School is completely out now. Lorena took her math final yesterday, but is not sure how she did. I think she did just fine. Kelly and Christian finished their standardized tests. Both of them felt the tests were very easy. With all that out of the way, I was inspired to start planning for next year. I got out the Sonlight catalog and identified all the things we believe we will need from them for next year. If I have the resources, I really do not like to skimp on materials. When I added up all the costs, it came out to just under $1500. We will buy materials from some other companies that should bring that total up to around $2000 total.
That is about what the materials cost at the beginning of the year, last year, too. In addition, we are planning to buy a new computer which will use primarily for homeschool sometime this fall. Including the computer and all the materials we buy during the school year, our total cost of homeschooling for the year should be around $3000. That is not bad, and it should go down dramatically next year as we will not need to buy another computer and Christian can use the books we bought for Kelly’s fifth grade year. We are hoping to keep the average per year cost to under $2500 for both the kids.
The kids and I looked at the books in the program for next year and they are just as awesome as the ones we used this year. Christian’s books will focus on the history of the United States from 1850 to the present with Franklin Escher, Jr.’s The Story of the U.S.A. books and the second half of Boorstin’s Landmark History of the American People providing a narrative base. He studied American history up to 1850 this year. Kelly will start into a two year survey of history with Susan Wise Bauer’s Story of the World as a narrative base. Again, the many books that accompany these narratives and flesh out the program are fabulous.
The other books we will get from Sonlight are continuations of Singapore Math, Spelling Power, and A Reason for Handwriting. I have decided to add art (drawing this year) and the Wordly Wise vocabulary builder for both of the kids, too. The only items we have left to purchase from other companies are RealScience-4-Kids, Easy Grammar and Igniting Your Writing.