End of Summer and Homeschool Plans 2021-2022

Daniel finished this articulated albino catfish
made from his imagination and a bin of Legos.

We really have spent the end of July just soaking in the end of summer fun. Family time, visit to the park, walking trails, watching ducks, visiting the local science center, building, crafting, creating, and catching a show at the planetarium. We start back to school on Monday. Today I will be sharing about our curriculum plans. 

Family Studies

World Geography and Cultures 

The high schoolers (11th, 10th) and one of the middle schoolers (8th) will be using Notgrass Exploring World Geography as their main curriculum this year. It integrates language arts and geography, among other things. We will be choosing our own literature titles, using a guide from Brave Writer or The Good and the Beautiful to go with some of them. 

The rest of the kids (7th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, K, PreK) will do a world geography plan I wrote 7 years ago and used with the oldest kids, along with a hefty stack of books from the library for the many countries in each continent. I have rearranged my original geography plan to coordinate with the order of countries/continents studied in Notgrass. We will do some read alouds and independent reads related to each continent. A great resource for book titles is Give Your Child the World: Raising Globally Minded Kids One Book at a Time by Jamie C. Martin (Affiliate link to Amazon).

Science

This year we're doing a mix of science studies as a family. We will use Ranch School from Five Marys Farms to explore agriculture, preparedness, cooking, and many other topics. We will also use science units from The Good and the Beautiful. The key to doing this with such a wide range of ages is to allow older kids to go deeper into areas of interest. Neither of my current high schoolers wanted to take another lab science this year. One of the perks of homeschooling is stepping off the one-size fits all educational model and into the freedom of our own path. 

Fine Arts

We always explore art, music, and fine arts as a family. We will use a wide variety of resources along the way.

Individual Studies

Language Arts

All kids 7th grade and younger will do a level of language arts from The Good and the Beautiful. We love these because they include: reading, writing, grammar, spelling, geography, art, and more. These kids will also have independent reading beyond TGTB. Some of those books will have Brave Writer guides to go with them (Dart, Arrow, or Boomerang), while others will be read just because reading is something we do here. 

My three oldest students (8th, 10th, 11th) will have the majority of their writing and language arts integrated into Notgrass World Geography. They will also have some books to read with Brave Writer guides (Boomerang or Slingshot), and each has chosen at least one Book Study from The Good and the Beautiful as well. 

Math

The 10th and 11th graders are doing Math U See Algebra 2. The 8th grader is doing Math U See Geometry. The 7th grader is doing Math U See PreAlgebra. The 5th grader is doing Math U See Epsilon. 

The 4th, 3rd, and Kindergartener will do math from The Good and the Beautiful. While the company is currently releasing a new math program, we loved the old program and so we are sticking with it. I'll have kids doing Math K, Math 3, and Math 4. 

Electives

My high schoolers have some electives chosen to start the year, and will either continue those or choose new electives, for their second semester. The 11th grader's electives are Culinary Arts and American Sign Language. The 10th grader's electives are Culinary Arts and possibly Theater. 

All of my kids also have a wide range of personal interests that they spend afternoons enjoying. From art, piano, and writing to building, crafting, and coding, they do things they enjoy, and usually surpass my abilities quickly in any area. 

Quick Thoughts

The next few weeks will be interesting. Even though we have been homeschooling for over 16 years, no two years are the same. Kids are different ages and personalities, life has different things going on, and my number of students is at an all-time high with kids in the following grades: PreK, K, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11.

 I also have lessons to prepare five days a week for a group of youth who will meet in my home at 6am every school day to study the scriptures together in a seminary class. My oldest two teens are part of this early morning seminary class. First semester we will finish our study of Church History and the Doctrine and Covenants. Second semester we dive into the Old Testament. 

We also have some more painting projects we hope to tackle in August, starting with the living room and piano room area next weekend. I will be glad when all of the painting projects are done.