School Plans

For those who are interested, here's our outlook for the year.

Caitlin is a senior. Her priority at the moment is college prep and planning. She is starting to fill out applications, which means writing essays. That takes care of English class! Having completed Algebra I & II and geometry, she will not be taking any higher math, but she is continuing to drill for the SAT as well as a second go at the ACT. For science she has decided on Apologia's Advanced Biology course. It is starting to look as though she will study some aspect of psychology, special ed, counseling, or therapy in college, so more work in biology seemed logical. For literature we are going to freewheel and simply try to add a few more great works to her personal anthology. Right now she is reading Fahrenheit 451.

When I was in high school, senior year was when you took government class. In keeping with that tradition, Caitlin is going to review American history and study economics and the U.S. Constitution. Our resources will be online course offerings from Hillsdale College and John Stossel, both of which are free. :-D To round out her curriculum she will continue her piano lessons. Her regular piano teacher took a job in Oklahoma, so I will fill in as piano coach for the time being. Tae Kwon Do is on hold until we get moved. Because of our move, Caitlin had to give up her community choir (a great loss), but right now she is singing with the youth choir at a nearby Lutheran church. We are thankful she can at least do that!

On to Evan. It's fourth grade and time to get serious. He is getting a little tired of Life of Fred math. That is fine with me, as I think right now he needs more drill than Life of Fred provides. So he will soon be starting on our family standby for this level, Saxon 54. For science we will use another family favorite, Exploring Creation with Astronomy (good preparation for all those stars he is going to see in Oklahoma!). We are still finishing up the yellow level of Learning Language Arts Through Literature; we will not be continuing to the next level but will also switch to Saxon for language arts. I have never used Saxon for writing and grammar so this will be a new experience. I mainly intend to use the book as a resource for concepts that I think Evan needs practice on. We will do a lot of the book orally and only do written exercises as needed. Evan has been working on the basics of cursive (Zaner-Bloser) and will continue refining his skill primarily through copying of Bible verses. I also ordered this book, hoping to work a little geography into the handwriting curriculum. I will have to tell you what I think of it later.

Our history spine will continue to be Story of the World, which we will supplement with historical children's fiction from our bookshelf. Evan is very interested in computer programming and has been learning some basics from Khan Academy. He will also be continuing with piano, of course, and after we move, church choir. Somewhere along the way we will try to work in some more swimming classes. Oh, and we are having fun these days with Schoolhouse Rock (especially the multiplication tables, since Evan is still struggling with a few of his facts).

I think that essentially covers it, other than catechism and family devotions, which are givens. Please let me know if you see any glaring omissions!