WARNING BEFORE YOU READ: I may sound like a sales lady ;-)
Hannah Is All Set Up for the School Year!
Here’s what we’ve got –
Reading – My original BJU love! I love that Reading also includes subjects like Vocabulary, Dictionary Skills, Library Skills, & Map Reading. Reading selections meet my conservative standards and still qualify as good literature (Twain, Dickens, Browning, etc). Questions are asked on four different levels – critical thinking included. Only TWO Required Books to keep up with! The workbook tells plainly at the bottom of the page the lesson page and the corresponding reading text. Though it isn’t written to be used this way, I will teach the skill station days and a few of my favorite stories and let her work through the rest independently. She’s been asking for this Reading program. Reading is one of her favorite things to do, so she’ll be raiding the library as well.
English – My 2nd BJU Love. This will be Hannah’s 3rd year to do BJU English. Each chapter is also organized around a theme – sort of like a mini unit study. That’s Hannah’s favorite part about it. She says she learns so much more than just English. I love the writing. Two weeks of grammar and two weeks of writing J. That means I don’t keep skipping the writing until the end of the year. She’ll be doing a personal narrative, a newspaper editorial, instructions a research report, historical fiction, a compare-contrast essay, a poem, and a cover letter. It sounds worse than it is. It is broken down into bite-size chunks, and Mrs. Overly will be explaining it all to her. I’m hoping we can make at least some of these assignments fit a scrapbook I want to make about all of her grandmothers. I’ll also be checking her work and answering her questions since Mrs. Overly doesn’t do that very well ;-).
Spelling – This will be Hannah’s 2nd year to do BJU Spelling. Mrs. Liston will be teaching her. She has a passport ready to stamp as she learns to spell over 100 countries along with many more words. She’ll be learning tidbits about the countries as she goes along. She’ll have a journal entry every week written for me to read, and I’ll write her back each week. Since she loves letter writing, I think this will be a nice personal touch to our school week. Also included is sentence dictation (an important listening and writing skill) and King’s English which describes not only the etymology but often a Biblical principal as well.
Heritage Studies – We’ll be studying the 20th century. I read long ago that this is often the most neglected yet, most pertinent part of history. We’ll be making a century book. Each page will have the year printed and we’ll cut/paste/print some pictures to go with it. Samuel and Faith will be joining Hannah for this study. Some Grandma interviews will fit in here nicely too since most of them lived quite a few years in this century. Mrs. Walker will be helping me with teaching this course. We’ve had Mrs. Walker before, and we absolutely love her.
Science – Mrs. Vick will be helping us with Science. Hooray for Mrs. Vick. I think this will be Hannah’s most challenging course. It includes all branches of science. It includes a lot of activities and observations, but it is so very organized that I don’t think it will be overwhelming. I really wanted to combine siblings in this, but it’s just too challenging for that. I’ll be teaching Science 4 to the youngers.
Math – Ok. Yes, we love teaching textbooks. Hannah made it through almost two levels last year, BUT our test scores came and found us lacking even though we supplemented it. This year- we’re using BJU and considering Teaching Textbooks the supplement. May the Lord reward her extra effort J
Handwriting – Sweet, Sweet Mrs. Cox. Hannah really wanted to have at least one course with her. This course doesn’t run all year, so she’ll also have time for typing. In addition to cursive, Hannah will learn Calligraphy through this course. The course them is careers, so she’ll be exposed to a few more things than what’s available in rural Kentucky.
Bible – Mrs. Cox teaches Bible too. Hannah will be memorizing several passages of scripture and creating a timeline. A KJV Bible is her textbook. (That should make her smarter ;-).)
What Else – music and art are largely included – but I’ll schedule a little music theory. Art will be a little digital scrapbooking and the calligraphy. Digital Scrapbooking will be a book of our Grandma’s which fits nicely with the last century which we’re studying for history. I’ll probably dig out Drawing Textbook and assign a few of those lessons. She has some online Horse lessons twice a week as well. For homemaking, she’s the main breakfast cook and she’ll also be making the list for breakfast.
I love the beginning of the year with all the freshness and expectation J.
