Back to School

We started back to school this week and so I thought it would be a good time to ressurect the blog. This year Princess K is in 4th Grade, Little Dora is in Kindergarten, and Bubba is still terrorizing the school supplies. I have spent the last month trying to get things together, copies made, and more books ordered. My choice of curriculum really hasn't changed, we are adding in more library read alouds and readers, and projects from Story of the World vol 2 . That along with Mystery of History 2 and our library system are where I got book lists for our library read aloud additions. We are switching things up a bit with our history though. I decided to do history more in units rather than choronologically. I find that the skipping around confuses Princess K and she doesn't keep interest. I am also correlating Geography studies with what history we are on. It took more work in planning as I had to rework our Sonlight Manual, but I think it will be well worth it.

This week we are exploring New Zealand and Australia. I thought it would be appropriate since we were there, and Princess K really enjoys learning about the land down under. History is mainly about the Maori and New Zealand during the middle ages, but Geography covers both countries. Here are some of the things we are including in our week (which is how long we are on our journey).

New Zealand/Australia
SOTW Ch 10
MOH (Mystery of History) Lesson 44
Maori Coloring page (SOTW Activity guide)
Australia Map Exercise (SOTW Activity guide)
Make Moth Mix (SOTW Activity guide)
Take Journey of Maori (SOTW Activity guide)
Extra books:
1000 Years ago on Planet Earth
The Legend of Rosy Dock
The Pumpkin Runner
Reader:
Dingoes at Dinnertime
Geography Songs: New Zealand and Australia with accompanying coloring pages.

Since we are in our first week "back to school" we are going a bit light. Really we are only doing: Bible, Math, History, Geography, Spanish, and Memory Work review. Next week we will add Spelling after we finish the placement tests, Latin, Vocabulary, and Handwriting. Then after that it is Art and Grammar. I have gone ahead and scheduled out assignments through the end of November in Homeschool Tracker. In September and October, the history units take about a month... then some 1 week units start up in November. Here is our planned out schedule.

August: New Zealand?Australia & Kingdom of the Franks
September: Vikings
October: Knights and Castles
November: Mongols, 100 yrs war and the Plague, & the Russians and the Ottoman Empire.

I really hope this will work. I am not really a unit study kind of person, but this seems to be a natural flow for Princess K in regards to History and Science. We are still doing a timeline. I have decided to just print it out and put it in a notebook. As we go through the unit, she will color and place the figures on her timeline. Since Bubba kept ripping the timeline figures off the paper when I hung the timeline on the wall, we had to change our strategy.

As with anything in Homeschooling, I will probably have to adjust things. I have learned that homeschooling is not something that remains static. It must be flexible with the changes of the child.