I think that when you spend the first month of the summer in Ireland, however, and the second and third month dealing with medical issues, and now your oldest son is getting ready to go back to college and you feel he just arrived home in the past few days...
....then the homeschooling will seem to be coming last place, well after everything else. I'd much rather finish reading that pile of Harry Potters so I can get up to #7 and my kids can stop whispering when they discuss plot points. And that IS actually on my list of things to do.
But since we're starting back in two weeks, and the kids have already read HP, I guess that is not quite enough, SO ...
I think I will do my customary fall-back and start with very basic 3Rs, and reading aloud, and keeping an observation log. ....keeping track of my priorities.
As we get more into the autumn rhythm, I will start thinking about Giotto and Architecture, then the Pre-Raphaelites and romantic poetry. (though that will probably not be until after Christmas).
I have thought a bit about Logic, but not really about science yet, so that is probably next. Nature Study can take the elementary grade ages a long way, and it shouldn't go away even with the older set, but with the highschool group, a bit of additional formal study is a good thing.
The other thing I probably ought to do is brainstorm a few "focus" areas. In order to do this I am going to start taking a small notebook around with me. Like this:
- Cooking with Aidan
- Working on fine motor control with littlies
- Woodworking for teens?
- College prep
- unit on health for littlies and 11 year old.
- more random notes here.
Kieron, my 11 year old, can use books from Level 3 Mater Amabilis, and these Real Learning books; and Sean, who is 14, can use a combo of Mother of Divine Grace, and Kolbe Academy. This has worked for us in the past....we'll see....
Clare has laid out her plans and is planning to start working this Monday ... the rest of us will start on Tuesday. (Sunday we bring the oldest, Liam, back to college.....sigh).
You probably wonder how these seemingly scattered components fit together -- well, they do or will, but I'll have to go into more detail with that in a different post.
Meanwhile, back to HP#5.
3 comments:
Your observation log and your planning posts are amazing! I also love your version of the "Rule of Six."
Enjoy those Harry Potter books! I finished HP7 less than 48 hours after it was released. *LOL*
WE have a picture book about Giotto out of the library. If I find it lying around I will try to let you know the details.
Don't your teens do a lot of their own goal setting? Maybe you need to have a meeting with them instead and find out what they'd like you to plan.
And clearly a discussion of the HP series should be in the plan for literature. :-)
Well, they've already "done" HP -- I'm the only one who hasn't ;-). They could probably teach a class at this point. LOL.
My two oldest at home do it pretty much the way you mention, JoVE. My 14 year old -- the feeling I get from him is along the lines of wanting to be prepared just in case he does public school next year. Neither of us know all that much about prepping for ps -- so that's something both of us will have to figure out this year.
I'm on book 6 now -- so if all goes well I'll be even with you by next Monday, Steph.
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