Back to School—2013

School began in earnest for us last Monday, as we took a deep breath and cracked open new books and started away.

This time of the school year is always so fun and new. We all wonder how it will go this year; if the new science curriculum will be as fun as the pictures look; if math will be as easy as the first lesson; what we will learn; who we will learn about; and what memories we will make this year.

Here is a rundown of what we are doing this year. I’m listing the things that we are all doing together first.

Bible: Finishing Patriarchs and Prophets and starting Prophets and Kings. We will also be working on Bible memorization. We now have a Bible memory club at our church, so we are also participating in that. Currently we are all memorizing Isaiah 51.

History: History of Science by Beautiful Feet for first semester, Ancient Greece by Truth Quest History and Famous Greeks by Great Courses for second semester (We decided to take a brief interlude from a our chronological study of history and do the History of Science, just for fun.) We continue to work on our Record of Time timelines.

Science: The (New) Way Things Work

Art: See the Light video course

Now to where the subjects diverge.

Zippy (grade 8)
Math: Pre-algebra by Teaching Textbooks
Writing: Student Writing Intensive Level B by Institute for Excellence in Writing
Spelling: Spelling Power

JD Boy (grade 5)
Math: Math 7 by Teaching Textbooks
Writing:  Student Writing Intensive Level A by Institute for Excellence in Writing
Spelling: Spelling Power
Penmanship: Italic Handwriting, Book E, by Getty & Dubay

G’tums
Math: Math-It and Math-on-the-Level
Phonics: The Reading Lesson & various readers
Penmanship: Italic Handwriting, Book B, by Getty & Dubay

Other things we plan to work on this year is copy work from random age-appropriate sources, poetry memorization, artist studies, composer studies, hymn memorization, nature study, home-ec, and instrument lessons.

There is more, I’m sure, that I’m forgetting. I’m a homeschool mom after all, and everything is school, right?