2012-13

Bible: 1-2 Kings and 1-2 Samuel, Psalms, James, and verse memorization

Math: J: Singapore New Elementary Math, Year 3A/3B, O: Singapore Primary Math 5B, M: Singapore Primary Math 4A-4B. P: counting (forwards and backwards), skip counting

Latin: Henle Year 1 , units 2-4.  Harrius Potterus et Philosophi Lapis and Fairy Tales.

Spanish: Rosetta Stone Level 1 (O & M), and phrases for all of us. Rosetta Stone Arabic, and Arabic with my father.

Language Arts: Classical Composition, Fable Stage (J) and Grammar Stage (O & M).  P: Get Ready for the Code, and as many books as we can get out paws on.

Music: We’ll continue with piano using Faber, and Composer Study, hopefully covering Sibelius, Dvorak and Verdi this year, and the hymnsof John Newton.

Art: Picture Study with Seurat, Copley, Stuart, and Sargent; and we’ll continue drawing.

Science: Mondays: a science video (I like Nova and Schlessinger), Fridays: Science Friday or a podcast or Ted lecture.

Nature Study: Slow and steady wins the race. We’ll keep working on our nature journals and skills of observation.  Nature Friend magazine.

Literature: I’d like to read Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper with everyone, as well as Much Ado About Nothing.  We’ll continue with good read-alouds, starting with Moon Over Manifest (Vanderpool), and some poetry.

You’ll see that our History is mostly taught through Literature, and that I plan our year around the History we’re studying. This year, I’m shooting to cover from approximately 1644-1789.

As our “spines”: Genevieve Foster’s The World of William Penn and The World of George Washington.

For O & M, we’ll focus on as many of the Jean Fritz early American biographies as we can, plus some Clive Bulla books, which they can read independently and then narrate to me. For O also, The Perilous Road (Steele) and By the Great horn Spoon (Fleishman) should be his level, and I’m hoping he can read d’Aulaire’s Pocahontas and Benjamin Franklin.  I think we’ll all read Phoebe the Spy (Griffin).

For J: most of these will come from the Sonlight catalog.  I hope we can take a long look at the development– and abolition– of the slave trade around the world. I hope to spend some time on Wilberforce and the other heroes of abolition who made great sacrifices to change a terrible injustice.

Here are some of the historical novels I’ll offer J:

The Sherwood Ring (Pope), Escape Across a Wide Sea (Kirkpatrick), Madeline Takes Command (Brill), Stink Alley (Gilson), Landing of the Pilgrims (Daughtery), Sequoyah and the Cherokee Alphabet (Cwiklik), The Ravenmaster’s Secret (Woodruff), A Heart Strangely Warmed (Vernon), All Sail Set (Sperry), Dr. Jenner and the Speckled Monster (Marrin), The Kidnapped Prince: The Life of Olaudah Equiano (Cameron), In Search of Honor (Hess), Betsy and the Emperor (Robin), Amos Fortune, Free Man (Yates), Stowaway (Hesse), The Matchlock Gun (Edmonds), ), Om-kas-toe (Thomasma), Slopes of War (Perez), Carry On, Captain Bowditch (Latham), Johnny Tremain (Forbes), Homeless Bird (Whelan), By the Great Horn Spoon (Fleishman), Caddie Woodlawn (Brink), and Dragon’s Gate (Yep).