We’re super excited about this new school year, but I must admit, my kids make it easy. While My Little Man is not a fan of writing, he loves to read and to build things, and so I need only to bring books home. He’ll find them, devour them, and remember much of the text word for word.
My Little Man and My Big Helper are so close in age and ability, most of our schoolwork happens together. They do most of the same assignments, study the same topics, and do most of the same projects. When their work differs, it’s usually only in scope or the difficulty I expect from them – and math. They do separate math assignments.
With that in mind, this is what we’re planning for this coming school year. We’ll be starting next week – although the kids have already started reading their books and making up their own assignments. (I don’t think they understand the meaning of ‘vacation.’) For this to make sense, though, you need to know how we do school. We incorporate as many subjects as we can into one thing – an interdisciplinary or project approach, also called unit studies – but we’re pretty eclectic about the way that we do things, too. I choose history and/or science topics for us to focus on and then we read biographies, historical fiction, non-fiction, videos, documentaries, build things, take field trips, and write, so …
History: Mostly we’ll be reading the types of books listed above. We fill in gaps between major time periods with Drive Through History: Columbus, the Pilgrims, and Early Boston
Science: We’re going to be matching up scientists and discoveries with the time periods that we’re studying. We’ll learn about the science of navigation during our exploration unit, about the changes in weapons and warfare throughout our war studies, and other important ones in between. The kids’ book clubs will be reading a fun trade paperback that makes use of physics and circuits, too – more on that to come. When we want more information, in addition to biographies, the ‘Net, and documentaries, we’ll be reading Like this:
