Our school year will begin later this month, as we are putting back an official start date on hold anticipating moving to our first job location in mid-January. However, we will start some staple subjects (Math and Reading) while we transition to keep moving along in those subjects. To remind some and introduce us to others. We are a traveling homeschooling family. I have three girls: Mouse (age 12, 7th Grade), Thumper (age 8, 3rd Grade), and Bird (age 2, Tot school).
This year I had difficulty deciding on some of our subjects together. Then, I made choices, purchased them, and when they arrived, I was disappointed. So, I’m still deciding on some. What I know we will do this school year is our Science, Music, Bible, Poetry, and World Geography.
SCIENCE: We will continue using Apologia’s Zoology 2 (Swimming Creatures) and then move on to Zoology 3 (Land Animals). Mouse (Grade 7) will use the regular student notebook, and Thumper (Grade 3) will use Junior Notebook. They did this independently last year, which was AMAZING for me, chasing after Bird. I purchased the MP3 files of the book, and the girls listened to their assigned reading and then did their own notebook pages. They would help each other out and feed off each other with encouragement and help when the other was stuck. It was sweet to watch and made this Momma Bear's heart so happy.
MUSIC: We will try out Meet the Composers (Book 1 Classroom Kit). I’ve given up trying to teach our girls to read notes and play an instrument, not because they aren’t capable, but because I just can’t figure out how to teach it and have it stick. So, the next best thing is to encourage their individual interests and independent learning for instruments, and instead help foster a knowledge of major contributors to our musical history.
BIBLE: I chose two different family devotional type books to use this year. Old Story New (Marty Macowski) and Core 52 Family Edition (Mark E. Moore). I anticipate these two books taking us two years to complete as we will alternate between them and/or pause as we need to, to either memorize verses better or understand a concept more.
POETRY: Institute of Writing Excellence’s: Linguistics Development Through Poetry Memorization. We will be very laid back with this part of our curriculum choice. I just wanted to introduce them to it, and hopefully have some fun memories, and memorized poems to carry them into adulthood.
WORLD GEOGRAPHY: We are going to follow along with Thumper’s World Geography component from Sonlight’s Core C World History Year 2. They have both kind of been through it, but I set a goal to be more consistent with using the songs and then also working with the maps more. They will have individual World Geography daily as well, but I will discuss that in the blog post where I line out each of the curriculum choices for their grade levels.
This seems like a lot, but I realize we are school year-round, and outside of Science and Geography, we do our other subjects during our Supplemental Saturdays (so one day a week).
In addition to Science and World Geography, we also do Art, Sign Language, and Music together, but these are the subjects I haven’t completely nailed down yet. Once I have decided on these subjects, I promise I will edit this post and add them. I have a few more weeks to decide.
Look back on the blog in the next few days for our curriculum choices for Grade 7 and Grade 3. You can look at previous years’ curriculum choices 5th Grade (2021), Together 1st and 5th (2021), and Curriculum Choices 2020.
As always, keep following our journey on our Facebook Page or Instagram. If you want more in-depth conversations, check out our Facebook Parent Group.