Making plans for the Cincy convention this weekend has me thinking about plans for the next school year. One just leads to the other I suppose. I’m mostly just jotting down thoughts here, so I don’t forget what Ben and I have discussed about his 4th grade (did I just say 4th grade!?!?) year.
We will continue with unit studies for sure. Some things Ben is asking for include:
- Some studies of other countries (I think we’ll do more Download-g-Go units (DNG) for this, along with Galloping the Globe, Homeschool Share and Five in a Row vol. 4). I’m thinking of maybe doing one country a month for about 1-2 weeks, then working in other units the other 2-3 weeks. That would give us a total of about 10 countries studied. Ben’s also interested in several of the other DNG units, so we’ll just work those in during the other weeks
- More about inventors, especially Thomas Edison. Beyond Five in a Row should work well for this. I also have a lapbook from In the Hands of a Child. If he wants to continue learning about other Inventors/Inventions, we’ll add in Amanda Bennett’s Heroes of Inventions unit study.
- A few more of Amanda Bennett’s unit studies, including: Dogs, Sailing Ships, and Trains.
- Human Body/Anatomy….I have God’s Design for Life: Human Body. I’m not sure if I’ll do this subject as a unit study, or just let Ben work through this book on his own.
It’s looking like a full year already! But wait…..there’s still math and language arts to consider!
We’re switching to Teaching Textbooks this year for math. Ben loves learning on the computer, it will allow more independence, and it will travel easily to Nana’s house or on the road when we go with Dad to fun places. I’ve heard so many rave reviews about it and even Ben is excited to try it. If you know anything about Ben and math, you’ll understand how huge that it!
As far as language arts goes, I haven’t really used curriculum much with him for these subjects. I’ve mostly just worked with his unit studies…… using vocabulary words for spelling and dictation and copywork for grammar. But I think for the coming year we are going to try something new. I’ve been reading a lot about a program called Total Language Plus (TLP). TLP uses chapter books to integrate all of the language arts subjects. It looks very similar to what I’ve already been doing with Ben, on my own. It’ll be nice to have that already planned out for me though. They will be at the Cincy convention, so I’ll be stopping by their booth. I’m already about 90% sure I want to try it. The chapter books Ben has chosen to use include: Charlotte’s Web, The Whipping Boy, and Shiloh.
I want to integrate Spanish into this year as well. I know, I said that last year and we never got around to it. Hopefully this year, but I have no idea what to use. I’m not quite ready to invest in Rosetta Stone. I still have The Fun Spanish and The Easy Spanish Jr. lying around, so maybe we’ll get our feet wet with those.
This summer we are doing a unit study on the History of Kentucky to kick off our 4th grade year. I’m putting that one together myself, including lots of field trips around the state. I’m hoping to have it all written in time for it to be published at Homeschool Share. Deadline is early June, so we’ll see. I’ll keep you informed about that.
Now back to looking through all the speakers and topics for the convention….oh and packing!
