Maestro's Books for 2011

Well, it's the quiet of the evening after a most beautiful day today. We've caught up with several dear homeschooling friends for a picnic, arrived home and everybody is calm. I have a few moments to stop and write about what Maestro will be studying this year, his first year in high school (year 7) now he's 12 years of age.

I've already put most of his books onto the bookshelf, but they're taking up so much room this year! There are more books than I thought, and some of them of considerable size. I think that the fact he'll be using a few binders has had an influence and I'm already wondering if the placement of all these items is going to work well or not. I guess we'll be finding out how the logistics go once we get on with the routine.

Spelling:

Wordly Wise book 6 will offer us lists, as well as vocabulary usage. Maestro really enjoyed working through book 5 last year, so it makes sense to stay with what works. Once he's completed this book, we'll move to Vocabulary from Classic Roots 6.



Language Arts:

Both Maestro and Mariposa began using LLATL last term, so we'll continue to use this. We're planning on working through the tan book fairly quickly, followed by the green book. The green book will have more grammar diagramming, which is where we want to begin our focus, but the tan book will ensure there aren't any gaps before proceeding to this step.

Some weeks, we will leave LLATL for a while and go to a product I was given via the TOS Review team called The Write Foundation. Maestro has already learnt some interesting lessons on paragraph writing and poetry. As writing is a point of interest with him, we'll take time to do some intensive learning using this product throughout the year.



Maths:

We will continue with Singapore Maths, beginning the year at level 6B. From there we'll move to the New Syllabus Singapore Maths, level 1.

We also have a couple of the Life of Fred books we still haven't worked through: Percentages and Decimals, and Beginning Algebra. I'm thinking we may put these to use after the Singapore Math 6B book has been completed. The first book we used was a lot of fun.

Sonlight:

We're into Core 6 this year: World History Part 1. These books are very enticing. I'm planning on reading his readers before him, they look so good!

Science:

We're moving right into Apologia's General Science.  Unfortunately, the experiment supplies kit isn't transportable to Australia, so I'm still needing to check the items needed so we can make sure we have them at the ready.

A friend, who also has her daughter currently working through this science curriculum, told me about Currclick's Apologia lapbooks.  I downloaded the first module, which is offered for free, and we'll give this a try before I commit to buying the whole package. I suspect that it will be of great benefit to have these visuals to help Maestro through the work, but he's not a very 'crafty' type of person, so I don't know exactly how they'll be received.

LOTE - Spanish

Okay, I struggle here. LOTE (Language Other Than English) has been done in fits and starts here, but I'm really hoping we'll have some more consistency now that we've decided to use Auralog's Language Learning software for Spanish. The plan is to have a set time, once a week, where Maestro will use the program to learn Spanish. I plan to have a go learning this myself so that I know what's going on, and use the built-in tests to record progress.

Art:

This is something both children will do together, as I've detailed in Mariposa's post.

One other item I have recently just acquired secondhand is Complete-A-Sketch. I will occasionally offer these for a short drawing lesson, although, again, I'm not sure how they'll be received.


And, finally, Dance will continue. This is something Maestro is quite emphatic about, so it's the full routine again this year: ballet, jazz, tap, and hip hop.


When it's all written out like that, it does look like a very full year! I assure you, though, that we'll take one step at a time and pace ourselves carefully. One thing I would still like to do is have a good search online for some local activities, especially ones that will compliment our studies (for both children). I can already see at least one visit to the Melbourne Zoo will be on the list, but I need to check the Art Gallery and Museums also.