Our break has been a rich blessing for me, let me tell you. I'm bathroom-painting, friends-hosting, pool-going, tea-drinking, band-listening....and lesson-planning.
After nearly 6 hours of work today I've finally settled on our basic outline for next year, created a chart/checklist for our first term, and found enough room in our schedule (I hope!) to implement all these great plans.
I'm a traditionalist--we won't start school until the day after Labor Day, although we'll pick up on some light summer work in a couple of weeks.
The primary sources I've used in my planning this year are:
*Ambleside Online
*Charlotte Mason Help
*KONOS Unit Studies Curriculum (I bought a used copy of Volume 1 from a local lady)
The approach I've cobbled together for the upcoming year is primarily based on Ambleside's Year 1 (we did a few of those books last year; last year I relied more heavily on Charlotte Mason Help's curriculum suggestions). Ambleside's curriculum is not for the faint of heart, so the "years" don't necessarily correspond to traditional grades. We are going to try some of the more difficult selections for Year 1 and see how we do--taking it slow and steady!
I've also planned an 8-week unit study for the first 8 weeks of school. I'll then take a break and may pick back up with another unit study in early 2015. I decided to try out KONOS because it contains a vast array of activity choices for children of varying ages. This will allow Annie and Finn to work two days a week on similar hands-on learning activities. I'm planning to do KONOS on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. I have purposefully chosen simple activities that use household objects and that don't look stressful to implement. I'm excited--this is more 'fun' than 'school' and I think both of my children will enjoy it.
Back to summer break.....did I mention late-sleeping, fruit-eating, vegetable-harvesting.......?
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