Back to the Books

I'm a tough schoolmarm.  I only give the boys three weeks off in the summer but the reality is that I know how life goes and I know my children.  If my boys turn off their brains too long they don't restart easily (like a car trying to start in really cold weather).  Also, I know life will happen (illness and other distractions) so that if we school year round we generally avoid the stress of feeling behind when life does happen and we take a short break.

However, we are not starting full time schooling till our friends go back to school in August.  I'm hoping to ease them into a very different schedule for the coming school year.  We are using a lot of different curricula and strangely (if you know me well make sure you're seated) much of it is from the same source.  I'm a self admitted curricula/book addict but am overcoming my addiction for the sake of my children.  LOL

Here's the full time schedule.  Right now we are at about 60% and will ramp up over the next six weeks.  Adding something new each week till we are functioning at full capacity (I hope).

LANCE (5th Grade):

Latin - Latina Christina I
Math - CLE Grade 6 and XtraMath
Spelling - All About Spelling
Grammar - English Recitation Grammar Workbook I
Writing - Classical Composition:  Fable Stage
Literature - CLE Grade 6 and Memoria Press Literature Guides (Lassie and Door in the Wall)
Geography - Geography I: Middle East, North Africa and Europe
Science - God's Design for Weather and Planet and Wonders of Creation (Weather, Ocean and Geology), and Planet Earth by Tiner w/ Notebooking supplements
Classical Studies - D'Aulaires' Greek Myths and Famous Men of Rome
History - Greeks and Romans via Tina's Curricula 

JARED (3rd Grade):

Latin - Latina Christina I
Math - CLE Grade 4 and XtraMath
Spelling - All About Spelling
Grammar - English Recitation Grammar Workbook I
Writing - Introduction to Composition
Literature - Memoria Press Literature Guides (Grade 3)
Geography - Geography I: Middle East, North Africa and Europe
Science - God's Design for Weather and Planet and Wonders of Creation (Weather, Ocean and Geology), and Planet Earth by Tiner w/ Notebooking supplements
Classical Studies - D'Aulaires' Greek Myths and Famous Men of Rome
History - Greeks and Romans via Tina's Curricula
 
TITUS (Pre-K):

I have ordered and have on my shelves a variety of resources to try with him this year.  I'll post later when we find the combination that works best.  He is showing both ability and interest in reading so that is the goal this year.

You'll notice a number of similarities in curricula between Lance and Jared.  Much of this is driven because of my change to using Memoria Press.  Jared is right on target for 3rd Grade but if I rush Lance ahead in all subjects he would be missing important foundational elements.  Doing subjects together is not new to us, frankly I feel its part of survival when you have multiple kids.  To that end, we have always done Science and History together as a family.  I have just expected more out of Lance than I did Jared; by using the note-booking method this is easily achieved.

We start out our new year this week and I'm sure I'll tweak things along the way but I think we are closer than ever to being on the best path for our family.