No Summer for Us!

Just kidding. We finally GOT a summer as of today (90 degrees and humid!), so I believe we'll take full advantage of it!

What I mean by my title is that I'm changing up how I plan to schedule our school year. You need to understand that I have planned to homeschool my child(ren) ever since I first read about homeschooling back in 1984. If you do the math (never mind, I'll do it for you), that was EIGHTEEN years before J was born.

If you know me at all you know that I like to plan ahead. Well, eighteen years gave me plenty of time for that. I had it ALL figured out. Then I had a child. Well, actually, then I had J. All my plans and ideas and intentions keep getting turned around as I walk through the journey of homeschooling THIS child.

One of the things I "vowed" that I would do was homeschool from Labor Day to Memorial Day and flat out take the summer off. Yep, that was my plan. Of course, now that we're here, it's just not going to work for J. He needs the daily challenge, so I've settled on a NEW plan that (I hope) will accommodate and work for him.

I found the plan in a book called, "The Well-Trained Mind" by Susan Wise Bauer. I've been avoiding that book for quite a while now. I found that the methods I was using with J were working very well, so I saw no need to look into their suggestions. Well, I decided to include Latin for the next school year and thought it might be helpful to read the book and see what all the fuss was about.

After I read through the first chapter, I discovered that I was already using those very same methods with J! The only thing I hadn't done was go through history in chronological order. L and I discussed it and decided to follow the recommendation for history that the book gave and continue doing what I've been doing--which just happened to match up with this type of education. We decided that "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

Below is my intended schedule to provide enough intellectual stimulation for J throughout the year. I have found that if he has too much time on his hands he goes from being creative to behavior issues. So, I'll just challenge the boy!

School Year Schedule for 2009-2010

Summer 2009:

Continue a light load of school 3 days a week concentrating on:

• Reading through the Bible, 1 chapter a day
• Going through the Susie and Richie Hunt books again
• Memorizing Bible verses
• Readings from Ancient History (we are currently reading The Iliad for Boys and Girls as well as story book versions of the ancient myths from the library
• Cursive writing practice through copywork and dictation
• Math using workbooks and continuing with Verbal Math Lessons
• Lapbooks on topics of interest (we just finished studying about robots)
• Any extra reading we can tote home from the library, just for fun!

The full-time schedule will be to school in:

• September - mid-October
• One week off
• Late October - Thanksgiving
• One week off
• Early December
• Three weeks off
• Mid-January - Late February
• Two weeks off
• March and April
• Two weeks off
• Late April and May and on into Summer
• Three weeks off scattered throughout the summer as we take trips, etc.

This schedule follows what actually happened this past school year. I found that I ended up naturally taking the breaks pretty much where they are listed. It's still 12 weeks off, but I believe that this will work MUCH better for J. And for me.

You know the adage: "The best laid plans..."