Now it's later! The very long post about next year

I have used feeling a little sick today as an excuse to spend a massive amount of time working on this blog.  Isn't it pretty now?  I am not sure about the header....maybe a darker color?  Maybe the b&w dogwood photo does not go with the background?  Hmm....

Anyway, mostly this is the promised post about next year's plans.  It will be a combination of actual, real life, fairly resolute plans and speculative thinking aloud (well, not exactly aloud).

Ari first.

Math: I imagine we'll be sticking with Singapore, because if it ain't broke...right?  So he'll be ready to start 5A by fall.  We'll see how things go with Life of Fred.  I'd like for him to finish up Fractions and do Decimals and Percents over the summer, but I'm not really willing to fight to the death over it.  If we DO manage to do LOF, though, he'll be ready to start Pre-Algebra in the fall.  And if he's doing that, I'll probably need to rethink Singapore.  I would imagine Singapore and pre-algebra would be too much.

Grammar/writing: Assuming things continue to go so smashingly well (or even just pretty well) with the Michael Clay Thompson stuff, we'll look to finish the Island level this year and over the summer and be ready to start Town in the fall.  That will cover grammar, poetry, vocabulary, and writing.  But I plan to also stick with Writing With Ease.  From what I've seen so far, the writing in MCT will be a nice complement to it, as they cover different skills, so there's not a lot of overlap.

Literature: one of my big goals for next year is to be more intentional about reading and talking about literature with Ari.  Truth is, I sort of suck at being intentional about things.  I am better at making it up as I go along.  But I'm going to try. I'm hoping to buy IEW's Teaching the Classics DVDs and take a look at those to get some ideas.  But really, I'm relatively confident in my ability to talk about lit with Ari; it's more a matter of finding the time for it and making it a priority.  If I'm going to talk about books with Ari, I have to actually read them myself, after all.  I have Figuratively Speaking, and I may go through that with him, too.  So the reading lists are still up in the air.  I need to look through the WTM suggestions and see where that gets me, but I'm not really wedded to the idea of tying all/most of his reading into what he's doing in history.  If our homeschool co-op restarts next fall, I may teach a class on literature and analysis there, which would certainly force me to be intentional about it.  And of course, we'll be doing a formal poetry study with the MCT materials, so that's a big chunk of it right there.

Logic: I need to go look under Ari's bed/under the couch/etc. and try to figure out where on earth the copy of Logic Liftoff I bought has gone.  And then we'll do that. I have a good bit of material for logic/critical thinking; again, it's more a matter of making it a priority.  Making logic a priority should be a great deal easier than making literature a priority, though, since it's more a matter of remembering to give him a page or two to do every day.  I have Level 2 of Building Thinking Skills; he's done some of that, but there's still plenty left.

Latin: Ah, Latin.  We're still moving ever so slowly through Lively Latin.  I guess we'll keep doing that?  I finally bought Henle Latin to do myself, so if I can get more motivated to do that on my own, I think it will help a lot.  I am not as motivated about Latin as I should be.  This may be in part because I don't know to what extent I really want to be motivated about it.  I remain kind of unconvinced by the arguments for studying Latin, or at least for studying Latin early.  Or, well, it's not so much that I'm unconvinced about all the great things Latin can do, as that I'm unconvinced that Latin is the only good way to do all of those great things.  I mentioned my belief in poetry as a wondrous academic multi-tasker the other day.  So I wonder whether we'd be better off keeping a strong focus on English grammar, poetry, and writing, and then focusing a lot more seriously on Spanish than we have been up until now.  Because I actually know a good bit of Spanish.  I don't know.  This has been one of the thinking aloud portions of my entry.

Spanish: speaking of Spanish....yeah, TBD.  Ari and Milo are taking a Spanish class at our homeschool center right now, and that's going well, but.  It's expensive (if we did all 4 sessions next year, it would be $800 for the two of them plus the registration fee, which I think is $150 or so), and I kind of feel like right now they've spent several years learning how to count to 10 and all their colors in Spanish over and over again with various different classes and programs.  So I think things need to change, but I'm not sure how.  Maybe we should move to Spain for a year.  That should do it.  Actually, if I just save that $950/year for a few years, we COULD finance a nice long vacation somewhere where they speak Spanish, and the kids could probably learn as much that way as they are in all the classes.

And now Milo!

Math: Right Start is going so well, that I imagine we'll be doing C next year.  I have heard that it is perhaps a little less teacher intensive than B? I certainly hope so. That would be lovely.

Grammar/writing: I guess we'll stick with FLL and WWE. Sometimes I kind of sort of consider going ahead and starting Grammar Island with him next year, but I don't think I really will.  I also will probably start a spelling program with him.  His spelling is really...not so good.

Reading: I'll have to reevaluate and see where he is with reading in the fall before deciding what books to give him.  I may tie most of his reading in with history, as I have a lot of early readers that go with the ancients still around from when Ari was younger.  We'll keep going through Explode the Code to the end, so he should be ready for book 5 in the fall.  I'm hoping he'll be able to do more independent reading by fall, to give me more time to work one on one with Gus.

Logic: He's been working on Level one of Building Thinking Skills, and he really enjoys it, so we'll keep going through that as long as we can.  I'll probably buy a few more books for him and, again, the main thing is making sure I actually schedule in time for them.

And Guster!

I just ordered the McRuffy phonics; someone was selling it on the WTM boards, with the first few lessons filled in.  I figured we could work with that since it meant saving $60.  I had him try to read a BOB book to me today, so I have a little bit better idea of where he is.  He totally gets the concept of sounding things out, and can blend pretty well.  He figures out some CVC words on his own; needs help with others.  I suspect that once he starts a formal program it will go pretty quickly.  I think the longer words he reads are all about him having a great visual memory and being a good guesser.  This is how Ari was, and I'm glad Gus is, too, because Milo was not, and it's been a bit tortuous teaching him to read (and it will be, I suspect, tortuous teaching him to spell, too.  He doesn't see words the way Ari does.  His decoding skills are lovely lately, but he still has to sound out words he's seen a million times.  Ultimately, though, he's getting a better foundation in phonics than Ari did, since Ari never seemed to need it).

I looked into ordering Singapore Earlybird for Gus, but it looks like they're not making it anymore?  It's been replaced by the 4x as expensive Standards edition?  Sigh.  So I may just go ahead and order Right Start A for him, even though it scares me to try to do that while I'm still doing B with Milo.

So I will likely look at next year as his kindergarten year (he'll be 4 1/2 in the fall).  I'll have to see how his reading is coming along by then.  I may go ahead and add in some stuff like FLL if he's reading a lot by then.  I'm not that concerned about it either way.

And all together now:

History: I think I've finally decided to start back over with the Ancients next year instead of trying to do SOTW 3 (up until now we've done SOTW 1 and 2, then 2 year of American history).  There's no way to stop Gus from following along in history, and SOTW 1 will be a lot more appropriate/engaging for him.  I think I'll buy the CDs for SOTW 1, so we can listen to them in the car, then do all the supplemental reading/activities at home.  I need to start putting together lists of materials soon.  And I need to figure out how much extra reading to give Ari, and what kind of writing to have him do.

Science: We're doing life science right now, so we won't be doing that next year with the ancients. I'm trying to decide between taking a year off to do something....other (environmental science? something to do with buildings and structures?  ????) or doing physics because we haven't done it yet (and if we took a year off with the intention of getting back on the 4 year cycle to go along with history, it would be another 3 years before we got to physics).  I don't really care that much about the 4 year cycle going along with history, though; I've always thought tying them together was a bit of a stretch.  So we may just go with physics.

So there you have it.  Next year. Maybe.  All, of course, subject to and likely to change.