THINKING AHEAD A BIT

I made a list this morning of the things I want to cover with Big Girl over the few years she has left of "school." I have been thinking a lot of what our ultimate goals are, and of the fact that what we do does not have to (and really should not) look anything like traditional school. If she ends up wanting to go to college, it will surely be a community college where she will simply have to take a test to get in. At this point, she has no such aspirations.

I am a big believer, as I have said before, of playing to the girls' strengths, instead of focusing on their weaknesses. God has made each of us different, with our own gifts and interests. Not everybody was created to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a scientist. Very few were, actually. Big Girl's strengths are in reading, writing, and creating. She is not a math or a science person. For math, she will finish up the Lial's BCM she is halfway through right now. Then, some time before she graduates, we will do a consumer math. That is all the math she will ever need in "real life."

I do want to do an economics overview with her, using the Richard Maybury books we already have, as well as perhaps the Abeka book my sister gave us.

As for English, she will finish up her Wordsmith she is doing, then do the Wordsmith Craftsman book, which has more practical "real life" writing instruction. Either that, or Jensen's Format Writing. I'll have to look over them again. At some point, we will go through Our Mother Tongue, which we already own, for a grammar refresher. I also want to go through a couple spelling reference books with her that we have here.

After she finishes her Apologia Biology, I think we are going to get a couple of homesteading books and do a sort of course on homesteading and gardening. I also want her to have some basic first aid and nutrition education at some point. Neither of those will take long.

For the really important stuff, we will go through Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology, as well as some worldview books, one being a John MacArthur book I already have.

She will continue history with her sister, as already planned. Besides all this, there are about a billion really great books I want her to read. :-)

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WEEKLY REVIEW

The only thing different for this week is that we started reading a Landmark book on the Wright Brothers for U.S. History.

I did decide to keep moving with Middle Ages History while we are reading through the two fiction books. Just some readings from spines this week.

I think I forgot to mention when we started studying Ireland. Well, we finished it up this week. We will be starting Norway next week.

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TYPICAL DAY

I thought it would be neat to do a post on what a typical school day looks like for us right now. We don't have scheduled times for anything, but simply a basic order of things to get done.

About 6:30, Big Girl likes to go ahead and get up and get a head start on her independent work (usually vocabulary and math).

About 7, we wake up Little Girl, and they eat breakfast while I read the Bible to them and we discuss what is read. Then they go brush their teeth and get their hair brushed.

If the day is going to be hot, we go ahead and walk the dogs. Sometimes, we wait and do some reading first and then walk, or when the weather is cooler, we don't walk until after lunch.

The girls do their memory work, usually poems, but recently, the books of the Bible.

I read from a poetry anthology.

We look online at paintings from our current artist, or sometimes read about him, either online, or from a library book.

We either read from a book, or look at websites on our current country we are studying.

We listen to a song by our current composer, or read about him. Currently, we are going through the Themes to Remember books, so it is different things and people each day.

We read our little book about the elements of the periodic table, then look at some videos and websites on the "element of the day."

I read from our current history books, usually one chapter from each, and we usually have at least 2 going at a time, sometimes more.

I read from our current "fun" book. Usually a chapter.

Little Girl does her math. She is currently working a few problems in her book, then practicing her multiplication tables with games on the computer.

Big Girl works on her independent work. Math, vocabulary (if she hasn't finished it), science, history reading, and writing.

Little Girl does her language arts lesson.

Little Girl does her dictation for spelling.

Little Girl does her current spelling words on Spelling City, a website.

Little Girl does her independent reading, usually 3-5 books, a chapter a day of each.

Little Girl practices her typing.

Big Girl and I work on our Spanish lesson.

Big Girl does her spelling.

What is amazing is that we usually get all this done by lunch. Sometimes we have a few things to do afterward, but not often.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

Back to work this week. We are in 1 Corinthians in our Bible reading. The girls have pretty much memorized the books of the Bible in order. We have just been reading a book of poems for our poetry, instead of focusing on a particular poet. For artist study, we are still on Giotto. We found a big book on him at the library and I use one of his online paintings as my computer desktop every couple days. The girls look at it and discuss it. For our composer study, we have started the Themes to Remember books and cds. We will finish them before starting back at the "beginning" with our composers one at a time.

We finished up our book on Thomas Edison this week. We started two books for Middle Ages: The Wonder Clock and Adam of the Road.

Big Girl and I finished our second lesson in Spanish.

Little Girl is close to the end of her Math-U-See Delta book, and we are taking a break of sorts to work on her multiplication tables. She already knows many of them just from use, but we are using some online games and one I downloaded to really learn them well before moving on. Meanwhile, she does a couple long division problems each day to keep that fresh. When she finishes Delta, she will move right into the Life of Fred Fractions book.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

Well, the girls both ended up with really bad colds, so we took this week off too, except for our reading.

For Bible, we finished Galatians and 1 and 2 Thessalonians. The girls just about have the books of the Bible memorized.

For U.S. history, we started a book on Thomas Edison. For Middle Ages, we read The Whipping Boy.

Big Girl and I did our first lesson in our Berlitz Spanish book this week.

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