New School Year 2012-13

I have been meaning to write this post for the past week or so. I keep putting it off but now I have a few minutes so thought I'd bite the bullet and get it done. My boys started school on Thursday. Both boys are now in high school. Newt is a junior and Dylan a freshman. Dylan decided to play football this year for the high school and spent the summer getting up and out the door for early morning workouts to get ready. He is enjoying the practices and the scrimmages. Tomorrow is the first real game for the varsity but Dylan will not play until the JV game on Monday.

Haley started back to regular violin lessons last weekend. The summer was crazy for both her teacher and us and I think she had only 3 lessons from mid-June until now. She is back in full swing with scales, etudes, and beginning Bach Partita in E Major and Mozart Concerto no. 3. She is very excited about her new repertoire and practicing a lot. On Tuesday we drove to New York for a fiddle lesson and a rare Tuesday night session. (They are usually on Wednesday nights and conflict with my work schedule.) Her buddy John Whelan was there so she was even more excited to go.

Haley started school slowly over the last week or so. I changed my mind on a couple things and reworked some others to make life a little easier for me as far as planning goes. Here is what we have planned for now. I guess we can call this Haley's 5th grade year since she'd be in 5th grade if in public school though her work is hardly what the average 5th grader is doing...

Math: Saxon Algebra 1 (I had struggled with whether or not to complete AoPS Pre-Algebra then decided against it with Haley's input. It did not have enough practice of problems for my taste and she much prefers a straightforward approach to math. Saxon has worked well in the past so we're giving it a go.)

English: K12 Literature Analysis and Composition (This has always been my most difficult subject planning-wise because I had to take from so many resources and combine. I thought we'd try this internet based option. The readings are at the appropriate level for Haley and vocabulary, spelling, composition, and literature are all included in one program.)

Science: Real Science 4 Kids Chemistry Level II, Essential Chemistry for Gifted Students by Sganga, The Elements and Carbon Chemistry by McHenry, various labs resources like Adventures with Atoms and Molecules and Chemistry experiment kits, and additional resources like Eyewitness Book's Chemistry, The Rainbow science curriculum, and Thinkwell Chemistry. (If we make it through most of that she'll have a wonderful understanding of chemistry basics.) I also have a few other books for us to read like The Disappearing Spoon, Napoleon's Buttons, and From Caveman to Chemist.

History: Our spine is World History: The Human Odyssey. We are back at the Ancients this year. Also using The History of the Ancient World by Susan Wise Bauer, History Portfolios Ancients (for Haley's creative side), and various other ancient history resources I have laying around.

Languages: Rosetta Stone Gaelic and Spanish. May start Latin in a month or so once I see how much work the other subjects take for her.

Music: Taken care of with violin and fiddle lessons. Theory with The Language and Materials of Music by Briggs.

Art: Not sure if we will do anything formal here but have a few ideas I need to work on to see what sticks. Haley is always creating artistic/craft type things. I think she'd enjoy some type of art study or at least some regular time to create with different medium.

I think that's it for now.