It's only eleven days until we begin our school year. I need to finish my curriculum posts so I can get ready for the new year. Here is what Princess S will be using for next year.
Tapestry of Grace DE Year 1: We are using this for history, literature, church history, and some geography. I plan to incorporate more narration and copywork for her this year. She will be completing the UG level for most of the year, but I plan to begin the transition to D level part way through. I will have her reading a few of the D level literature books this year and including her in our discussion times for it.
Math-U-See Delta: She will continue on from where she ended the year. I anticipate she will be moving on to Epsilon about halfway through the year.
Latin for Children Primer A: This will be her first year with Latin. I'm hoping we get through this in one year, but I am going to be flexible. I'd rather go for mastery than finishing a book in a year. In fact, I really think we will only get about 2/3 of the way through. Last year, I had all the pages in page protectors for Princess E and she wrote on them with an ultra-fine permanent marker. I used an Expo board doctor to get that off. However, because I had waited until the end of the year it took a long time and lots of elbow grease. I finally gave up and threw away about 40 page protectors. This year we will use wet erase markers. I also purchased the activity book used, so that will give some more variety in the assignments.
God's Marvelous Works Book One: The last two years we have done science together. This year we are trying science separately. So Princess S will be working on this book. I plan to incorporate narration and notebooking with this subject. She will do the reading and answer the questions. I entered the vocabulary words on Quizlet so she can study them there. I also bought the test booklet.
Globalmania: We are going to add in this program for our geography studies. My hope with this is that they will be able to have a better grasp of where things are in the world. We will be setting aside a little bit of time each week to work on this adventure.
Language Arts - I am a language arts fiend! I was an English major and this is my love and comfort zone. But finding something that works for all my princesses is difficult. These choices below may seem like a lot, but Princess S really needs repetition as well as variety in order for concepts to sink in. She also needs lots of hands on practice. So I am blending a variety of programs together. We won't be doing all these each day, but we will be working with each thing at least twice a week. Most of these I purchased used.
Caesar's English 1: This will be our first year using MCT for vocabulary. This is an intense program. We are going to take it slow, but hopefully finish in one year.
Grammar Town: This is the next book that follows Grammar Island, which we did this past year. They enjoyed the story aspect of learning grammar, so I'm hoping this will be the same. As per MCT recommendations, we will be "front loading" this program. She will complete the book in five weeks.
Paragraph Town: She will use this after she completes Grammar Town. There are so many different activities to choose from with this one. We will be choosing those that look the most fun and the most helpful. (Yes - this might overlap some with IEW - but the approaches are different and like I said, she needs the constant review.)
Practice Town: Last year I purchased the student books for each princess. This year, I am going to be including this exercise during our meeting times. I only purchased the teacher's manual and will be dictating the sentence to them. Then they will be working through the four level analysis.
Fix It! Grammar - Tom Sawyer: This will be an additional grammar exercise. Princess S is a very good writer as far as creativity - but her mechanics and usage need some real work. I am hoping that this will help her become more conscious these aspects in her own writing.
McCall Crabbs Book B: We will be continuing this exercise this year. They will complete it during our half hour meeting time. They will be alternating between this and Practice Town. We may need to double up for about three weeks spread out through the year in order to finish.
Ancient History-Based Writing Lessons (IEW): This will be done with a friend's sixth grader. I will be teaching my oldest two princesses along with her third DD, and she will take my youngest two princesses with her youngest DD to do the Tapestry LG literature book and a craft. I really like the looks of this program and am hoping that Princess D will spur my two princesses to excellence. Princess D really enjoys writing and it's one of her favorite subjects I'm told.
Well, there you have it. Princess S's school year in a nutshell. I'm actually getting quite excited for it.
