Back to School

Today we began our 10th year of homeschool.  I honestly can't believe it's been that long because it seems to have gone by so fast.  The days are long but the years are short, indeed.  We are also entering our 8th year of Classical Conversations this fall.  It provides the spine of our homeschool we build our days upon.  

Both boys are in CC's Challenge program now, which is all about skill building instead of focusing on content.  Yes, the content matters, but what matters more is learning how to learn so students can teach themselves anything as they move through life.

Ben - 9th grade & Challenge I

The skill of logic:  Honed through mathematics.  He continues with Saxon and is in Algebra 1.

The skill of grammar:  Honed through learning Latin.  He continues with Henle 1 and will complete it this year after studying the first 2/3 of the book the last two years.

The skill of reasoning:  Honed in first semester with Traditional Logic by Memoria Press.  Second semester, we move onto drama and will study Shakespeare. 

The skill of exposition:  Honed through The Lost Tools of Writing by Circe Institute.  This teaches them the art of persuasive writing.  Essays and discussion are built upon 20 novels from American literature including titles like The Red Badge of Courage, To Kill a Mockingboird, The Scarlet Letter.  They will also read and discuss American poetry, short stories, & sermons.

The skill of research:  Honed using the sciences, and this year, it's Apologia's Physical Science.  As they work through the text they will refine use of the scientific method with labs, writing formal lab reports, and will also write a 10 page research paper in the spring.

The skill of debate:  Honed using American historical documents, economics, and team policy debate.  This strand is two-fold in Challenge I:  American documents (fall), economics (spring), and team policy debate all year round.  They will study, annotate, and discuss founding American documents and in the spring they will learn about personal finance.  Team policy debate invoves 2 vs 2 debates about a governmental policy.  One side defends the exisiting policy while the other side develops and defends their improved policy change.  What a skill to learn! 

Extra-curriculars:  piano + music theory, tae kwon do, our library's Teen Advisory Board + activities, and youth group at church.

Joey - 7th grade & Challenge A

The skill of debate:  Honed using cartography.  Civilization is shaped by the debate over geographical boundaries, and war is the ugliest form of debate.  As they continue to learn about conflicts in history and in current events, they will have a solid geographical point of reference.  The goal of this strand is to draw the entire world from memory, being able to name each country and its capital, and to identify major geographical features on each continent.  

The skill of logic:  honed using math.  He continues in Saxon and is in level 8/7.

The skill of research:  honed using science.  The first 10 weeks are spent researching topics in the natural sciences and presenting each week in class.  The next 10 weeks are spent on a science fair project.  Aside from conducting the experiment according to the scientific method, he will be writing a formal lab report, research paper, and presenting to judges and guests at our class science fair.  The last 10 weeks is studying major systems of human body and being able to draw and label from memory things like the human heart, eye, ear, and systems like respiratory and digestive.

The skill of exposition:  honed using literature and writing.  He will read from 10 Newbery Award winners and then use the curriculum The Lost Tools of Writing to brainstorm, outline, and write persuasive essays based on the novels.  While the literature selections may be a little below the 7th/8th grade reading level, the focus is not on reading level, but on discussion and being able to take issues from the novels and turn them into persuasive arguments. 

 
The skill of reasoning:  honed using a CC published book called Analogies for All of Us and in the late spring, The Fallacy Detective. 

The skill of grammar:  Honed through learning Latin.  He will work throug the first 1/3 of Henle 1.

Extra-curriculuars:  piano + music theory, tae kwon do, and youth group at church.

Hannah - 3rd grade & Foundations

In addition to all of her memory work at CC, we will fill in these things at home:

• Math:  Saxon 5/4
• Grammar:  First Language Lessons volume 3
• Writing:  Using skills from Institute of Excellence in Writing's Teaching Structure and Style.  Check this old blog post to see how I'm using this resource.
• History & Geography:  A History of US by Joy Hakim and CC maps
• Literature:  Who needs to buy reading curriculum when the local library has everything I need for free?  The 1000 Good Books List has fantastic lists of literature based on reading level.  
• Spelling:  All About Spelling Level 3
• Science:  First semester we learn the human body.  I have a couple Usborne books that will help expound on our memory work of various body systems and parts that we memorize in CC.  Second semester covers chemistry (we'll skim through Christian Kids Explore Chemistry) and learn about various origin theories.  For it all we'll do some YouTubing, hands on experiments/projects, and grab topic-specific library books too.
• Extra-curriculars:  piano + music theory, American Heritage Girls, and church kids activities 

We'll also have "morning time" which never happens in the morning, but we still call it that.  During that time we cycle through all of these throughout the week:

• My Brother's Keeper, a Bible study on sibling relationships.  It was needed.  Ahem.
• Read alouds - New World Echoes published by CC as well as some other novels.
• a smattering of poetry
• Espisodes of the Classics for Kids podcast (6 minutes per episode and a great way to learn about composers and their music!)
• Visual arts:  talking about artwork using Usborne's Famous Paintings cards

I'm looking forward to plowing ahead and learning and growing together!!