Francisco 49ers? no, that's another blog post I'm planning!).  We'll basically listen to it and she'll do the student pages.  Maybe we'll get out some historical fiction to go along with it, and if some activity in the student book looks thrilling, we might do that too.  But both she and Gabrielle love history, so I don't want to ruin it by micro-managing!

Science: Below high school level, organized science here is really hit or miss, mostly miss.  This year I hope to do Lyrical Life Science with the girls.  I bought it last year but we never got around to doing it.  A friend and I are also planning a science coop for this year.

We'll do some other some other supplementary things for art and music and religion. I'll probably blog about those things as we do them.