We just got back on Thursday from our beach trip to Hilton Head Island. I may get around to posting the bad pictures (cause we got no camera that is worth a hoot) but that will have to wait. When I arrived home the purchases that I made for the upcoming school year were awaiting me. I took several scholastic financial plunges this year, and for the sake of glimpsing what school can look like when you homeschool for a long time, and things need to be tweaked now and then, I am revealing my thought process and how much it cost.
My first big plunge was that I finally decided to go with Sonlight for the core curriculum. They are pricey, but my reasoning behind this was I wanted the 2 big boys to be able to do a lot of the same stuff, so that they can do school together. Evan loves to read and I wanted some really good books for him, and Austin was totally burned out with his textbooks, worksheets and boring and random reading. I found the perfect package with Core W. It is one year condensed world history and I purchased the Lang Arts package that corresponds with the material. Core W is good for people new to Sonlight, and it fit their ages well. So my Sonlight includes Bible, Lang arts, strong History, Literature and Poetry, Reading(there are about 50 books that they will be reading), Vocab and Spelling(small amount so I am supplementing) and Geography. This is costing around $650.
The second plunge into icy waters was my Rosetta Stone Latin American Spanish 1,2,3 homeschool edition. This I found on sale through Sonlight for $350. The boys and I decided that this was going to have the most beneficial outcome, because Grandma speaks Spanish and we live in an area that has a high Spanish population, so there are many people to practice with, which helps cement a foreign lang.
Our third plunge is Science. As of yesterday I signed the boys up for classes in the neighboring town (25min away). Austin will be doing Apologia Biology, and Evan will be doing Apologia Physical Science. Evan is on the younger side (usually this is a 8th grade class with some 7th graders participating), but they were not offering a general science class, and since he was a good student I am hoping he can handle the class. The class runs for 28 weeks, starting next Thursday and cost $360 for each student, plus the student Textbook for $43 each. Thankfully they are on the same day, so that I don't have to expend so much gas driving that far twice a week, but it will be a long day. Evan's class is from 9-11 and Austin's is 11-1pm. I am going to pack lunches and do school in the car or at McDonald's with the kid not in class. Science in the upper grades is one of those hard classes to teach (IMO). It is hard to make it interesting unless you love it, it can be pricey to do all the labs, not to mention incredibly time consuming making sure you have supplies on hand, and I think it is much for enjoyable to do it in a group.
They are also doing Wordly Wise for vocab and spelling. (really like these workbooks) $12 per student
We are sticking with Math U See for mathematics. $75 and $25
Both boys are playing a sport. Evan is playing football since this is the last year he can play for the Rec dept. and Austin is playing Basketball with the homeschool athletic league. We decided that sports can play more of a vital role when kids are homeschooled for the purpose of physical activity, time management and responsibility to the team, and some time spent with peers in a controlled environment. I love Austin's basketball coach and felt that he was an asset to Austin's character development. Evan just really wanted another go at football.
We will be one of those families that I never thought we would be. (the running like a chicken with it's head cut off kind.) With the 2 younger ones in public school still, I will be a slave to their schedule, while still running my own school.
So that is our coming year in a nutshell. I didn't even mention that I am trying to find electric guitar lessons for Evan (since he bought himself a guitar) and that Austin wants to take drum lessons or do martial arts. The martial arts are out for now, but I would like them both to have the music if possible.
4 comments:
Sounds super busy but fun. I think keeping kids busy is a good idea : ) Oscar and I sometimes feel that our goal is to tire them out doing good things so that they don't have any energy left to get into trouble : ) : ) The problem is that we get tired before they do!
Wow. I'm sending this post to Zoe because her life sounds just as busy.
But she might find some of your curriculum info helpful too.
I'm sending Lauren off to UNC for year #2 and although I now think of that place as the pit of hell, I am selfishly grateful to return to empty nesting. Except there's the puppy now...
Catrina, I hope they enjoy Sonlight as much as my kids have all these years. I just ordered the history part of Core 100 for Jonathan. He will also be doing physical science from Aplogia. Since I already had those books from Andrew, I ordered a disc from Rainbow Resources that has all the material from an online class, with the teacher teaching all the key concepts to go along with each chapter. Our local classes this year are doing General Science, but no Physical Science. Sounds like our boys need to switch places. haha Jonathan is jumping from Math U See pre-algebra to Jacob's Algebra, more of a textbook approach, which I also had from Andrew, and will be a good stepping stone to public school next year. Oh, did you notice that the Clase Divertida teacher is teaching online classes now? I considered it, and then decided to save the money since Jonathan can take Spanish One next year. We borrowed a friend's Rosetta Stone last year to have him try that, and he hated it. Hope you have more success with it than we did. Anyhow, our big news around here is that Sarah begged to go to school this year, and so I registered her for first grade on Friday. I am a little sad about it; was looking forward to getting back into her phonics (which I think I'll still do to supplement) and other fun first grade stuff, but I figure I'll spend this year focusing on Jonathan's academics to get him ready for high school next year. Your schedule sounds good. Enjoy the school year!!
Got your message, thanks. Did your church receive our adoption announcement of Calvin? We were so blessed by your church. Thank you.
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