What We Are Studying

Mom is preparing for the start of the 2011-2012 school year. We will begin on Monday..SIGH...goodbye summer!

It occurred to me that I have not yet shared what we will be studying this year.

This will be our third year using the My Father's World curriculum. This year we will be using Rome to the Reformation for history and Bible for all the girls. I had considered skipping this in the cycle and going straight on to Explorers to 1850 because my younger girls had asked about learning about American history. When I asked Sissy what her thoughts were on this, she adamantly declared that she wanted to learn about what was happening in history during the time that Jesus was alive. As a parent, you can't argue with that!

Part of Rome to the Reformation including studying latin roots with English from the Roots Up. Last year we studied Greek roots so the procedure will be familiar to the girls.

We will not be using the Science that My Father's World recommends. The younger girls asked to learn about two very different science subjects. Sweet Baby wanted to learn about plants and Peanut wanted to learn about the planets. Although we really liked Apologia science last year, it takes an entire year to get through one book. We have decided to return to God's Design science so that each of the girls will get to experience the subject they want.

Sissy will be using Apologia's General Science this year. As a 7th grader it is suggested that she begin working rather independently and Apologia's middle-high school programs are used widely with home schooling families. In addition, our co-op will be doing a class that will be doing the experiments that go along with the reading. It should work out really well for us.

For math, the two older girls will be continuing on with Teaching Textbooks. Teaching Textbooks works really well for us. The fact that mom is off the hook from teaching an actual math lesson with this program (the computer does that) and the fact that the girls love using the computer are two things that keep us coming back to this program.

Sweet Baby will be using Saxon math. We used Saxon with the older girls our first year of home schooling, but they both complained that it moved to slow. They seem to "get" math concepts easily. For kindergarten and 1st grade Sweet Baby used Abeka Math. It worked well for our first year, but was moving to quickly for her. So, we'll try Saxon. I am prayerful that the repetitiveness of this program will be just what she needs.

We will be using Tap the Deck for Sissy and Peanut for writing. Sissy used this program last year and really made some good strides in her writing. This program was suggested to us by another home school family. Peanut will also be trying Learning Language Arts Through Literature. This is a program I have been intrigued by for a couple years, so I thought I would let her try it. Sweet Baby will be using Just Write and a bit of Bob Jones English. We'll just try to piece it together.

We will be using Wordly Wise for all of them - as a vocabulary builder. Sweet Baby will continue with Sing, Spell, Read and Write and some Explode the Code to build on her reading skills.

When I look at it all laying out on the table, it sure looks like alot!