Curriculum Part One

Picklehead will be in first grade this year and it will be his first year of homeschooling.  Sire Ethan is the homeschool veteran around here; Mom pulled him out in second grade after a social worker called the house questioning his absences from school (due to asthma problems).  He has been homeschooled every year since then with the exception of fifth grade, when he attended the public elementary school. That year, he was at the top of his class academically, chosen to go to the state Honor's Chorus, and nominated for Junior National Youth Leadership Conference.  He traveled by himself to Washington, D.C. that summer for the event.  Sire Ethan will be in tenth grade this year.  Bob was homeschooled the last part of his eighth grade year and all of his ninth.  He had a hard time with motivation, and since Mom had a job and I wasn't around, it was decided that he return to public school for tenth grade.  This year he will be in eleventh, and he has told me that he realizes he doesn't like public school, so he will do "anything you ask, plus"! 


We will be spending the first two hours of the morning Monday through Thursday all together.  During this time we will have Bible study, poetry, history, and geography.  This curriculum area is the least planned.  We will use the Bible for our studies, along with dictionaries and/or concordances as needed.  I would like to have them learn the books of the Bible - the older boys are well able, and I think Picklehead could do it, too.  We have a poem somewhere that tells a little about each book as you recite them in order.  


I have found a wonderful little book entitled 100 Great Poems for Boys, which we will read during our morning hours as well.  I am really excited about this part - I want them to memorize some of them to recite, and I want to spend time discussing the poems we read.  We won't necessarily limit our poetry time to this book; we may branch out as interest directs.


We are doubling up our social studies classes for high school planning purposes.  This past year has been rather unusual for us in general, and somehow Sire Ethan didn't get everything done that we had planned for him to do.  For this reason, we will be doing both US History and World Geography, each to count as one credit on the older boys' high school transcripts.  Picklehead will benefit from the exposure, even if he doesn't necessarily understand it all.  We will be using a lot of Shmoop for US History, and I plan to take advantage of the library.  I really want to do a lot of discussion with the boys for history - I think it will stick better that way than just reading it or even listening to it.  Our World Geography curriculum is still rather undecided.  I have several atlases, one of which is the National Geographic World Geography Atlas, and I hope to make use of those, but I am still considering some kind of text or guide as well. 


It is getting late and my cough syrup is taking effect, so I will call it a day before I fall asleep at the computer!  I will continue with the curriculum plans another time.  


Over and out!