4th grade for James starts officially next Tuesday on September 8th. We had planned on starting this week but since we were all sick, pushed it back a week. This year is going to be a bit more intensive and we are going to require a bit more out of James. He hates to write, but only when it comes to lessons. He can spend hours writing when it is something that truly interests him like writing stories or drawing. Lessons may take a bit longer, but in the long run he will benefit from it.
We've also changed our work schedule due to Webelos being on Tuesdays so that means I am working Monday and Thursday and Father on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. I am completely changing the schedule. For the past three years we've been home schooling year round with 3 weeks on, 1 week off, four days a week with Friday off. We are changing to 6 weeks on, 1 week off, 5 days a week with Monday being a light day. We have days off here and there with 3 weeks off at Christmas. Father will be handling the science and science projects, math homework, spelling test, and whatever special projects come up.
The plan
English
Spelling
Vocabulary
Writing, Dictation and Narration
And lots and lots of reading. James will have 30 minutes assigned reading, 30 reading scheduled free reading time, plus any read alouds we do. He surprises me alot of time, because after he's gone to bed and I think he is sleeping, he's reading. Plus its time to start doing book reports.
Math
Time to go back to a formal math program and decided to go with Saxon. We did the assessment tests provided by Saxon and while James has mastered basic addition and subtraction, he is still weak when it comes to money, fractions, percentages, etc. Partially my fault for not covering those things enough and partially James just wasn't ready. Now he is. Father and I both agreed Saxon is the better program to go with. Believe me, I've look at and tried them all. The cause and effect thinking part of his brain has finally kicked in. I have a feeling that we'll end up moving pretty quickly through 2.
History
Continuing with This Country of Ours and studying American History. Adding in studying the presidents and lots of living history books.
Physics
Will be learning all about physics with plenty of experiments, plus reading about the different scientists such as Galileo, Newton, Joule Fahrenheit, Pascal, Doppler, etc. Plenty of living history books about these guys as well.
Art
Latin
Yep, Latin. After looking at all the different offerings, Lively Latin seemed to be the best. Since I will be learning it as well, it had to be user friendly for me and this is the only book so far, that I've understood and been able to follow. The reason for learning Latin. Much of our English language is based off of Latin and French, Spanish and Italian are all related. Lively Latin is written for 3rd to 6th graders and also has contains lessons in Roman history and lots of fun stuff to do.
Faith
Plus whatever we are doing with Webelos, throw in a few field trips, special projects, a unit study on Oceans, James filmmaking project making lego starwars and Godzilla movies and whatever else comes along. 4th grade - here we come.
You're looking quite organized. Hope all goes well! :O)
ReplyDeleteI'm always blown away by how detailed your homeschooling program is. I think you're son is so blessed to have such dedicated parents!! Have a great school year James!!
ReplyDeleteWow. You are so organized!! Good luck with 4th grade.
ReplyDeleteWow, Latin! OMG! Your kid will be able to skip college completely after this. Side note: can you teach me Latin?
ReplyDeleteYou have some great resources here!! We homeschool too, though we're more at the unschooling end of the continuum. I love your blog.
ReplyDeleteWe're using some of the same resources for third grade -- Saxon and Spelling Workout. I chose Latin for Children because the chant cd and instructional dvd seemed to offer more support to the parent. I'm blown away by how well it's working so far. (We started 2 weeks ago. I wanted to get in stride before co-op starts this week.)
ReplyDeleteI'll be curious to hear how the physics works for you. We'll be doing that next year too.
Good luck! Looks like a great plan.
We are using Saxon this year for math as well and are quite pleased with it. How is it going for you?
ReplyDeleteYou should check out this new free math games site: HoodaMath.com
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