Planning for the School Year

I am a little late in my planning for the school year, I usually start before the previous year has ended and here we are getting ready to start up again in a week and I haven't even finished my planning. Part of planning for the school year is evaluating where we've already been and what of that worked and what didn't. This year I will be schooling the three boys, who will be in 11th, 8th, and 6th grades. The oldest boy may be at the community college the following year doing the dual enrollment program or running start as it is known in our state and so I am looking at what I want to accomplish with him this year before he moves on and out of our homeschool. He is also thinking that he might want to go to college and work towards a degree in Graphic Design - so I want to keep that in mind as I plan out our year. I recently finished reading A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver Van DeMille and got some food for thought from it. I am considering scaling back our subjects for a time and focusing on Reading good literature and writing - we will, of course, still do math. I have felt a little scattered as of late with our schooling, struggling with boys who are not strongly motivated in their education and one thing I learned from reading TJED is that I "can't" educate my children, they must do that themselves, I can learn how to become a better teacher/mentor - but they need to take some ownership of their education. That said, here is our tentative program for the fall:

11th Grade:
Exploring America: History, Literature and Faith by Ray Notgrass
(we started this last year and found it to be interesting and challenging. It will take us through the Holidays and then we will figure out where to go from there.)

We started Institute for Excellence in Writing Student Intensive level C last year and will continue on with it this year. Writing is our weakest area, and this program has helped us tremendously. I won't say that it is a miracle and the boys love to write now, but it is helping them to develop the skills that make it a bit easier.

He is working out of a book called Practical Math. He also started this last year after he finished up his algebra and will be done with it early this fall. We are going to give Teaching Textbooks Geometry a try next. I prayed about this a considerable amount and looked at many curriculums and reviews of curriculums. I have taken algebra but not geometry and decided that we needed some help. It is a pricey step for us and so I am hoping this will be the answer we need, we shall see.

We will be adding in some other subjects too, such as Art Appreciation - which went by the wayside last year and he will finish up his Barry Stebbing Art Course videos and continue to work on the Mustang with his dad and brother. He also has a part time job now and we will have to work around that schedule too.

8th Grade and 6th Grade:

Last year I had both boys together for history and we used This Country of Ours and some other books I had to start our journey into American History. I used Ambleside Online year 4 for ideas of what books to use for literature readings. It worked OK for us, but the boys don't want to read and they are not fast readers so it is a constant battle. It seems as if we get through very few books in a year. I am pretty sure we will continue on our course of history study and probably pick one or two books each outside of that for them to read.

Last year my middle son started into Exploring Creation Through General Science from Apologia and he struggled with it. He dreaded science each day. I am not sure I want to continue on with that. I worked through one of the Glad Scientist books with my youngest son and that went OK. We then did a unit on Reptiles because he wanted to study them. I am really undecided what to do this year with either of them.

My middle son is working through Saxon Algebra 1/2 and doing fine with it. We are going slowly and I think that helps. My youngest son did Saxon 65 last year and will move into Saxon 87 this year because that is the next text that I have, we will take it slowly and I am sure he will be fine.

Both boys will also use the Institute for Excellence in Writing materials, except level B instead of C like their older brother.

This looks so scanty to me, but I am feeling called to cut back and work on some basic things such as habit/attitude training and doing well with the little before we move much more into our schedule. It is amazing to me as I continue on this journey of homeschooling at how each child is SO different and their needs, likes and dislikes are so different. Trying to plan what they NEED is important to me and proves to be a challenge. I am confident, though, that with God's help we will persevere.