The Simple Life at Home: LOL!! I Promise This is the LAST "What-We're-Doing-For-School-This-Year" Post

LOL!! I Promise This is the LAST "What-We're-Doing-For-School-This-Year" Post

2:11 PM | Posted by Lori ~ The Simple Life at Home | | Edit Post

Ok. For those of you who don't know me, I'm not normally like this.

Normally, I have things planned out two years in advance and know exactly where I'm going and what my goals for the kids education are.

Not this year.

I know that I already posted about what we are doing this year. Well, it's changed. Again. But this time, I've already paid and sunk money into my decision, so there will be no more waffling.

We ended up ordering Switched On Schoolhouse. With a little tweaking, their grade-level curriculum will work perfectly for us. The changes we made are ordering Algebra 1 (rather than Pre-Algebra) for Emily and ordering 7th grade History and Geography (rather than 6th grade which focuses on ancient cultures which we did this year) for Daniel.

We've used Switched On Schoolhouse for science before and the kids really enjoyed the interactive format and I enjoyed the ease and simplicity of grading and record-keeping.

Since it doesn't seem as though reading literature is a big part of the English courses, I've given the kids a list of reading material. They each had to choose 4 books from the list. Here are their choices:

Emily

Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
Roots, by Alex Haley
And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie
Romeo & Juliet/West Side Story, by William Shakespeare/Irving Shulman

Daniel

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
Watership Down, by Richard Adams

We'll still be using Rosetta Stone to continue our Arabic lessons. The funny thing is you'd think living in the Persian Gulf area would be the reason we'd want to learn Arabic. Nothing could be further from the truth. We'd be better off learning Hindi to help living here. But since Hubby is Arab, we want them to be better able to communicate with their extended family as well as embrace this part of their heritage.

Now, that's it. I promise. No more changes.

Unless I get that Rainbow Resource Center catalog . . .

4 comments:

Catherine said...: Congratulations on deciding!! Enjoy your school year.

Catherine; September 15, 2008 at 12:15 AM
Anonymous said...: That Rainbow Resource Catalog always got me in trouble when I was homeschooling! I still love looking thru and occasionally getting something from there!

Congratulations on your decision. I have heard some good things about Switched on Schoolhouse.

Dawn; September 16, 2008 at 4:28 AM
Sabra said...: I'm curious how you like The Rosetta Stone for learning Arabic. Have seen it - and really wanted to know if it is that good, and that it works - that you or your children are learning how to speak Arabic - before purchasing it myself. Have taken two speaking Arabic courses and one reading/writing Arabic course. Plan to take two courses this coming October. Don't feel as though I retain what I learn, because I never have the chance to use Arabic in Saudi - everyone speaks English.; September 16, 2008 at 1:51 PM
Nancy M. said...: I seem to change what I'm doing all the time. It depends on how my son responds to the material. Congratulations on finding the right material for y'all!; September 16, 2008 at 7:49 PM