I thought it might be neat to have a record of what we do at the end of each month. We had a good month in September. It was a little topsy-turvy because we spent a couple of weeks at different conventions and had a visit from Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah so the weeks were broken up a little. Nevertheless we moved forward in all of our important scholastic areas. I will not report on some things like music or physical education because, even though we have on-going programs, there is really not much change in what the kids do. Here is our current state of study:
Math
Kelly: Finishing up Elementary Algebra. Will begin Intermediate Algebra in October.
Christian: Finishing up Pre-algebra. Will begin Elementary Algebra in October.
English Grammar, Vocabulary, and Writing
Kelly: About a quarter of the way into Teaching Terrific Writing, More than half complete with Wordly Wise 6
Christian: Halfway through the last book of the Easy Grammar series. Starting Wordly Wise 6 in October.
Future: I have spoken with our good friend Rebekah in Dallas. She has found a really good program called WriteShop. I think I will order that for Kelly as soon as she finishes Teaching Terrific Writing. Christian will move on to Teaching Terrific Writing when he finishes the last Easy Grammar book.
History and Literature:
Kelly: Continues the first year of Sonlight’s two year survey of American history (with accompanying literature).
Christian: Continues the first year of Sonlight’s two year survey of World history (with accompanying literature).
Note: I will go into this in a little more detail in future posts with respect to the poetry, history books, novels, time line book drawings, etc.
Science:
Kelly: Physical Science: Jay L. Wiles’ physical science book.
Christian: General Science: This is first year in Jay L. Wiles stellar science education series. Christian is currently studying scientific method along with the world views that underpin the philosophy of science.
Both: Lyrical Life Science II – The kids sing songs that help them memorize facts about different animal groups. The writers and singers of this program are from Corvallis, Oregon.
Bible memorization:
Kelly: Will continue memorizing Matthew 5 & 6 through Thanksgiving.
Christian: Will continue memorizing Matthew 5 through Thanksgiving.
Handwriting:
Christian: A Reason for Handwriting F
Computer programming:
Christian: C# Game Programming
Spanish:
Both the kids are on course to finish the first year of Rosetta Stone Spanish and start the second year by Christmas.
We are doing some other stuff, but this is the bulk of it. In future posts, I will try to describe what they are doing with some specificity and depth for one subject per month.
Wow! Go Chapmans go! We’ve had a very successful 1st month too, thanks to Sonlight. One quick question. What do you do when you can only do a partial week? Try to squeeze everything in? Stretch it out over 2 weeks? Take a whole week off? I know, I know, be flexible, but I like to STAY ON SCHEDULE!!!
Audrey, you are EXACTLY like I am. I do not think I have any other answer than what I do and that only “kind of” works for us. What usually happens with us is that the partial weeks usually come in groups (at convention time, Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year, etc.). When that happens, I combine weeks for awhile. For instance, during convention our weeks were kind of like the following:
Actual day –> Sonlight day
Week 1 day 1 –> week 1 day 1
Week 1 day 2 –> week 1 day 2
Week 1 day 3 –> week 1 day 3
Week 1 day 4 –> convention
Week 1 day 5 –> convention
Week 2 day 1 –> week 1 day 4
Week 2 day 2 –> week 1 day 5
Week 2 day 3 –> week 2 day 1
Week 2 day 4 –> week 2 day 2
Week 2 day 5 –> convention
Week 3 day 1 –> week 2 day 3
Week 3 day 2 –> week 2 day 4
Week 3 day 3 –> week 2 day 5
Week 3 day 4 –> week 3 day 1
Week 3 day 5 –> week 3 day 2
Week 4 day 1 –> week 3 day 3
Week 4 day 2 –> week 3 day 4
Week 4 day 3 –> week 3 day 5
Week 4 day 4 –> week 4 day 1
Week 4 day 5 –> field trip
Week 5 day 1 –> week 4 day 2
Week 5 day 2 –> week 4 day 3
Week 5 day 3 –> week 4 day 4
Week 5 day 4 –> week 4 day 5
Week 5 day 5 –> Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah cooking day
Back on schedule
I really do not like them to double up too much (except on math where we are really excited about getting ahead). It turns out that if we start out a couple of weeks ahead of the government schools, with all the days off we have and the extra two weeks of vacation, convention days, etc., etc., we still finish about the same time. It works for us!!! Let us know how you do it!!?!