Next year is going to be a very exciting school year for both Kelly and Christian. We bought the Sonlight books for Kelly this year, but not the study schedule. We were not even going to do that, but when we got to looking at them, we realized it would be a shame not to read them. Still, we are going to deviate significantly from the type of schedule she has followed in the past because we/she wants(s) to concentrate on college level material and material that will prepare her to take college classes. We will emphasize Math this year so she will be well prepared for Calculus next year. This year’s science is a Biology program that is nothing short of amazing. We are planning to supplement it with some discussion of current topics, too. We bought Understanding Intelligent Design by William Dembski and Sean McDowell and Explore Evolution by Stephen Meyer, et. al. Christian, Kelly, and I plan to read those books aloud together. Kelly’s other main area of concentration will be the CLEP tests she plans to take. They include Biology, Spanish, U.S. History II, Psychology, and Sociology. We are not sure how fast she can go on those tests, but it is a good goal that we can modify if necessary.
I started creating the 2008-2009 homeschool plan this weekend. I got a good start on making it significantly more automatic than in years past. I keep the schedule in an OpenOffice.org spreadsheet, so I downloaded the lasts version (2.4.1) to get started. Early in the process, I realized it would be easier to set up a schedule for the whole year, then make modifications to it when there were changes than to add one week at a time like I have done in the past. I finished about half of Kelly’s schedule, but have had some additional thoughts on how to improve it, so I might start over again from scratch next weekend. After I finish Kelly’s schedule, I will be able to start with that as a base for Christian’s schedule so it will go a lot faster.
Diet notes: This is the first weekend in the history of my diet that I have not gained wait on Monday. If I can just do that a couple of more times, I might be able to continue to lose weight. Bryan has almost met his goal. I will bug Lyle about where he is.
My motivation is this! I’ve lost 54 lbs since Feb but my BMI still shows me as overweight!
That looks like a great science program. I loved dissection, but hated the evolutionary language offered in public school…can’t wait until our kids get to this level. We did take them to see Expelled, and Eric and I are reading books like Darwin’s Black Box and others occasionally. Anxious to read about what Christian will be doing this year too.
Konrad will do Core 4, and I’m trying to figure out a way to combine Core 6 for Addie and something (maybe Core 1/2) for Adrianna as she will not be content to just float along this year! Traditionally she would start kindergarten this fall, but worked at 2nd grade level last school year. I need to call Sonlight today to see what they suggest for starters as I’m not sure how these two cores line up…
I know exactly how you feel Bryan. According to the World Health Organization/Centers for Disease control charts, I am currently obese (at <20% body fat) and will just be overweight when I am down to my desired weight at around 12% percent body fat. I cannot figure it out.
Wow Audrey. I though WE had a challenge coordinating study programs. I wish I had some advise for you on how to coordinate Core 6 with Core 1/2, but we were not using Sonlight until Christian was in third grade. The thing we decided to do was to read aloud to both the kids at the same time, even if the kids did not have the same material. That worked really well for us, maybe not so much in terms of what we all learned, but in terms of how much we have enjoyed reading together. It seems like you are doing a great job of mixing and matching kids and curricula with the bigger challenge of more kids who are further spread out in age, ability, and interest. I can see how that could both be way fun and way tiring! It sounds like you have a super year planned.
We have Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box, Johnson’s Darwin on Trial, and Dembski’s Cambridge monograph on Intelligent Design. I really enjoyed them a lot. We are really looking forward to a year of biology, but I do not think Kelly is wildly excited about dissecting anything!