curriculum time

[patriciaredstone]

Jeff,

Homeschool is an ongoing process for us too. We take it one year at a time. But, as we reach the end of our mental abilities and resources, we, too, wonder how long we will be able to keep this up. Our science skills are more limited than yours. Our strength is math (My husband has our 13 year-old at tenth grade level. He likes Singapore Math) and he is an advanced reader. I have not found a boxed curriculum that suits my son.  So, for the first time I am designing his curriculum. Here is the list ... a work in progress!

NOVELS

The Brothers Karamazov – by Dostoyevsky
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
Billy Bud by Herman Melville
Middlemarch by George Elliot
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Pilgrim of Hate by Ellis Peters
The Trumpeter of Krakow by Kelly
Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist
The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner
The Blue Mountains of China by Rudy Weibe
Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath
Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls, Old Man and The Sea
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Robinson Crusoe by Defoe
The Chosen by Potok
The Dry Divide
A River Runs Through It
Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler
Selectionf from The Living by Annie Dillard
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

SHORT STORIES
Fidelity: Wendell Barry
O' Henry
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: \"No One Writes the Colonel\"
Faulkner

HISTORICAL NOVELS AND BIOGRAPHIES
The Flames of Rome
The Ramsay Scallop
Kon-Tiki by Heyerdahl
Alas Babylon, Frank
Darkness at Noon by Koestler
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Solzhenitsyn
All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque
Winston Churchill: Soldier, Statesman, Artist, Severance
History of British Royalty: 40 one-page biographies
Exodus by Uris
China's Long March: 6,000 Miles of Danger by Fritz
FallenAngels by Myers
Survive!

POETRY
Shakespere Sonnets
John Donne – poems and sonnets (selections)
Dante – The Inferno and Paradisio (selections)
A Taste of Chaucer by Malcomson
The Song of Songs (selections)
The Rubiyat of Omar Kyam (selections)
Paterson by William Carlos Williams (selections)
Poems by Richard Wilbur (selections)
The Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot (selections)
For The Time Being – W. H. Auden (selections)

PLAYS
Shakespere – Richard III, Merchant of Venice
Fandex Shakespere (memorise major plays and themes)
Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

SOCIOLOGY
The Lord of The Flies by William Golding
The Gammage Cup
The Lottery
A Parcel of Patterns by Walsh
Black Like Me by Griffin
Mother Jones by Pinkerton Josephson
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Animal Farm

PSYCHOLOGY
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Metamorphosis by Kafka

SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY
Huxley: Brave New World
Dune
The Giver by Lowry
Pilgrim's Progress
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
The Wise Woman and Other Fantasy Storie, George MacDonald

SCIENCE
Albert Einstein and The Theory of Relativity by Cwiklik

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
The Story of English (lecture series)
Great English Essays – selections

ART HISTORY
Introduction to Art
Major artists – Fandex - Memorise major movements, major artists, major works

ANTHROPOLOGY
Introduction
Ishi
Memorise major bones of the body

PHILOSOPHY
Intro to Major Philosophers (Memorise Major Schools)

SPELLING AND GRAMMAR
Mrs. Adams-Gordon Spelling Power
Strunk and White's Elements of Style

LIFE SKILLS
That's Rude! Manners Book for Teens
Activity: Meals on Wheels

WRITING
Persuasive Essay
Poetry
Art Critique
Human Study
Animal Study
Architectural study
Letters
Resume

[patriciaredstone]

It is mostly a wish list. He won't read all of these this year, but he will read at least half. But my son is strong in reading and writing so this list is not a real challenge for him. We are weak in Geography, Sciences and we need a second language. For the first time this year we will study English grammar to prepare him for taking a language and, maybe, Latin roots. I have recruited my sister-in-law to introduce him to grammar this year. I have never taken the time to learn it.

We are studying Analogies to prepare him for taking SAT's next year. Two years ago, an exciting high school opened near to us that my son wants to attend. They emphasize technology and, particularly, aerospace technology. But they only have about 22 openings this year and over 2,000 applicants! The board and instructors were recruited from the University systems. Many of the entering students are from homeschool. We live a couple of blocks from a major military airport and from our third story living room we can watch planes come and go from the commercial airport. My son reads Air and Space, Janes, and every piece of information he can aquire that has anything to do with aeronautics. My dad, a retired Lt. Commander of the Navy, worked in aviation for 30 years and says that the boy has what it takes. It amazes me that he can identify jets by the sound of their engines even when they are only a little speck in the sky!

[Jeff]

We've been praying about and striving to come up with a game plan for next year.  This is a yearly, or more accurately, continuously ongoing process for my wife and me as we pray to assess each child's needs and meet them year to year.  

This fall, we will keep our two youngest in the public school system for one more year (4th grade.)  My youngest daughter is thriving there, and needs the extra time the reading resource teacher can give her.  My youngest son will end up going almost by default (that sounds bad, doesn't it?) as from a strictly family management standpoint we believe it's best to keep things consistent and bring both of the younger children home at the same time.

My oldest daughter (13) will continue to be my wife's primary focus.  My daughter needs lots of help, direction and affirmation and it is hard to envision her in any other learning environment than at home.  A boxload of curriculum materials just arrived in the mail from Rainbow Resources yesterday for this child. She will probably continue the homeschooling arts and drama group in which she participates on Wednesday mornings.  She has some good friends there and she and my wife join several other Christian mothers and daughters for a \"lunch bunch\" after the fine arts session.  

My 15 year old remains \"my\" project.  He will continue to attend his once-a-week Christian homeschool group where he receives instruction in the Classics, grammar/composition, logic and Latin.  We are searching out a resource for biology resource for him as well.  I've been doing Physical Science with him this year, but having a hard enough time keeping up with him doing this subject area (which is one of my strengths) to envision being able to do well with zylem and phloem and cross-pollination     We'll also be working on Geometry together.  I bought two great textbooks off eBay and they arrived a week or two ago.  I'm excited, my son is not!!  I also need to check on a keyboard course he can attend this summer because as I watch him work at the comptuer I am noticing lots and lots of bad habits.  I don't think a Mavis Beacon CD is going to be enough...

Whew... no wonder we often feel overhwelmed.

[Jeff]

Wow, that's quite a list.  Are you the English lit person in the family? I'm a big reader myself, but mostly lightweight stuff.

By the way, when I referred to a \"box of curriculum\" arriving, it was very much an ad hoc box.  My wife has always been energized by the things she finds here and there, and has done a great job over the years developing unit studies for my oldest daughter.  Some friends have used A Beka and Sunshine (?) \"canned\" curricula in the past, but we enjoy the flexibility of building our own.  My daughter is a real \"critter\" person -- the Lord knows our house would be overrun with living things if it were up to her.  Our most recent trip to the library involved getting some books on lizards and terrariums so we could build a suitable home for her latest \"capture.\"

[Jeff]

Ahhh, another commonality!  I'm a confessed airplane nut.  I learned to fly at 15, worked washing and waxing planes as a teen, etc.  I flew privately for a few years before the hobby got too expensive    Maybe when the children are grown...  for now I have to be content to eke out some time playing with computer flight sim games!

My oldest has caught the flying bug as well.  We've been to a few airshows and he peppers me with questions about my Air Force experience (I was a weather officer.)  I currently work in Delta's operations center as a dispatcher and Andy has spent the night with me several times over the years when I have worked the graveyard shift.  He stays awake all night and gets to see all the planning and oversight that go into airline operations. We were just talking about his potential flying career at lunch today, as a matter of fact.

My son has widely divergent interests, however.  He's not real keen on the idea of the service academies or ROTC at this point, which I have told him is the best path to flying in the military.  His most recent passion has been music, so we've been encouraging that a lot over the last year or two.

I assume the high school to which you are referring is a private institution?  I've toyed with the idea of doing some teaching in an aviation related technical or private school after I retire in 10-15 years, although the idea of going after my Master's (required in many instances) after having been out of school for twenty years is daunting!