I have already written about the fact that we are a little bit behind in our homeschool right now and that we made a major overhaul of our homeschool schedule last week. That major overhaul was not just about getting caught up. The big change for Kelly is that she now makes her own weekly work schedule. We lined out her goals for the rest of the year with milestones along the way. Last Sunday afternoon we sat down together and made this weeks schedule. The plan is that she will work together to make her schedule each weekend until she gets the hang of it, then I will go over it with her to assure she will meet the goals on which we have agreed.
I still continue to make Christian’s schedule this year, but have decided on a change of emphasis in his reading. In that upgrade, we have scheduled his first book, The Intellectuals by Paul Johnson. After that he will read Rodney Stark’s The Victory of Reason. He has started into Johnson book already. It is much more difficult reading, but he enjoys it. We are just about finished with our read through a A Patriot’s History of the United States. We will move next to Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl. Then we will move on to read The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome by Susan Wise Bauer. We have pre-ordered her The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade, too.
There is only one CLEP test this month. Kelly will take the Western Civilization I test. Then, in February, there will be no CLEP tests but both of the kids will take the ACT with essay. To help with that, I have ordered a well known book titled On Writing Well by William Zinsser. I have been told it is somewhat of a classic. When it gets here, we will decide whether to read it aloud or have each of the kids read it on their own.
Have you read Strunk & White’s _The Elements of Style_? I thought it was insightful. We didn’t follow all the suggestions but found it to be an interesting read. It has been a while since I have perused the pages but I seem to remember the emphasis on writing on what you have, that is, on cardboard, colored paper, wood etc. The challenge being to encourage children to find a way to express themselves outside the normal blank piece of paper. While we don’t have issues of what to write in our house it was fun to experiment with these different items. Papers could be written and then glued on the different things but it isn’t the same as using felt tip on wood, sharpie on cardboard, or even my all time favorite: chalk on the sidewalk. You could even put “pages” of thin wood or cardboard together for an essay. We checked out this book from our local library. If you haven’t read it you might look through it.
Those are great ideas Deanne. We have a copy of The Elements of Style around here somewhere. I think I actually got it about a million years ago when I was in college and actually had hair. I remember it as being a great book. I will try to dig it out and add it to our reading list. It really is a classic.
Ken,
I will have to get it from the library and check it out again.