Monday, July 11, 2011

Thoughts On Our Upcoming School Year

We are having a fun and busy summer. Everyone has suntans and many things on our summer wish list are completed. However, as the kids rack up bee stings and the heat index climbs, our thoughts are turning to being near the A/C and a good stack of books. We will be starting back to school the first week of August. I am busy planning an overview of our year, as well as lesson plans for the first three months. I'm trying something new this year ~ instead of teaching all of the subjects each week, we will have themed weeks. Each month we will do one week of History, one week of Science, one week of Art and one week of Music and Geography. I think doing a concentrated five days in a row of a subject will help it stick more in the minds of my children. It will also make it easier on me to complete mini units. Here is an example of how I think a month will work ... History -- Civil War; Science -- Florence Nightingale, Clara Barton, human body and advancements in medical science; Music -- John Philip Sousa (Marching band music); Art -- Civil War photography (Mathew Brady) and Winslow Homer, who started his career making sketches of Civil War photographs for the newspaper.

We will do Language Arts, Math and Literature each week. I am still thinking about how to fit in Sign Language and piano lessons. It seems like both of these lessons need to be done on a regular basis. I will be revealing our new books in a week or so. I am still waiting for our math books to arrive. We have everything else we need. There is still a wish list from which I want to order .. but there always is that. LOL! I will probably make a small order off our wish list before school starts.
I hope you are all enjoying your summer.

Blessings,
Dawn

5 comments:

  1. I'm so impressed with parents that can homeschool. It sounds like you have a wonderful plan. Have a great school year!

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  2. Looks like a good month plan. I'm still tweaking Tapestry of Grace to fit us.

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  3. This is so "funny" to me. Just last night I was thinking about doing weekly themes like that for my younger set. Great minds think alike :)

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  4. I'd love to see how this works out. I'm wondering if they would retain the information between the 3-4 weeks when they come back around to it. Do you teach history chronologically, or do you do some variation of pulling whatever strikes you all's interest at the time?

    We're starting toward the end of April, one month later than I like to start, but I'm trying not to kill my oldest, and to give her the least bit of a summer. I "felt" you on this post, though. I'm waiting on our planners to arrive(I ordered them on last week), so that I can begin listing the first couple of months in assignments as well.

    Always a treat to visit.

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  5. I'll be interested to hear how this works for you. I smiled about the never-ending wish list! :)

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