It’s that time of year for me. Time to begin putting together thoughts and ideas for the new school year. It’s hard to believe that Ben is in the 5th grade now!
Being the delight-directed, unit study mom that I am, I have to admit that things are getting a bit more challenging as he gets older. It used to be that when I asked Ben what he would learn about next, it would be things like butterflies, frogs, or Ethiopia. Easy peasy. Now we’re moving into things like World War II planes, computer programming, and physics.
My head is spinning.
But I have to remind myself (and him) that we don’t have to do it all in one year! We have already waffled back and forth a bit about the overall subject matter of the coming year, but I think we finally have some things nailed down. We also have set some goals for the coming year.
Some of our specific goals include:
- Bringing the Principle Approach to each subject (I have much to learn about this!)
- Memorizing more scripture. Study the Fruit of the Spirit.
- Learning more about global missions and missionaries (including participating in some missions efforts ourselves)
- Using the brain training program from Learning Link Technologies, in the hopes in will help with Ben’s ADHD and math glitches (I’ll be blogging about this under the category Neuro-sensory Therapy if you would like to keep up with Ben’s progress).
- Developing a student planner for Ben to use during our school day. We have recently taken Ben off of his stimulant medications for his ADHD, so I will need to be much more diligent about keeping him on task. We’re thinking of using the Intermediate Student Planner from TOS, if you’d like to check it out).
- Making the most of our days . . . together . . . which means we’ll be spending more time at home.
And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. (Deuteronomy 6:6-7).
We will be doing our unit studies a little differently this year as well. In the past, I have purchased pre-written unit studies, covering all subjects except language arts and math.While I’m still purchasing curriculum, I will be piecing things together, creating a year long history-based unit study, divided into four-8 week long units:
Unit One
Time Travelers: The Early 19th Century
Trail Guide to U. S. Geography
God’s Design for the Physical World : Machines and Motion
Progeny Press Literature Guide: Little House on the Prairie
Unit Two
Time Travelers: Civil War
Trail Guide to U. S. Geography
God’s Design for the Physical World: Machines and Motion
Progeny Press Literature Guide: Across Five Aprils
Unit Three
Time Travelers: The Industrial Revolution through the Great Depression
Trail Guide to U. S. Geography
God’s Design for the Physical World: Inventions and Technology
Progeny Press Literature Guide: Where the Red Fern Grows
Unit Four
Time Travelers: World War II (due out this year)
Trail Guide to U. S. Geography
God’s Design for the Physical World: Inventions and Technology
Progeny Press Literature Guide: The Hiding Place
Other courses we’ll be adding to our weeks include:
- Getting Started with Spanish
- IEW Student Writing Intensive Level A and Writing Tales Level One
- New American Cursive
- Life of Fred and Loving Living Math
- Who is God for apologetics
- daily Bible study and scripture memorization
Looks like an exciting year, don’t you think? What plans are you making for the new school year?
