Plans for Mr. Scarecrow...

I guess it's only fair, since I put out a huge long post yesterday about Ms. Artsy, that I post today about what we'll be doing with the boy for next year.  I'm hesitant to label him with a grade, just because technically, he'll be going into the 8th grade.  But I'm not really sure that after next year, he'll be ready for high school.  Especially with his writing.  I could be wrong; a lot of people do a lot of growing up in a short amount of time.  So, we're kind of playing it by ear.  He's sort of 7th sort of 8th grade, and depending on his abilities at the end of this year, we will "take a year" to sort of hone those abilities, or he'll be moving on to 9th grade.  So, with that in mind, here are my tentative plans for Mr. Scarecrow, somewhere around the 8th grade.

History -

We'll continue along using Story of the World.  He'll be in volume 4 next year, so he's perfectly lined up for 8th grade, to start over in 9th with Ancients.  (if we end up taking an additional year, it will be a more intensive American History/Texas History course than what we did this year).  We're still working on his writing, so basically, we do our best to follow TWTM suggestions with reading, outlining what we read, trying to rewrite in our own words from our own outline, etc.  Like I said, we're still working on all that.

I have a few links to websites that deal with this time period that will be useful for next year, as well.

Khan Academy 1700-1900
1900-present

Math -

Math will be prealgebra.  If there is one thing he's not falling behind in, it's math.  I guess he'll be my STEM kid, and we'll just spend our time making sure he can write.  Somewhat. 

Saxon prealgebra 1/2 with the videos
Life of Fred prealgebra 1 and 2 - just an added "fun" element, not a full curriculum, but a different approach than the "boring" textbook math
Khan Academy
Jousting Armadillos - This one seems to be the kind of quirky, out of the box thing that he needs to pick up learning.  He's not "learning", he's having fun reading a story!  I don't know, this kid... he's my struggle.  If I suggest it, he doesn't want to do it.  If it's obviously supposed to teach him something, he's not going to get it.  But if it's through his own devices and his own readings and meanderings, he'll figure it out and blow everyone out of the water with his wit and knowledge.  He kills me. 

English/Literature -

Sigh.  I don't even know.  I mean, I have ideas, but I don't know what will work with this child.  I've tried everything, all the way to starting from the beginning and working through progressively faster.  If it's too easy for him, he's bored.  But if it's too hard for him, he completely shuts down.  There's a fine line to finding what will grow his mind and challenge him without making him give up.  My plan for next year includes reading pertaining to the time period in history, literature evaluation of that reading, and then for grammar and writing, I"m trying something new. 

Analytical Grammar
Beyond the Book Report

We'll be using the Three Year scheduling, hopefully this is "slow" enough as not to bombard him with the trivial bits of learning the English language, but also will make him competent enough to pass any college English class that is so required for him to get that engineering degree. 

Life of Fred - This is new.  As far as I can tell, it just came out this year.  It *says* it's geared for high school, but from my understanding of the reviews, it is considered "remedial" high school by those who know more than I.  They say, it would be a good "refresher" that is fun and entertaining.  Sounds like right up Mr. Scarecrow's alley; a "fun" read that somehow sneaks in teaching?! I'm game.

Science -

So, I could be way off base here, but I have a feeling this is going to be his "thing" this next year.  He'll be doing physics; we usually use elemental science for our science, but 1) she's not going to have the logic stage physics ready in time and, 2) I've read some reviews (which I should know because we use it, but sometimes you can't see what's right in front of you) about how "dry" the curriculum is.  Read an excerpt.  Outline or summarize what you read.  Vocabulary, and a lab/experiment that may or may not correlate to what you read about this week.  Rinse, repeat.  It didn't seem that bad to me, but if others who are science inclined find it boring, then maybe I'm killing any spark in Mr. Scarecrow.  So, we're going to use this year to sort of go off the rails, do a little exploring while sticking with the same subject matter.  I found these Unit Studies from Intellego:

Physics
Electricity and Magnetism
Light and Sound

I also found other NUMEROUS links to sites with physics information, so we should have plenty to go on.

Berkeley Webcast
CK-12 physics book
The Happy Scientist (we just renewed our yearly subscription for $10!)
Khan Physics
MIT/K12 Physics via Khan
MIT Open Courseware Physics I
MIT Open Courseware Physics II
MIT Open Courseware Physics III
HippoCampus Physics
The Great Courses: Physics in your life
Physics for Superheros
Alice in Quantumland
The Wizard of Quarks
UofV Physics
Physics for Poets: thread with a helpful list of a way to do "living books" physics that might give me some insight to a few read alongs in science.

Obviously, I don't expect to be able to do all of this for science.  But, it's kind of like teaching a baby to talk; you don't speak in baby gibberish.  You speak like an adult, and as they get a little bit older and more fluent, you gently make corrections.  This is just exposing his "baby speak" to "adult speak", so to speak.  Most of this will be for "fun", a read or a video to watch.  Nothing that will be tested on; but maybe going over his head will somehow make the here and now stuff easier to get through.  I don't know if I'm making this all up or if it's actually a thing lol.

So, let's see, we've got History, Math, Science, and Language Arts.  We'll probably continue vocabulary with English from the Roots Up 2.  Latin will be Visual Latin 2.  I'm contemplating adding Greek, but I've learned with him to start slow and make sure he can do the basics before adding lots of extra fluff.  We have some ideas about extracurriculars that involve a very popular game by the name of Minecraft.  We're also seriously considering reentry into Kung Fu, like his sister, because there needs to be some kind of movement based time going on. 

I don't know, I guess that's it.  It doesn't feel like a lot when I write it out, but I know we're going to be spending a lot of time in English drilling those basics and getting him to the point of, as so eloquently stated in this thread on TWTM forums:

spend the entire 8th grade year struggling to begin to learn how to:

-Write a short well-organized expository paper
-Produce work that has a heading and date, is legible, has full sentences that actually answer the questions, and isn't half question marks
-Use an assignment book to keep track of one's assignments
-Make and use some sort of study guides
-Show one's work in math (math becomes complicated enough that one needs to show the work now)
-Type

Plans for next year: Ms. Artsy. Ninth Grade

This is really just a rough first draft; a place to put all my notes for our plans.  Usually, I keep a "draft" in my inbox with all these links, but I thought I'd take a stab at the blogging thing one more time; and what better place to keep track of it all for me?  Especially since I can go back and look at it later, and see how far off course we've become.  So, this is for Ms. Artsy for next year, Ninth Grade.  High School, EEP!!

So, without further ado:

History -

As stated previously, Ms. Artsy has chosen to start over with her history studies, so that she gets the full 4-year cycle in her high school  career.  So, we'll be starting off with the Ancients.  Truthfully, I think this is her favorite time period, especially those of the Greeks and Romans.  She's big into the mythology. For our spine for History, we'll be using Susan Wise Bauer's History of the Ancient World and the Study Guide that goes with it.  A link I have saved that may become useful is from the Khan Academy.  Part of history includes reading Great Books, and this is kind of where the line between history and English blurs.  She'll be reading the Great Books that correspond to her history time frame, but she'll be analyzing the literature and writing notes and compositions based on her reading.  The list includes books of the bible, the epic of Gilgamesh, Iliad and Odyssey, Oedipus the King, Agamemnon, Medea, The History of the Peloponnesian War, The Republic, On Poetics, Rhetoric, Aeneid, and more.  We will get through what we get through.

To further enhance her history studies, beyond just reading, we'll be looking into getting most if not all of these Great Courses lectures:

The Other Side of History:  Daily life in the Ancient world
History of the Ancient World:  A global perspective
History of Ancient Egypt
Great Pharaoh's of Ancient Egypt
Great Ancient Civilizations of Asia Minor
Foundations of Eastern Civilization
Ancient Greek Civilization
History of Ancient Rome

And a class from the Open Yale Courses -
Introduction to Ancient Greek History

Obviously, plenty of resources to provide a thorough and engaging year in Ancient History. 

English -

Following the recommendations in The Well Trained Mind (TWTM), high school English is a lot of literature study, and the literature we're studying corresponds to the time in history we are studying.  Ms. Artsy has chosen to start over with her history, instead of continuing on, so we will be back at the beginning with the Ancients.  So, Here are my links that I have saved for English; maybe going through them for this post will remind me why I have them all saved.

First, Susan Wise Bauer has a great list of books in The Well Trained Mind, as well as The Well Educated Mind.  And really, I'm viewing The Well Educated Mind as a sort of outline for high school, or the high school you wish you had if you had had a classical education.  So the majority of our choices will be based off of these two books.

There's also The Great Books, Ancient Course.  Now, this is from a "christian worldview" which we do not partake in, so it will require some tweaking.  But, it gives me a sort of an outline to follow as far as hitting the books that we should be reading over the course of the year, and maybe give me an opportunity to find tests and essay questions pertaining to the books we chose to read.

The Great Courses:
Masterpieces of Ancient Greek Literature
Greek Tragedy
The Iliad of Homer & Odyssey of Homer 
Aeneid of Virgil
Herodotus
Classical Mythology
Great Authors - This one can be used to span all 4 years, picking and choosing which authors we watch the lectures on.
History of World Literature  - Same as above, can pick and choose lectures that apply
Human Myths - Fine line between history and language arts


These are a collection of lecture series by professors who are wild about their courses.  They have a wealth of information to share, and even if just watching and getting a shallow bit of it, I believe she'll be better off than without them.  These are a few of the books we'll be reading, so what better way than to have her go through the literature analysis with college professors?

Science -
Science in TWTM is, once again, based on period reading.  Lots and lots of reading.  I'm not trying to completely bombard her with all the reading all the time, so we will have a "typical" science class, with an actual high school text book, and piecemeal lab that we can purchase and do ourselves at home.  In this instance, I wish so much that we could find a local co-op or group of equally aged children going through the same thing, but for the most part around here everyone is of a christian worldview and use Apologia texts, and I'm just not going to do it.  So I am going to do the best that I can with online virtual labs, any and all field trips we can manage, and of course, labs at home.

TWTM recommends "source reading" based on subject matter and, of course, history time period.  For Ancients/Biology, the recommendations include Hippocrates, Euclid, and Aristotle.  These may be interspersed throughout the year, we'll take time off of science principle learning to do a bit of reading and a paper on the reading, and then go back to the principles.

For the book; I still haven't made my decision as to which Biology book I'm going to use.  I have it narrowed down, and I just have to make the sticking decision (or buy both. I'm sure my husband would love that).  This is the immensity of the links that I have saved for Biology for next year.

First, there is this thread on TWTM forums that has a huge plethora of information that I gleaned a lot of my links from.  As far as the rest of it, I'm going to try to remember why I saved the link, and try to put them in some kind of order that makes sense.  I'm 99.9% sure that nobody reads this anyway, so we'll just pretend like it's all for my benefit.

Books that are being considered:
Campbell's Concepts and Connections
Miller and Levine "Dragonfly book"
More Miller and Levine
Science for High School  - I'm not even sure this one is in the running, but it's a complete kit, with lab and everything, so I'll have to look at it more.

Resources:
This blog post using Campbell
The Home Scientist Main Page
Experiences in Biology  - I'm not sure why I saved this one now lol.  I think it was supposed to be a great lab book...
The Home Scientist Lab corresponding to the "dragonfly" book
Campbell's other Biology Book
MIT Open Courseware Fundamentals of Biology
HippoCampus Biology
Bozeman Biology Videos
Khan Academy
Online Honor's Biology Syllabus using Campbell
Biology Podcasts
Biology Videos
Boseman Videos
Video lectures
Another resource using Campbell
Biology Corner
What a Plant Knows


And of course, we can't forget The Great Courses -
Biology: Science of Life
Understanding Genetics
Understanding the Human Body
Understanding the Brain
Biology and Human Behavior
Origins of Life


Obviously, there is way more here than could possibly fit into a 9-month, 9th grade Biology course.  However, I like the idea of exposing her to some of the more "out there" stuff, just so she knows that this science thing is infinite, the possibilities are endless as to what she could go on to study.  She may even rabbit-trail into something off course from just "biology", and that's ok.  



We could add in a "health and nutrition" class to be half a credit to go along with Biology when it comes to human body systems.  A few I've looked at in the past for that are

Real Food Nutrition and Real Food Nutrition for Kids
This one  is completely new to me, I just ran across it the other day.  I'll have to look into it more, but it definitely looks like something we'd be into.
The HBD one follows along with The Unhealthy Truth  so it seems promising.  And, they have a health 101 for teens!

It seems like I had come across one that had The Omnivore's Dilemma for Kids  as required reading; I'll have to do some searching and see if I can find it again.


Math -
Fairly simply, math is Algebra this year.  We'll be using the Saxon Algebra 1 text, and I'm going to have to decide if I want to get the videos again this year (we used them in Algebra 1/2 this past year).  Another option, other than purchasing the videos, are the videos on Khan Academy site and also HippoCampus. 

Foreign Language -
She's a little ambitious with what she thinks she's going to do in the Foreign Language department for high school.  She's mentioned Latin, Greek, French, and of course, Japanese.  I've told her that we can just pick one to focus on for our "credits" and the rest can be at a slower pace, not necessarily anything she'd get full credit for, but maybe could work out as elective credits or something.  So far, what I've got saved for links for a foreign language are -

Visual Latin 2 - We're doing Visual Latin 1 right now.  I love the guy, the kids love the guy; I'm not 100% sure it's enough as a stand alone for a credit.  We may have to find something to supplement it with.  The problem with that, once again, is finding something with a non-Christian bias.

For Japanese, I've saved a few courses from the MIT Open Courseware.  This may just be a little side-fun, I'm not sure how much of a foreign language you can learn from books and worksheets.  Seems to me like a full immersion is needed to be able to get any kind of fluency.  But we'll take it one step at a time.

Japanese I
Linguistic Theory and the Japanese Language
Beginning Japanese II
Genki
Irasshai

As far as electives go, we have to figure something out for PE.  I'm wanting to put them back into Kung Fu, so they are moving their bodies on a daily basis and also learning the disciple that comes with that.  Also, my littles are old enough for it now, as well, and that would just be fantastic to be able to put everyone into something.

She's always liked art (obviously, hence the nickname) and has always taken an art class outside of the home until recently.  Our latest art teacher has retired, so we'll have to figure something else out.  There are a few things that her dad and I have up our sleeve for her upcoming birthday that might be something we could expand upon, definitely worth looking into for an elective for high school.

I would like it if she were interested in photography, but that hasn't come up as of yet.

Something too that would be fabulous for high school is a debate class; however, she's so painfully introverted (no idea where she gets that from lol) that it might literally kill her to get up in front of other people and talk.  

Let's see, we've got history, english, math, science, foreign language... it feels like I wrote out so much but at the same time it feels like I'm missing something. Not sure what though, lol.

A little update about where we've been this year...

Before I start posting heavy about next year. We've already had lots of tweaks to this year; Ms. Artsy is in 8th, and I gave her the choice of "sticking to the typical order of things", or taking a different approach on this, her last year before high school. Now, for those of you who don't know, I attempt to follow a classical schedule for our homeschooling, meaning we are centered around history and we follow a 4-year cycle. This is ala The Well Trained Mind, and there are other systems out there that are classical in origin, as well, but for the most part nearly impossible to apply secularly. So, the typical schedule goes, History/Science; Ancients/Biology, Middle Ages/Astronomy; Early Modern/Chemistry; Late Modern/Physics. Because we haven't homeschooled since the beginning, we've always been a little off on our scheduling. For the most part, I've kept Ms. Artsy and Mr. Scarecrow together in history and science, to make things easier/more manageable for me. This year, since she's in 8th, Ms. Artsy is supposed to be in Late Modern/physics. They are both actually in Early Modern this year, with a fairly strong significance on American History, and a planned unit on Texas History at the end of the school year. So, I gave Ms. Artsy the option of doing either the same science as Mr. Scarecrow, which actually was going to be Earth Science/Astronomy (told you our schedule was pretty messed up already) OR she could take an "all inclusive" science class that sort of did a refresher of all 4 sciences before hitting it hard and starting over in 9th. I even gave her the option to not start over in history in 9th; I let her decide. She wants to start over, so in 9th we will begin fresh with Ancients/Biology. Anyway, we're using The Teaching Company's DVD lecture series, the Joy of Science, and the book that goes along with that, The Sciences, an integrated approach, for her science this year. History was changed from our usual History Odyssey, because I felt that this along with the writing program we were going to be using was overkill, to reading along in The Human Odyssey. We're on volume 2, and we're also following along in The American Odyssey for additional American History. Latin is Visual Latin. Vocabulary with English from the Roots up. Writing with Writing with Skill. Grammar with Analytical Grammar. Math with Saxon. And a little bit of art/music study of artists and composers of the time period they are studying. Mr. Scarecrow's is a bit different; with Story of the World for history reading instead of the Human Odyssey. He's doing Math Mammoth for math, and Elemental Science for science. Also, the Jr. version of Analytical Grammar.
Whew. I think that's gotten this year out of the way.
For Little Miss Priss (I swear, I'll come up with a better nickname for her. It's got to have the right kick to it though), I started off slow last year, at the "beginning" of the school year, but I didn't want to push her. She didn't turn 5 until January, and I wasn't completely sure she was ready for K. we took it slow; she got frustrated a lot and gave up, and I let it go. We read, she watches a lot of videos, she plays a lot of interactive online games, and she practices writing through dictation. We've actually hit it harder since her birthday, I'm feeling pretty confident that she's ready now. She's totally on the cusp of that reading breakthrough; she can sound it all out but can't quite put it together yet. Any day now, she'll be reading off whole books to me. She also loves to work on her writing, even doing it when we're not "doing school", although she's a hard taskmistress, that one. She loves her school work. For Reading, we're focusing on a lot of different phonics books, Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, Explode the Code, and a new one I just found out about, Reading through Literature. I'm very excited about this last one. She also has a writing program, Writing through Literature, I'm contemplating. I'm waiting on a few books to come in to start working math with her, namely Life of Fred and Saxon K and then I think I'll slowly add in history with a little Adventures in America and some science with Intro to Science. She should be set at least until next January, when her birthday hits, and then we'll move on to first grade work. but only if she's ready.

Long Time, no...

Yeah. It's been a while since I've been on here. Haven't felt the urge to write about it, honestly. I felt like the struggle didn't need to be captured on page... But, apparently this whole "homeschooling" thing is not a phase. We are going on, full tilt, into high school with one, and starting kinder with another. And while I continue to make myself crazy on a near daily basis, finding the next big thing in curriculum that is "way better" than the curriculum I already have, finding new ways to teach something, finding new things to regret how we've already done it, we trudge along, trying to fit it all in without screwing my kids up. I feel like I've got a better handle on what kind of people my kids are, how they learn, and what they need to retain the information. At the same time, I've found out more about who I am and what I'm ok with as far as teaching methods are concerned. Currently, my soon-to-be high schooler is doing pretty phenomenally in everything she does. She's a bit slow, and lazy, and you have to poke and prod her to get her shit done, but her writing has really excelled immensely. I fully feel she is ready for high school this fall. I don't know that I will be ready for high school this fall, though. Still working on that one. The next one; well, he's an enigma wrapped in a mystery. He's just over a year younger than the soon-to-be highschooler (sorry, I've forgotten their nick names. I'll have to figure them out or come up with new ones). I guess he's "normal" for a 12 year old boy? I have no idea. His writing leaves a lot to be desired, and honestly, I cannot fathom that he will be ready for high school after one more year. We may have to add a "filler year" in there, given his birthday does fall near the cut off anyway, and I don't want to push him into anything before he's ready. We've tried that in the past and it doesn't work; he completley shuts down. That's my main problem with him; he won't ask for help. If he doesn't get it, he flat will not do it. Now, little Miss, she's rearing to go, full steam ahead, ready to read and write on her own so badly, she can almost taste it. I'm still collecting stuff for her, but I figure we'll do schooling based on her birthday, so starting at the beginning of the year instead of fall. I'm sure things will even out at some point in the next 12 years. So, that's it for now. I'm hoping I'll be more apt to updating this, especially when I'm making myself crazy for curriculum choices, and I pick something only to realize I had previously looked at it and discarded it for one reason or another.