Planning for Next Year

This school year still has plenty of life left in it but I’m already planning ahead for next year! I’m hoping to earn as much as I can myself to cover some of the expenses (with Amazon affiliate links, Adsense, Swagbucks and Sponsored Tweets.) If I make a plan now, I can estimate how much the next school year is going to cost and start working toward that goal. I can start buying things here and there instead of needing it all at once in July. Sounds smart, right?

I’ve been making a list. (I’m still adding to it!) ;0)

Much of what we’ll be doing is continued from this year but there are several new things I’m excited about. Picking out curriculum is so energizing and motivating! It’s never fun to buy something you think is going to be wonderful and end up disappointed with it. If you’ve used any of these before and have feedback – I’d love to hear it!

This year we discovered the wonderful world of group learning and next we’re going to add even more group learning!

Group Curriculum:

Bible/Religion

• Westminster Shorter Catechism for Kids: Workbook Three (21-30): Christ, Our Redeemer (Volume 3)
• The Church History ABCs: Augustine and 25 Other Heroes of the Faith
• Trial and Triumph: Stories from Church History
• Memorization – Charlotte Mason Method 
• Personal Bible Study – various books in our morning basket.
• Who Is God? (And Can I Really Know Him?) — Biblical Worldview of God and Truth (What We Believe, Volume 1)

I received the Who is God textbook (and notebooking journal) and after looking through it I decided that I’m not going to save this for next year but do it this year. We’ll learn about attributes of God, our relationship with God, some basic theology — things we’d have learned while studying the catechism but also more. This curriculum really challenges us to think about these things and develop our worldview, which I think is important. I still kind of want to have and read through the Church History ABCs and Trial & Triumph, so I may decided to buy them to add to our homeschool library, we’ll see!

History

• Mystery of History Vol 2: Early Church and Middle Ages
• History Through the Ages Timeline Figures Resurrection to Revolution (History Through The Ages)
• Probably these Notebooking Pages by Daisy at “I’m Nobody! Who are You?” HOW GREAT ARE THOSE? She also has a MOH Vol 2 Resource Page.
• Literature relevant to this time period. (Here’s a link to our book list for Mystery of History Vol. 2.)

Geography

• Literature relevant to elementary geography skills. (Here’s a link to our book list for geography.)

Science

• Apologia: Exploring Creation Human Anatomy
• Exploring Creation Human Anatomy Notebooking Journal
• Junior Notebooking Journal for Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology
• Apologia Anatomy & Physiology Lab Kit
• Coordinating Science Readers for the Kindergartner (A book list coming soon.)

Everything I’ve listed so far are really just sequels to what we’ve been using (and thoroughly enjoying) this year. But THIS.. THIS.. is new as a “group” subject and I’m so excited about that!

Language Arts

• Our Mother Tongue: An Introductory Guide to English Grammar– This says ages 9-12, the girls will be 8 and 11. Looking at it, I’m pretty sure I can simplify it a bit for Drama Queen if I need to and teach them both for the same book. I MIGHT even be able to drop some crumbs of knowledge on the Kindergartner by including him in the verbal lesson. We’ll see!
• N. Wilson’s Our Mother Tongue Answer Key edition (Our Mother Tongue: A Guide to English Grammar (Answer Key)
• Writing Strands Level 3 (Writing Strands Ser) – This one says ages 8-12 and looking inside it this one also looks like a good fit for teaching across the levels.
• Evaluating Writing (Writing Strands) (a teacher book.)

Art

• God and the History of Art – I’m actually hoping to order this soon and start it now, continue working on it over the next few years (it is broken into time spans similar to the Mystery of History volumes.)
• The Usborne Book of Drawing, Doodling and Coloring
• The Usborne Art Treasury

Character Training

Character training is something that should be going on every day but this year I’m thinking about adding some intentional training to our school day. I’ve seen the Polished Cornerstones book before, used by a church friend, and we have a Sticky Situations book we’ve had for a while but never used. I think something like these two things together could be used to bring about discussion and training on good character and thinking through what we would do in tough situations.

• Polished Cornerstones (Girls)
• Plants Grown Up (Boys – debating if I should get this for this year or begin next year.)
• Sticky Situations 2: 365 Devotions for Elementary Kids (we already have this, so I figure we should go ahead and use it instead of buying something else.)

Music

I’ve given in to the noise! I’ve gone ahead and started letting them bang on the piano. Yes, I’ve lost my mind… I went ahead and purchased Teaching Little Fingers to Play: A Book for the Earliest Beginner (John Thompsons Modern Course for The Piano) to get them started and when we’re done with that we’ll switch to the Bastien series which came recommended by a piano teaching friend. I had the chance to flip through them at a friend’s house and I’m pleased with the design, layout and content being taught.

• Bastien Piano Basics: Piano Primer Level
• Bastien Piano Basics: Theory Primer Level
• Bastien Piano Basics: Technic Primer Level
• Bastien Piano Basics: Performance Primer Level

Health/Nutrition/P.E.

• Books about nutrition and health and taking care of your body (Book list coming soon.)
• Nickelodeon Fit for Wii

Individual Subjects

Additional Language Arts Practice

Princess, Age 11, Grade 6/7:

• Words on the Vine: 36 Vocabulary Units on Root Words (The 100+ Series)
• Grammar (The 100+ Series) (Nixed this one, deemed not necessary after further reviewing our grammar curriculum.)
• Reading Detective A1: Using Higher-Order Thinking to Improve Reading Comprehension (Grades 5-6)
• Lots and lots of reading and writing. I decided to skip extra spelling curriculum in lieu of LOTS of these two.

Drama Queen, Age 8, Grade 3:

• Vocabulary (Spectrum) (Decided we didn’t need this one.)
  
• Language Arts (Spectrum) (Don’t need this one either.)
• Reading Detective: Beginning, Using Higher-Order Thinking Skills to Improve Reading Comprehension (Grades 3-4)
• Spectrum Spelling, Grade 3 (McGraw-Hill Learning Materials Spectrum)

Little Prince, Age 5, Grade K:

• A Reason For Handwriting, Kindergarten: Kindergarten Student Workbook
• Brain Quest Workbook: Kindergarten – Because he’s not really a “sit down and work” kind of kid.. I’m buying very little in the way of sit down work. This is mostly supplemental and practice sitting down and working. He mostly learns by doing and it’s amazing how much he picks up working alongside his sisters!!

Math

Princess:

• Teaching Textbooks 7

Drama Queen:

• Horizons Math 3
  

For Mom:

• Well Planned Day teacher planner
• Desk Apprentice Rotating Desk Organizer (with a organizing/planning system similar to this post from The Kelley Eight.)
• Read for the Heart: Whole Books for WholeHearted Families
• A Biblical Home Education: Building Your Homeschool on the Foundation of God’s Word
• Charlotte Mason’s Original Homeschooling Series
• Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends
• For Instruction in Righteousness: A Topical Reference Guide for Biblical Child-Training

I almost feel like I’m missing something.. but probably not with THAT monster list, right?! I’m really, really looking forward to getting some of these things!! I would like some feedback though…

~ If you’ve ever used “Our Mother Tongue”: I’d love to know if you liked it, if you used it for multiple grades, adapted it for younger children, etc?

~ Have you used “Writing Strands?” I’ve seen that name floating around the internet many times before.. What do you think?

~ I’m really curious to know if anyone has used “God and the History of Art” before and what they thought about it?

YES. This is a lot of stuff!! If we actually end up getting everything (I’m still holding out hope..) this will be the fullest, most complete year of homeschooling we’ve had to date. I’m not worried about overloading or overplanning though. Not really! Science and History are on alternating days, art and p.e. aren’t every day, etc, etc. We don’t have to do EVERY BOOK on EVERY DAY. To help organize and get enough done without being overwhelmed I’ll be using Samantha Kelley’s file folder system for printables (that I linked to above) and assignments for each week, and a new modified version of our workbox system. (Another post coming soon to a blog near you.)

What about you? Are you already making a list? What’s on yours?

P.S. If you are interested, I have some curriculum for sale on my Classic Housewife Facebook Page. I tried to list them fairly cheap, I hope I succeeded!

P.P.S. – this post has Amazon affiliate links and a link to my affiliate Sponsored Tweet page.