S is starting a new series for English. It's the Geodyssey series. So far, I've read through book 2 (and maybe book 3, it was awhile ago and I don't remember if I ever finished it) and they are good. Like the Earth's Children series, it is a historical fiction series. But where Jean Auel worked her info into the story, Piers Anthony has a page or two at the beginning and end of each chapter going into more depth about the historical facts. In between, his stories focus more on the storyline and less on the facts than Jean Auel. I can't say that either way is better, they just come across differently. Also, Piers Anthony's books (at least this series) don't have as many sex scenes as the Earth's Children series. Again, not better or worse but suitable for a younger set of children who are already reading at an adult level but shouldn't be reading about sex every few pages. The Geodyssey series does have a couple though.

I'm considering having S do some minor memorization for religion. Important Bible quotes and such. I haven't decided yet.

On that note, we've given up memorizing the times tables. There is just so much more that she could be doing with her time and she is learning very well w/out them memorized. But, I am having her memorize up to between 12 and 15 (haven't decided yet).

S wanted to grow some things so we were all set to buy some seeds, pots, etc. until we realized that our apartment doesn't get any direct sunlight on the patio, at all, ever. Unfortunately this means no planting for her unless I can find a flower/food that doesn't need direct sunlight and can grow comfortably in a medium sized pot (ah the joys of apartment living!). Maybe once I move then she can do some plants at my house.

In three weeks we'll be done with a couple classes: biology and algebra 1.

We're going to go straight from Algebra 1 to Algebra 2 and Geometry at the same time. They are interrelated and we couldn't decide what would be better, to do geometry or algebra 2 first, so we just decided to do them together.

We'll be moving on to chemistry when we're done with biology. We're starting some nature studies this week and S will be continuing those while doing chemistry.

S is almost done with "Shelters of Stone" by Jean Auel. It is the last book in the series (until she writes another which will take awhile since they are extremely well researched) so S will be moving on. The next series I have her reading is the Geodyssey series by Piers Anthony. The first book is "Isle of Woman". Though Piers Anthony is widely known as a science fiction author these books have been heavily researched by him and have a slant of history to them which I love. They are still historical fiction but they also have real stuff in them which is great. And after all, these are English books, not history books. They are merely meant to emphasize the things she is learning from her other books.

S is still working on Spanish (of course). The book that she's working out of now is "Spanish Now" and it is pretty good. It is set up like a textbook and it is really pushing S to keep up. I'm trying to get her set up with the Spanish version of Rosetta Stone in the next week or so. It is a wonderful program (I myself am learning German, French, Spanish, and Mandarin from it!) and I think it will really help her to get the feel of the living language.

We've been sorely lacking in the religion department. So, starting next week she's going back to reading the Bible. I'm probably going to give her a chapter to read each week.

S doesn't like to write but her writing skills need some work. So, next week I'm going to reinstate the paper about everything concept. Basically, every assignment each week (with a few possible exceptions) will require a one or two page paper to be written about it and given to me at the end of the week. By every assignment I mean that if I assign her to read ch. 1-5 then she needs to write a paper on what she's read about in ch. 1-5. Nothing extremely long, I just want her to work on her writing.

I'm not sure how that will work out however so I'm already thinking of a back up. She can write her own fiction stories. Already as I'm typing that I'm thinking that that is a better idea and I will likely skip the other to do that. I will have her write a few essays however, just to prepare her for college.

I'm making S's schedule for the rest of the year. We're doing a year round school year as opposed to the 9 month year that many public schools go on. I don't see the point in having that big of a break when all the information that is learned is then lost in that time. Her first break will be in June and it will last for a week and then she'll have two more breaks 3 weeks apart throughout the summer.

I'm picking up the pace in S's assignments, lately we'd been concentrating on a few central subjects but with summer coming, I want to get through this stuff. By the time fall is here, if we follow my somewhat strenuous schedule, S should be done with the first semester of her 10th grade work. If she were in public school she'd just be beginning 10th grade this fall. At the rate we're going now S should graduate sometime around 17.

S will likely go to college and that is what I am preparing her for. I'm also trying to give her as many real life skills as I can, and that is coming along well. I'm pretty sure that S will qualify for financial aid for college but I have no idea if she'll be able to get enough to cover all the costs. So, when she is old enough to get a job I'm going to talk to her parents about letting her so she can save up for a car and college costs.

I think that it is very important to be more than monolingual. With my own kids, I plan to have them fluent in at least 5 languages before they graduate high school. S only started homeschooling in high school so she won't have that opportunity. But, I am trying my hardest to get her fluent in at least two other languages. Right now she's concentrating on Spanish, in a year I'll probably introduce another language of her choice which will likely be French. She's also learning a little German from being around my family when we speak German but that won't get her to the fluent level so I don't count it as a language that she's "learning".

Well we've been busy. I haven't blogged in awhile, I'm sorry for that. So here's what we're up to now.

S is nearing the end of the Earth Children series by Jane Auel. In the process, she's learning about those ancient peoples and she's interested. It's really great. We'd hit a rough patch where I couldn't get her interested in anything but once she got to read a book that was actually interesting, it's just sparked an actual want for learning. She's asked me repeatedly about details in the books. Right now she's in the middle of  "The Plains of Passage". She's even reading it when she's 'off the clock' at bedtime and on weekends.

I've got her working out of a new book for Spanish, "Spanish Now". It is much more challenging than the "Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Spanish". It has also helped me to discover that that book taught her absolutely nothing. She didn't even know the stuff in the review chapter. So this book is really helping her.

She's also doing biology, geography, algebra, and a few various electives. All in all, she's in a groove and doing pretty well.

We've moved away from classical education and closer to a Charlotte Mason approach. It makes sense. As an adult, I know that I lose interest in something if it is presented in a classic textbook form. So why should a teenager with a loathing for learning (thank you public school) be more inclined to learn that way? Not to say classical education isn't good, its the form that I'll be leaning the most on with my own children. But, S came into homeschooling so late that it isn't really feasible to follow the strict pattern of it. I may incorporate a little more of it but for now, we're more Charlotte Mason.

Here's S's schedule for this week:

Week of 3-27-06 - 3-31-06

Continue reading the Earth Children series

Work Units 6-10 in "Spanish Now"

Lessons 7-10 in "Algebra Success in 20 Minutes a Day"

Lessons 7-10 in "Biology Success in 20 Minutes a Day"

Ch. 7-10 in "Painless Math Word Problems"

There are also a few more assignments that I haven't given her yet, we're making a trip to the library tomorrow and then I'll assign those.

So, all in all, we're in a good flow.

We're going back to the basics. Today I have S:

1. Reading in the DK Nature Encyclopedia.
2. Finishing a book on how to write research papers and beginning another.
3. Doing a dance dvd
4. Memorizing the times tables 11-20.
5. Using a Spanish cd-rom
6. Reading in the Kingfisher Geography Encyclopedia

Each day we're going to go higher in the times tables until she's memorized at least up to 100 (as in 100 times 100). I'm going to add algebra back in but not until we get up to about 50 or so. There is some math that needs to be able to be done in your head. I'm likely to give her some division memorization also.

Once we finish with biology (a couple more months probably) I'm going to have S move on to chemistry. But, while we are doing that she will also be doing week long studies on different animals.

Before I have S do anymore reading, I'm having her read some books on research papers and reports. Then, we'll start again with reading but I'm going to skip ahead to Shakespeare and the like. I think she'll find that more interesting and as long as she's reading, right?

I bought an instant immersion Spanish cd-rom for myself the other day and I'm letting S use it for school. She likes it, it has games and is interactive so I say go for it.

Right now she's finishing up basic information in the geography encyclopedia and then we'll start studying individual regions. We'll likely follow the set-up of the book. There will be some memorization and tons of reading. Maybe a few movies thrown in. That is also how I'm going to integrate history. As we study a country we will study all of it, history included.

S is much more agreeable after the break. I'm going to continue giving her daily assignments as opposed to weekly ones, I just don't think she's ready for that yet. That's not a problem so we'll just go as we go.

Tomorrow I'm giving S a couple of things to do. She'll have a few Spanish and ASL words and a 30 min segment of exercise or dance.

So far during the break she's not really done much. Total deschooling going on. Personally, I think it's good for her. When I mentioned that I would be giving her a few things to do she didn't object at all. She sounded a little dejected but it is much better than the all out revolt I would've had on my hands had I said such a thing a few weeks ago.

I'm in the middle of making a year long "plan" for S. I guess you could call it a curriculum. It is hard work. So far I've gotten through biology. I have her working through three more books and then she'll be doing nature studies once she moves on to chemistry. Right now I'm operating on the thought of giving her one animal per week in nature studies. At the end of each week she can write a short paper (a page or two long) on it.

I'm glad for this time off. S will get a break from school which is nice and also, I can do more planning. S doesn't really know what she wants to do with her life so I'm doing a kind of college prep high school with her. But I also want to make sure that she knows how to live in life. So I'll teach her life skills along with basic country skills. Hopefully at the end of all this she will be well prepared whatever path she chooses to take.

I already have a curriculum that I made up when I first started hsing S but I'm just redoing the whole thing. As I'm learning more about S's learning style the old curriculum is becoming obsolete.

You know something I'm wondering about? How do you make room for more classes? For instance, S has Religion for one of her "electives". Now, that is not something that I see her dropping. The same goes for other classes, so how do you make room for more? I guess after a little while I'll cut down on the time for certain classes and add another. Of course, the ones that are replaceable with the next step up are easy. And once she works her way through all the steps she'll have more room for more electives. Right now she has

Biology

English

Spanish

Religion

Choir

Independent Living

P.E. (dance)

W. History

W. Geography

Algebra

ASL

Art

So, that's a lot of classes. Anyway, I've got to get back to planning.

S rearranged the living room the other day. She wanted to get a Christmas tree and in order to fit it in stuff needed to be moved around. That day I had a pretty bad attitude about it because I thought that it meant an extra day off. But someone said something to me that got me thinking. She was learning that day.

She mapped out the living room (all on her own!) and then moved stuff around. It didn't fit. So after exclaiming about the fact that her drawing was off she moved the stuff around again to get it to fit. I helped her with moving a couple bigger pieces but for most of it she did it herself. So, she learned about proportion and how important it is to make sure you have it correct before you act on a drawing.  Pretty good if you ask me, and it'll stick better than had she just read about it.

I'm giving her a three week break from her daily assignments. Since she didn't deschool this will be an excellent opportunity for her to get a nice break and refresh her love of learning.

I tried to give S a weekly list of things to do but she wasn't able to get it all done. I think that she just put it off too long. I've decided to take it back to the basics and teach her organizational skills. In order to do this I'm going to make her a few different schedules. She can pick from the lot but the one she picks, she has to stick with all week. I'm trying to avoid tying "consequences" with learning as I'm still trying to reinstill the "learning is fun" attitude in her (public school has ruined it). But she is making it very difficult because she keeps pulling away from the right thing at every turn.

I was beginning to give up on a classical education for S because she's started homeschooling so late in the game. But, I realized today that while her age may be in the logic spectrum, she does still need the skills of the other stages. So, while I have her doing logic work I'm also going to give her some "grammar" stage work. For those unfamiliar with that, it doesn't mean that she'll be doing elementary school work. The grammar stage refers to the first stage in the "trivium" of classical eduction. It is when the mind of a child is pumped full of facts. S missed out on that by going to public school so I'm going to try and do at least a little of it with her now. For example, in geography this week I'm having her memorize all the European countries and their capitals.

These are S's assignments for this week:

Algebra

Units 6-10 in “Forgotten Algebra”; Exercise sheets for “Forgotten Algebra”

Art

ASL

Vocabulary Lists 4-6

Biology

Intro-Lesson 5 in “Biology Success in 20 Minutes a Day”

Choir

Learn the following songs:

“Angels We Have Heard on High” in English and Spanish

“Away in a Manger” in English and Spanish

“Deck the Halls” in English and Spanish

Dance

Do the dance DVD of your choice 3 times this week.

English

Finish reading “The Histories”

Read “10 Steps to Writing the Research Paper”

Geography

Read “The Handy Geography Answer Book”

Write a research paper on geography

Learn all the European countries and their capitals

History

Finish up “Traders and Warriors” research paper

Religion

Read Exodus in the Bible

Spanish

Learn vocabulary lists 3-5

Listen to Spanish learning cds

Do website activities

The Art section is empty because I'm relaxed in that area. I require an art project but I let S pick which one. I'm thinking of starting some art appreciation next week. I've got to pick up some books on the subject from the library so I can organize what I'd like her to do. Since my reading is way, way backed up she may not start the actual lessons for a couple weeks (like when she gets back from Christmas break).

As of today I have decided to give S two to three weeks break for Christmas. At first I was only going to give her a week but I think that she could use the rest. Also, that'll give me some time to get more materials together and adjust her curriculum to fit her learning style a little better.

We're amping up S's learning. I was taking a more relaxed approach with her (here's your assignments, do them in such and such amount of time and give them back to me) but decided today that she needs a more rigorous type of teaching from me... Or maybe I should call it more teacher involved. Anyway, I've decided to give her little question sheets that she will answer after her readings. I haven't used the ugly "test" word with her and so she's not that aggravated about it. I think that she was actually longing for a little more interaction when it came to her schooling but she didn't know how to tell me. So, I'll be more active in her lessons from now on. Some, like math, she'll still be doing primarily out of books but others I can help her with.

S decided to change her foreign language to Spanish. She was struggling through her French lesson today (the thing that tipped me off to the fact that she needs more teacher interaction, usually she would go to another room to do her French and thus I didn't realize that she was having such trouble/so far behind. That won't happen anymore) and I kept trying to help her pronounce the nasal quality of the language. She wasn't getting it and kept attributing it to the fact that she'd taken Spanish as a child. Finally I asked her whether she would rather take Spanish. She was a little hesitant at first but then I told her that we could add French back in later if she so chose (after she's got a big base in Spanish, of course) and she decided to switch to Spanish. I think that that's a good decision for her. She will have many more opportunities to use Spanish in real life and also I can help her more with Spanish than I can with French (my two years of high school French wouldn't have been any help to her in a couple months more of learning). I think that part of the reason she wanted to take French over Spanish is because a)I did and b)she'd romanticized the language. She can still pick it back up later but I'm actually glad that she decided on Spanish, she seems to have more of an aptitude for it.

I've got an absolute TON of extra planning that I need to do now which also equates into a ton of printing that needs to be done. Its going to be crazy around here for the next couple days while I try to get everything back on track. Thank goodness for weekends...

Ok, this is totally OT but I just had to add this in. I read recently (can't remember where) that saying "Thank goodness" is unChristian. I don't see it that way. The whole reason I say "goodness" as opposed to "God" is because I'm Christian. I don't want to take His name in vain (e.g. use it in such a casual way). Ok, enough of that, back to homeschooling...

I've decided against "Agamemnon" for her reading this week (and next). I opened the book today to write some questions about it and I saw that the whole thing was in some sort of script (didn't take the time to find out which language) and the English part was just commentary, not direct translation. Since I don't want to have to search out a version that is translation instead and adding the fact that I never strongly wanted her to read the book anyway (it was on the WTM reading list so I added it to the curriculum) I've taken it out of the list and instead she's reading "The Histories".

We have like a million books from the library. I had been using a system where S was working out of at least 3 books per subject at a time. Well, in order to get some of these books moving out of here and back to the library where they belong I've decided to narrow it down to 1 (2 at the most) book at a time for each subject so she can get through them quicker.

Well I've got to get back to planning, I'll update with her schedule for today later.

S's Schedule

Biology

L.7-10, 7-11 in HH Biology

English

Agamemnon; Ch.7 in Book Reports; Ch.2 in Research

French

Dance

Religion

So that's what she was doing today.

http://www.home-school.com/Articles/phs31-samblumenfeld.html

This is an interesting article. I don't think that "college at home" will replace an actual college degree where it is required but I think that it is a good idea. Really, with the $30,000/yr that a person plops down for college just think of the wonderful individualized education that they could fund for themselves. Interesting.

http://www.home-school.com/Articles/phs32-bluedorns.html

http://www.home-school.com/Articles/phs34-samblumenfeld.html

A little doomsdayish (lol, that's not even a word but whatever) for me but the basic idea is worth reading.

I was blogging for S on a different blogging website but now I know that this one is here this is where I'll blog. Anyway...

Here's what's on S schedule for today:

Biology
L.7-4, 7-5 in Homework Helpers Biology; 16-17 in Guide

English
p. 161-166 in Grammar Power; Oedipus the King; Ch.1-2 in Book Reports

French
Week 5 in Hugo in 3 Months French; Lesson 1 Pimsleur

Religion
Genesis 41-44 in the Bible

S is also going to be learning ASL starting today. Also, I'm changing Dance to Tuesdays and Thursdays and it will count for P.E. instead of fine arts. For fine arts she'll be doing Art which will consist mainly of crafts.

ASL

Learn the signs for

1. again
2. airplane
3. all gone
4. alligator
5. apple
6. baby
7. banana
8. bath
9. bear
10. beautiful

I'm not sure what she'll be doing for Art today yet. I'll update with that later.