routines

I love summer so much.  I love the easy days, the laid back-ness of it all, and I am always ready for a break from school and routines come every May.

By the end of summer, however, I am so ready for life to resume normalcy once again.  We have friends in and out of the house all summer, and so are my boys, so when school starts back for the kids around us in our area, I love taking a full week and getting the house back in order and cleaned really well and getting prepared for our school year ahead.  When they were little I would push their first day off as long as I could, but now that they're older and in high school, it's harder to keep up if we do that.  Cramming a lot of work into less days is hard on them, and it never turns out well if we have to do that.

For us, school will start next Monday.  I ordered some new curriculum for them, for this year, and I'm excited to receive it and to go through it with them.  We did a lot of computer subjects last year, and though I have one who doesn't mind that, I do have one that needs a physical book, preferably with pretty, colored pages. 

Our shelves are all ready and I have some books for them waiting to be read.  We may not go through all of these pictured at the bottom, because part of their U.S. History this year has recommended reading with it, so we will use some of those books and combine it with some other literature they'll be doing.  I have people ask me about curriculum and what we use, and my answer is a little of everything and anything that works for us. 

For math, we use Math U See, which is a dvd guided curriculum.  They'll be in geometry this year.

For science, we are also using a dvd guided curriculum and I am excited about not having to be their teacher for biology.  I can't remember the exact name, but it's something like Biology According to the Days of Creation.  The dvd kid comes with a download and printable book for them to use, and will teach them how to fill out lab reports, so it does count as biology with lab.

For grammar and literature, we use Daily Grams for tenth grade, and our literature book is by Bob Jones University, on the elements of literature.  I may add in another book for grammar to supplement. 

We do our own thing for bible and some other electives, things I find online or that I already have and can't think of at the moment. 

I am most excited about their history this year, and it's by Notgrass.  Graham and Drew used that same curriculum for government and economics, and loved it.  Well, I don't know if that's true.  Their mom sure loved it, though.

Other things listed that they'll be doing in school are Spanish (Rosetta Stone), home economics, intern/apprenticeship, business communications, life skills, physical education, and work experience.  A lot of that my husband contributes to, thanks to the family business.  Our church contributes to this as well.  For example, Jonah is the head of the technical team for the student ministry.  It takes about three hours each Wednesday, sometimes more and sometimes less, and he is responsible for hooking things up to extension cords, and he plans the lights and lyrics that are needed.  When he's not working on it there, he's thinking about it and running it through his head here. 

All that being said, we are ready for their sophomore year!  It's weird just having two at home this year, but I'm sure we'll manage just fine. 

Thanks for reading!  Love to all.