2012-2013 School Year

I have neglected the blog lately.  I hope I will post more this school year.  (No promises!)  I do want to put out our plans for the new school year.  First, here are dh's priorities for this year.  (They change a bit every year.  I cannot find last year's list, nor do I remember it, but if I do, I will post it.  The link above is from two years ago.)

PRIORITIES

Bible

English

Geography

History

Civics

Science

Life Skills

P.E.

Once again, English is high on the list.  Yay!  Civics and history have been two and three for the last couple years.  Geography made a surprising third place showing, which means I need to get my mapwork act together.  

First, group work.  Aravis will be out of pocket most days and may not get to participate in much of this, so I have geared it mostly to Mariel and Cornflower.

Bible-- read straight through with narration.  We are currently in Joshua (OT) and just finished Revelations (NT) and will start again with Matthew.  I really want to do Psalms this year also.  I'm working out a plan for it.

Be Ready to Answer (new edition) by Elder Michael Gowens

Hillsdale College Constitution 101

Waverly by Sir Walter Scott

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

It's (not that) Complicated by the Botkin sisters

The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson

Words that Shook the World (book and CD of speeches with commentary)

I am also working on a short list of scriptures, poems, speeches, etc. for memorization.

This will be Aravis' final year of homeschool.  Joyful, thrilling and bittersweet all at the same time. She is studying the ancients.  Here are the books we have chosen, based partly on Cindy's list for her daughter.

The Christian Imagination by Leland Ryken

Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton

Has God Spoken? by Hank Hanegraaff

Heroes of the City of Man by Peter J. Leithart

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Aristotle's Poetics

The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton

The Roman Way by Edith Hamilton

The Iliad

The Odyssey

Plato's Republic

The Portable Greek Historians

The Portable Roman Reader

The Blood of the Moon by Dr. George Grant

Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg

Vanity Fair by Thackeray

Middle March by George Eliot

Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Ben Hur

and some short stories (James Joyce, William Faulkner, Earnest Hemingway, Flannery O'Connor, Kurt Vonnegut...) 

I hope to get my hands on the King's Meadow Antiquity lectures when they are released. Aravis will also work through Dave Ramsey's college level personal finance course in terms 2 and 3.  She is taking English composition and biology with lab at the local college to round things out.

Mariel will be in her first year of high school.  Eek!  How exciting!  She is reading HEO Year 9, time period 1688-1815.

The God Who is There by Francis Schaeffer
The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis
Postmodern Times by Gene Edward Veith (if we have time)
History of the American People by Paul Johnson (first year)
Churchill's Age of Revolution (might be a free read)
Founding Father by Brookhiser
Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis
assorted source documents
One or two other biographies from the time period-- we have quite a few and I will let her pick.
Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose
Map drills from Seterra and Sheppard websites
Are You Liberal, Conservative, Confused? by Maybury
Maybe The English Constitution by Bagehot, Common Sense and Rights of Man by Paine
Essays by Jane Haldeman Marcet
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke
Ourselves (third year)
How to Read a Book (third year)
History of English Literature for Boys and Girls (third year)
Simond's American Literature
Two or three novels of her choosing from the Year 9 list
Finish Grammar of Poetry
Pope, Cowper and Wheatley
Dr. Robert Einarsson's Grammar (still wondering about this)
MEP Math (Years 8-9)
Apologia Biology
The Microbe Hunters (first year)
The Arts by Van Loon (might be a free read)
Spanish with Javamom
In His Image by Dr. Paul Brand (might be a free read)
Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson (first year)

Mariel is drawn to history.  I suspect she will want to read some of the other books in Year 9 as well, but I will let her pick and choose from among them and not require them as school reading.  This list looks long.  I may need to trim a few things.

Now for Cornflower.  My baby is going into middle school this year.  Hard to believe it!  She is reading Year 6, which contains one term of 20th Century and two terms of Ancients.

Story of the World Vol. IV
Augustus Caesar's World
Story of the Greeks
Story of the Romans
Genesis:  Finding Our Roots
Carry a Big Stick (T. Roosevelt)
Never Give In (Churchill)
The Story of David Livingstone
Map drills from Seterra and Sheppard websites
School of the Woods
It Couldn't Just Happen
Secrets of the Universe
Albert Einstein and the Theory of Relativity
Archimedes and the Door of Science
Galileo and the Magic Numbers
MEP Math (Year 5 into 6)
Frost, Sandburg, Noyes
Age of Fable (third year)
Animal Farm
Black Ships Before Troy
The Bronze Bow
KISS Grammar workbooks (6th grade)

We are still doing the Fine Arts co-op, orchestra and drama club.  In fine arts, the kids will be reading Hamlet, listening to Haydn, Wagner and Copland, and studying the works of Titian, Waterhouse and Byzantine Gothic artists.  I think.  In art class they will be learning color concepts and techniques.  And, of course, they will sing hymns and folksongs.  Ahh.  The drama club play this year is "Night at the Wax Museum".  Aravis is directing and Mariel is doing set design.  Cornflower is finally old enough to audition.  :)  We hope to get to the Y a couple times per week as well.  Sheesh.  It sure seems like a lot.  The girls study pretty well on their own at this stage of the game.  I'm mostly the activity-and-assignment-facilitator.