In August, my brain is always busy trying to plan our upcoming school year. I always get a bit carried away buying too much curriculum and planning too many activities because it all sounds so fun and I've just had a long break from school and feel like I can do everything! Hopefully, I haven't planned too much. My last post was about homeschooling clubs which have been a favorite part of our educational experience. They help us fight the "unsocialized homeschoolers" stigma. Hee, hee. This is what we have lined up this year:
Historical Fiction Book Club--This will be a continuation of our past history club, but instead of using the Story of the World series for our text, we have picked a different historical fiction book to read and discuss each month. I've discovered that we (my children and I) learn and retain history best if we have an exciting story to associate it with, so this should be a fun way to do history. At our club, we'll have a discussion and do activities to go with our readings. This club is for Kayla and Hunter and meets once a month.
Geography Club--This club will also be once a month, each family takes a turn hosting, and we focus on a specific continent each month. The kids will each share short reports they've prepared on one of the countries from that continent. Then we'll learn more about the place and do activites. We've also made this a book club of sorts by asking the kids to read a book from the Magic Tree House series that takes place on the continent of the month. This club is for a variety of ages, kindergarten and up.
Poetry Group--Also meets once a month, same group of friends as the Geography club. Every child memorizes a poem ahead of time and prepares an illustration to share with the group. The hosting mom plans a poetry lesson to share.
Five-in-a-Row Co-op--This is just for my little Tan Man who will now be a kindergartner. I can hardly believe it! Five in a Row is a unit studies program built around children's picture books. The idea is that you read the book five days in a row and use it to do different subjects each day--social studies, geography, math, science, art, etc. I'm not sure I'm up to reading the same book 5 days in a row, but I love doing activities related to books; can you tell? Doing this with a group will ensure that I actually plan some fun activities to go with our story reading. We're meeting once every two weeks.
That sounds like a lot of groups, but it works out to be about one get-together/club a week which is perfect. We actually need some time at home to do the basic reading/writing/math stuff.
Classical Conversations
Kayla will probably only participate with the history book club because she is super busy with the Classical Conversations Challenge program. One day a week, she goes to Classical Conversations and has classes in Math, Latin, Science, Geography, Literature/Writing, and Rhetoric. Her teacher gives her assignments in each subject to do at home during the week. This class started three weeks ago and it has definitely been a challenge. Kayla enjoys the class and being with her friends, but the daily work load is more than she is used to. I think it will be a good experience for her, once she adjusts. It will also help once her brothers have started school. It isn't fun to study all day while your siblings are playing all day! Kayla is also hoping to attend a youth homeschooling group that will include drama, sports, and politics.
So, that's what's on the menu. I'm excited!
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