I started planning Oscar's second grade year. (He's a homeschooled first grader).
Sometimes I think that the question "Would I enjoy homeschooling?" would be best answered by a simple diagnostic question: Do you like making lists and buying office supplies?
I do. I especially like making lists of office supplies to buy, and buying office supplies with which to make lists. But I digress.
ANYWAY, first grade planning and purchasing is done. I mean, down to the "day" level. For example, on Friday of the nineteenth week of first grade, Oscar will be doing this:
- memorizing Question 27 in the First Communion Catechism
- listening to the eleventh chapter in the first grade religion textbook
- reading aloud from one of the "Mr. Putter and Tabby" books by Cynthia Rylant
- discussing the childhood of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini
- working one lesson from Saxon Math
- practicing his recorder for 5 minutes
The reason I am so organized is simple: For me, organizing stuff is a method of procrastination. Also an excuse to buy more office supplies.
On that note, instead of helping Mark do the dishes, I started putting together the second-grade year. I realized I didn't have all that much to do. Once you've decided on a series --- like the Saxon Math --- you can, if it's working for you, just keep getting the next one. That took care of Art, Math, Copybook, and Religion. Music's just the recorder. I'm going to add Latin, but I already bought Prima Latina. I'll draw my read-alouds from Ambleside again.
This gave me time to play with History and what is usually called "Science" but what I prefer to call "Nature Study," the term being understood to include, say, chemistry and physics and not just "stuff outside the house."
I decided to study history via a read-aloud survey of ancient cultures, a la the book Story of the World vol. 1. I'll leave several weeks' leeway in it so that we can stop and study one or two of them in greater depth as Oscar becomes interested in them.
We're already learning about nature through monthly co-op classes at the nature center, which is certainly enough at this age. But if I want to do more, I have two ideas --- I could use neither, one, or both.
The first idea is to read about the history of science and technology in the ancient world, concurrent with each culture we're reading about. This interdisciplinary approach would deepen both history and science. I looked around and found a few resources that look good: there's a "Science of the Past" series of books, and another series called "Ancient Technology," and a single book of science projects called "Ancient Science." (Sample project: 1. Try to dig with a blunt stick. 2. Try to dig with a sharp stick. 3. Realize that it took people a pretty long time to invent the plow.)
The second idea is to buy a Science Project Kit, such as Snap Circuits, and select assignments from the included manual. (Followed, probably, by narration.) Mark liked this idea a great deal and volunteered to do the selecting and teaching and discussion. Hm, I should probably take that into account when I make my decision.
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