The Other Planning

Okay, the easy planning.

For language arts next year, FB will continue in his curriculum from this year, for the most part. He'll use Printing Power for penmanship, and Spelling Workout for spelling – probably Level B, but he could get into Level C before the end of 2011-2012. He'll also keep using First Language Lessons, and we'll continue his writing with Writing With Ease Level 2. Literature will continue to be a mix of him listening to great picture books and history-related fiction and reading books on his level.

Mathematics will be what he has left of Right Start B after this year, followed by Right Start C. He'll also keep working in Miquon – I anticipate him working in the Red book and possibly the Blue. Drill will continue, using Calculadders, and we'll throw in some other resources as well: MathStart picture books, the Kitchen Table Math books, and possibly Primary Challenge Math.

For history, FB will be continuing with The Story of the World, moving into Volume Two, which covers the time period from 400 CE through 1600 CE. We'll use the Activity Guide again, and add supplemental non-fiction, which I anticipate pulling primarily from the You Wouldn't Want To Be… series.

Science next year will be biology. We'll probably start that a little early, doing some botany in late spring and throughout the summer, using Incredible Plants and perhaps Green Thumbs. I'm going to use The Natural World as a primary spine, alongside the Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia and the DK First Animal Encyclopedia. The Natural World does touch on cells and evolution, which otherwise would go neglected. Supplemental books will be pulled heavily from National Geographic, Let's Read and Find Out, and Rookie Read-About Science.

German… I want to start all the kids on German. As with EG, this may involve tutoring, or Saturday school, or who knows.

FB will continue attending Master's Academy, which does a good deal of art and music appreciation. We're doing those very informally at home this year, which I'll probably continue next year. We have the Classical Kids series, The Story of Classical Music, and we do listen to Classics for Kids as well. I'd like to get more of the Venezia books on composers. I'd also like to get the Venezia books on artists. We have a few books on art and artists. Again, we'll keep this informal for the most part, though I do have Art in Story that we'll use periodically, correlated to history. I'd like FB to attend a ballet performance, a theatre performance, and a musical performance next year.

In terms of skills in fine arts, FB has expressed interest in starting piano next year. I think we'll use something like Music for Little Mozarts at home. They use the classroom program at Master's Academy and he's always talking about it. We may even start this by mid-spring of this year. He also is learning recorder at Master's Academy, and they do art projects there as well. In either first or second grade, I'll have him work through Drawing With Children.

This is really all even easier than it looks. I'm fine with music appreciation being decided as we go, as well as most art. Art in Story takes a little bit of prep, but no more than an hour or two total. I do have to finalize supplemental books for history and science, as well as create a schedule, and make literature selections. That's it, though, for FB. Easy peasy! All the major decisions are already made.