Planning Realistically

Free screensaver (It just makes me happy to look at it)

You would think that after seven years homeschooling I should know how to plan,

…but I don’t.

I always have planned with a good ideal at the forefront. Nothing wrong with that, but I should have known earlier that the guidelines I had were not realistic. This year I’m committed to simple plans that would hopefully be meaningful and bring joy and growth to all.

I was reluctant to share this, because what every family does can vary so much, and what’s little and not adequate for one family, it’s right on the spot for another one, and an overload for a third. In the end, I decided to share because I believe that if we look at different examples, we may feel confident to find the plans that fit our children and resist making our children to be the ones to fit our plans. I want to inspire my daughters to grow and learn, I want to guide them with joy and consistency, respecting them as persons in the process.

I understand that there has to be a schedule and some good habits in place.

I also understand there has to be flexibility and grace in our days.

I’ve learned that, as Sarah Mackenzie says in Teaching from Rest, we should know ourselves as teachers, know our strengths and our weaknesses. Build up on the first, and address the last. I’ve tried to be who I wasn’t for long. Now it’s time to be honest with my limitations, and specially, to profit from my qualities.

We took our summer off. For the first time, we are enjoying it without any guilty feelings on my part. We still do our Bible reading and our family reading, but no lessons 😉

In order to prepare for next year, I read

Teaching from Rest, 

I prayed (I still do),

I looked at what the girls accomplished in the past for reference,

I also looked at the resources around me,

And I came up with this: (and the plans are the same for both girls, they have different math and work at different pace and ability. My daughters will be in sixth and fourth grade respectively).

MORNING LOOP*

LITERATURE/MYTHOLOGY

• The Adventures of Achilles
• The Adventures of Odysseus
• The Bronze Bow

SHAKESPEARE 

• one Shakespeare (or continue with our second one for this year).
• Maybe Julius Caesar.

POETRY

• Poetry for Young People, Carl Sandburg (I may add some Robert Frost)
• Fábulas de Samaniego
• Juan Ramon Jimenez, Canta pájaro lejano

HISTORY

• Volume 2 (Greece and Rome) of The Story of Mankind, by Olive Beaupre Miller
• Augustus Caesar’s World, by Foster

SCIENCE 

For Science:
• Arquimedes and the Door of Science
• The Elements, by Theodore Gray
• The Mystery of the Periodic Table

For Natural Science:
• Continue with The Young Naturalist (it’s for the Texas area)
• Continue with Naming Nature
• It Couldn’t Just Happen (it’s possible we take two years with this book)
• The Sea Around Us

PLUTARCH

(From the wonderful guides by Anne White)
• Philopoemen

MORNING BLOCK*

BIBLE devotional/lesson every morning
MATH 3x a week (We alternate between MEP and Life of Fred)
WRITTEN NARRATION 1 or 2x a week (Dictation)
NATURE/SCIENCE ENTRY 1 or 2x a week
(Tuesday Mornings Co-op classes)

AFTERNOON LOOP

ARTIST STUDY (We will study Ancient Art, and Whistler -the last painter in the AO rotation)

COMPOSER STUDY. We’ll listen to Antonin Dvorak and Spanish Classic music.

HYMN/FOLK SONG. From the AO youtube list plus a few of my own selections.

LATIN/GRAMMAR
• Grammar we’ll continue our oral Simple Grammar. And maybe we read Grammarland
Latin we’ll restart our Getting Started with Latin

MAPS/BOOK OF CENTURIES

AFTERNOON BLOCK

FREE READING TIME
FREE WRITING TIME (letters, emails, etc.)
CRAFT/COOKING/VIDEOS/PROJECTS

***********************

*Loop indicates one or two of those will happen each morning, and next morning we’ll pick up the next item -Tuesday mornings, for example, no item from the loop or block will be done since we have co-op.

*Block indicates most -ideally all, of the items are done every morning or afternoon.

I have some printing to do, and we have some notebooks to buy. I’m aiming at mid August to resume our lessons, a month or so from now, after our expected visitors have left.

Have you started to think about the upcoming year? If that’s the case, know that I’m praying for all of us, teachers and moms, for a good next year, a year for His glory.

Isaiah 40:31 
but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.