2012 School Year

Believe it or not, in the midst of all of our Christmas decorating, gift-making, gift-wrapping, cleaning, cooking, baking, stories and celebrating, I've also been planning our upcoming school year (2012). I've done a lot of thinking, researching, meditating and praying about this. As you may know, we had a rocky start to the fall of this year. We've dabbled here and there with various ideas of Unschooling and Oak Meadow, but hadn't found our niche or groove. I'm happy to report, though, that after much thought and prayer, I feel like I have a solid plan for 2012. I thought I'd share some of that here. I'm in the process of purchasing and organizing materials, but we will be starting FRESH  in January. Items with one * will be used only in Term 1, ** Term 2 and *** Term 3. If there are no *s, we will use the resource all year. Each term will be roughly 12 weeks. Here's what we have planned:

Family Subjects:

BIBLE:

The Child's Story Bible by Catherine Vos (Old Testament)

Wisdom and the Millers (Proverbs for Children)

HABITS:

Work on learning and following our family's rules.

TALES:

Oak Meadow Fairy Tales *

The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit ** & ***

Seven Little Sisters **

Snow White and Other Fairy Tales by Grimm *** 

POETRY:

Robert Louis Stevenson *

A.A. Milne **

A Family of Poems ***

GEOGRAPHY:

Charlotte Mason's Elementary Geography

WORLD HISTORY:

Child's History of the World, Hillyer (Narrate, Map and Timeline)

The Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History

Life in the Great Ice Age *

Boy of the Pyramids *

The Librarian Who Measured the Earth **

Trojan Horse

Growing Up in Ancient Greece

The Greeks

                                

AMERICAN HISTORY:

A Living History of Our World Volume 1 (Chapters 1-16)

The Very First Americans

Holling C. Holling Book of Indians
Eric the Red

D'Aulaire Leif the Lucky

D'Aulaire Pocahontas

D'Aulaire George Washington

D'Aulaire Benjamin Franklin

The Lost Colony of Roanoke

A Lion to Guard Us

Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims                                    

Liberty's Kids DVDs

SCIENCE/NATURE:

Outdoor Secrets and Companion
Burgess Bird Book along with coloring and listening to their calls

Weekly Nature Study

MUSIC:

Orchestra, Peter and the Wolf *

Opera, Mozart's Magic Flute Opera, Hansel and Gretel Opera *

Bach with Opal Wheeler's Sebastian Bach The Boy from Thuringia **

Beethoven with Opal Wheeler's Ludwig Beethoven and the Chiming Tower Bells ***

ART:

Renoir *

Cassatt **

Cezanne ***

LITERATURE:

* Little House in the Big Woods

* Twig

* Five Little Peppers and How they Grew

* Understood Betsy

** Wise Enchanter

** The Voyages of Doctor DoLittle 

*** A Little Princess

*** Wind in the Willows

*** The Door in the Wall

CHARACTER:

Beautiful Feet Teaching Character through Literature, Primary

OTHER:

Continue our weekly Waldorf Handwork Group & Homeschool Adventures Playgroup 

INDIVIDUAL SUBJECTS:

THE HIPPIE:

Math Lessons for a Living Education

Life of Fred Elementary Series

Dreambox Math

English for the Thoughtful Child (orally with me)
Queen Language Lessons for the Very Young Vol 1

Cursive *

Copywork from various school books ** & ***

Free reading during Quiet Time

My America Copywork

THE PRINCESS:

Math Lessons for a Living Education

Dreambox Math

Delightful Reading Lessons
Reading practice from Treadwell, Lobel, Cobweb the Cat & other readers
Queen Language Lessons for Little Ones Vol 3

Finish Oak Meadow Letter Introduction via Fairy Tales & Drawings *

Copywork of words and short sentences ** & ***

My America Copywork

*******

Of course, we will always add books from the library to our Book Basket and I may include some a little more "officially", but these are the resources I know I want to use.