Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Some Things We're Using This Year

The 2012-2013 School Year has begun!  Here are some of the things we'll be doing:

Annabeth, 7th grade:

Lial's Basic College Math.  This is actually a pre-algebra course.

CPO Focus on Earth Science.  I'm teaching this to the middle school students at co-op, and Annabeth's in the class.  Digression -- last year I blogged about the co-op science courses I taught.  I think CPO has enough online support and guides that others can find oodles of ideas for teaching it in a homeschool co-op without me babbling about my efforts.

ASL. Taught at co-op by a mom who is fluent.  They're not allowed to speak aloud during class.  So far she's loving it. No text.

Sewing. Also taught at co-op.  I'm assisting in this class.  It's based loosely (very loosely) on an Abeka sewing course.

History currently is a matter of finishing up last year's course from Pandia Press, History Odyssey Middle Ages Level 2.

We need to come up with an English program we agree on.  At the moment History Odyssey provides some writing practice.




Thalia, 11th grade:

Lial's PreCalculus.  So far we've simply got the book and the Student's Solutions Manual -- we didn't invest in any videos.  Rick will be providing teaching assistance for this as needed.

English Grammar.  Dual enrollment at a local university.  It looks pretty simple, but since it's an introduction to the concept of taking college level courses we wanted something that was "comfortable".

Spanish 1.  Another dual enrollment course.  She was surprised to realize that most of her classmates are upper classmen from the university.  We know several homeschoolers who've taken the course (or similar in other languages), and had sort of assumed that beginning language courses were mainly populated by dual enrolled high school students.

Chemistry.  This is a class that a guy offers out of his home every couple of years.  This year he has 2 sections of 6 students (I think).  He has room to offer a class with lab to 8 students at a time.  They'll be using Burns' Fundamentals of Chemistry (no clue if that was chosen since Burns is at a local CC, but it's one of those things you wonder about).

In the spring she'll be taking a health class, and more dual enrollment classes.



We're still figuring out what the extra-curriculars will be.  We've already signed up for voice lessons for Thalia.  And they both want to take ballet for another year.  Other than that, who knows.




Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Shaking off ennui

Blogging ennui has struck.

For a while there my life looked like this:

Cats to vet for annual checkup.
Dental checkups.
Orthodontist.
Optometrist.
Car oil change.
Etc.

While it's nice to get all of that stuff done, it's not the sort of thing that sparks some deep desire to share, or even to make notes for my future self.

Then it was time to start getting things organized for the next school year.  This involved quite a bit of time writing emails about who needed to do what when.  I was writing more than I would if I'd been blogging daily, but it was pretty boring stuff other than for the exact people involved at that exact moment.  And overall left me with no desire to spend time writing anything else.

This week we're starting to get back to "real life".  Local public and private schools are starting.  Co-op begins this week, and I'll be teaching middle school science, and helping with the sewing class.  Some of the local universities are starting back up, including the one where Thalia is taking 2 classes as a dual-enrollment student.  Plus there's the entire list of extras the kids are interested in -- voice, dance, acting, tech theatre, Scouts, choir, etc. -- and figuring out whether or not we can fit those things in.

So, interesting things are happening.  Or, at least, I think they're going to happen.  Actually, at the moment I'm just waiting for a service call because the inground sprinkler system has had it's annual crap-out, forming a large puddle over one of the inground control boxes (yes, in the middle of a drought we had a swamp forming in our yard).  They gave me a 2 hour window during which the service person might show up to fix it.  (We're half way through that window now, by the way.)

Anyway, more to come, some of it about homeschool.