Wednesday, November 16, 2016

A Homeschooling Update

We are still homeschooling.

With all the traveling we have done this fall (XC meets for Clay and Leah, two hours away on most Tuesdays, and trips to Florida to watch Julie run--one 8 day period we drove 3000 miles to watch her run two different meets!), it has proved difficult to get our schoolwork done each week. But we have been diligent! This past weekend Jimmy flew to Virginia to watch Julie and Olivia run their national championship meet, and then he flew to Nashville the next day to watch Clay, Leah, and Sam run their national championship meet. I only went to Nashville!

Anyway. We are schooling when we can. Most weeks we are getting five math lessons completed (sometimes they do a math lesson on Sunday afternoons). We also completed a 12 week unit study on the presidents, American government, and the election process. I began Core F of Sonlight for Leah and Sam last Monday. It will take me the rest of this school year and some of the next to complete this Core, but that's ok. We are going to take our time and enjoy the books.

Clay is taking college algebra at the local community college. At home he is doing Apologia physics, Notgrass American government, and the English class I am teaching. This class covers literature and composition. So far we have read Right Ho, Jeeves, Pride and Prejudice, and we are currently reading Hamlet. Next semester he will add health and Notgrass economics.

Leah is doing Saxon math 8/7, IEW, Daily Grams, Easy Grammar, Apologia chemistry and physics, Wordly Wise, spelling/dictation, and Building Thinking Skills.

Sam is doing Horizons math 5, Daily Gams, Easy Grammar, Wordly Wise, Apologia chemistry and physics, spelling/dictation, and Building Thinking Skills.

When I made Leah and Sam's daily checklist for school this year, I assigned each subject a number of days to work in each week.  For example, math, reading, and piano practice are assigned five days each week. Journal writing, Daily Grams, spelling/dictation, and Wordly Wise are assigned four days each week, and Easy Grammar, Building Thinking Skills, Cursive (for Sam), IEW, and science are assigned three days each week. We do our Sonlight reading four days each week. This is a doable schedule for us, and it ensures that we are getting to every subject an appropriate amount of days each week.

I would love to take the whole month of December off from school, but I have scheduled for us to work until December 14. We will see! :)

1 comment:

  1. Roan,

    I was just looking at this and saw that Leah is doing Saxon math. I think in the past I remembered you'd used Horizons. How do you like Saxon? My son will be 5th grade next year and I'm struggling to figure out what we'll use. We have limped along using Miquon first and then Math-U-See, but I'm not full satisfied with MUS. I plan to get my husband (he's an engineer!) to take a look at some math curricula reviews over the next few months so I can get his input, b/c he's never actually done that before and I think it would be helpful. My son doesn't like math, but he shows signs of being strong in music and building/design, so I want to be sure he has a good, solid math background in case he pursues architecture or engineering. I just wanted to see if you have any thoughts on Saxon generally v. other programs. I've always heard it's sort of the gold standard of homeschooling math programs, but I also know that some people say it's dry and boring!

    Thank you!

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