Home Schooling Plans for This Fall

In fewer than two weeks, we'll be starting our twelfth year of home education with Heritage Christian School, our final year of having all four kids home as Elizabeth is a high school senior, and Timothy is starting high school. Jonathan is in 7th grade, and Benjamin (above) starts 4th grade. I have my plans drawn up fairly well, but I can't complete my planning due to our lack of funds; fortunately, I already have the vast majority of what we need for this year on my bookshelves.

Benjamin and Jonathan (pictured below) will be studying American History using the Sonlight (SL) 100 program over two years. Benjamin will be using Sonlight 3 this year for literature and reading and SL 4 next year while Jonathan will be doing SL 100 for literature over two years. Both boys will listen to history together from SL 100 which uses the Story of US series by Joy Hakim. They will also use ABeka mathematics at their respective levels, along with Spelling Power, copywork, and Bob Jones Writing and English for Jonathan, and Benjamin's Spectrum Spelling, copywork, and Daily Grams 4. They will both be studying science with ABeka as well, although I may use some junior high textbooks that Keith's sister Karen used when she taught middle school science for Jonathan. Benjamin will be taking California History, PE, and Cooking at our twice-monthly home school co-op Class Days.


Timothy, now starting high school, will be using mostly ABeka books for Health and Geography, a revised schedule for Sonlight 200 literature and writing -- only half the 22 books. He'll continue with Saxon for Algebra I and will finish the Easy Grammar Plus book that he half-finished last year, along with Spelling Power as spelling is his weakness. Both he and Jonathan are taking double PE at Class Day -- volleyball in the fall and basketball in the spring plus chess. Timothy will be studying German with the Barron's Mastering German CD system which I purchased years and years ago when the HBJ Bookstore closed and all items were 90% off. I'm not sure what we will do for his second year; I would much rather use Rosetta Stone German for both years. If we can afford it later, I'll get Rosetta Stone for him. So his schedule will be quite full for his freshman year of high school.

On the other hand, Elizabeth has a much lighter load for her senior year which should give her plenty of time to study for her SAT exams this fall. She took them in the spring without having adequate time to prepare so she will retake them, hopefully boosting them up quite a ways. She is taking British Literature from Sonlight (530), including writing -- although she took my honors-level Advanced Writing last year at Class Day so she's well-prepared for college. She also needs a workbook for Consumer Math -- just so she's prepared for the practicalities of living on her own. In addition, she will be studying Church History (Sonlight 200) and at Class Day, ABeka Economics and Government, plus choir and drama/oral interpretation. She may intern at the local paper, The Valley Views, helping Judith and Cherry produce the monthly newspaper.

I'm not sure what precisely we will do for Bible -- we do Morning Prayer and Bible together each morning before the kids go off to do their own assignments. I may use items from Sonlight 100 or 200 -- I'm not sure yet. And we'll continue reviewing English from the Roots Up I and II vocabulary cards so that the kids get a good bit of Greek and Latin root words -- they really like doing them. So I need to schedule out their days, go through their books, and plan reading schedules, etc.

We still need to buy E's Government and Economics books, plus the British Lit Instructor's Guide, and T's ABeka quiz and test booklets for Geography and Health, and the younger boys' math workbooks. I hope that I can somehow order them later this week, but funds are so tight that I just don't see it happening right now. So I shall keep planning with what I have and keep praying for God's provision for our needs. Please join me in prayer? One sweet reader here has purchased two items we needed very much - and you know who you are! Thank you.

Today I received information regarding a new study on homeschooling from HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association) that is quite interesting: Home School Study.