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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