My Official Homeschooling Post

Since I am homeschooling the kiddo for 7th grade this year (and this will probably be the only year), I wanted to post about what I'm teaching and what texts, etc. we're using.  I wanted to post about it a couple months ago, but I'm trying to get caught up!  The very homeschooling itself has caused me to get behind in everything!<-----And I wrote all that about 3 months ago so I am really behind!  :)

I guess you would say I'm doing more of a traditional homeschooling approach, but let's call it flexible traditional.  We do some subjects on Monday/Wednesday and some on Tuesday/Thursday.  Fridays are for testing and catch up with afternoons free usually (though we are often running errands that day).  Since the kiddo will most likely be back to our fave little Christian school for 8th grade, I'm following their 7th grade subjects as much as possible though not with all the same texts.

So here's what we're learning ('cause I'm learning most of it too!):

Bible {every day}:  New Testament (KJV) and Balancing The Sword (Vision Forum)
History {M/W}:  World History (Bob Jones) - an old 10th grade edition - oops!
Geography {M/W}:  World geography using http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.php
Literature {M/W}:  World Literature (A Beka)
Grammar {M/W}:  Easy Grammar Ultimate Series (Grade 8)
Science {T/Th}:  Space & Earth Science (Bob Jones)
Math {T/Th}:  Course 3 (Pre Algebra) {Saxon} - another homeschooled friend at the same math level comes over and I teach both boys at the same time
Computer {T/Th}:  Blogging, Word, Excel - we are way behind on this and haven't done much yet
Composition {T}:  Total Language Plus - he attends classes taught for homeschoolers once a week
P.E. {M/W/Th} - Various exercises and activities assigned by me!
Fun stuff:  Lego Engineering Class {F}- taught for homeschoolers; attends with a friend
                 Boy Scouts {T}- meetings once a week plus several campouts & outings - he LOVES it and hubs is trained and goes on campouts too
                 On Stage {W} - singing/performance class taught at our Christian school to get kids used to being on stage and performing
Reading {every day}:  Working on 20 books for our Christian school's Junior High reading list - he'll have finished 8 of them by the end of this month [Around the World in 80 Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Pilgrim's Progress, Oliver Twist, The Hobbit, Hans Brinker, Johnny Tremain, Through Gates of Splendor]

During our second half of the year, he'll be taking some tennis classes and piano lessons.  He has been bugging me to get him into both things and since we have more time this year because of homeschooling - we'll make it happen!  We also have a series of health DVDs from Vision Forum that we'll be watching.

I wish that I was a *cool* homeschooling mom who did unit studies to tie everything together and lots of field trips, but it's just not me.  But I do the best that I can and we're moving right along.  Kiddo would prefer to be back in school (mainly because he's an only child and misses being with the other kids all day, not just seeing them occasionally) but he says that he likes the way we're doing school so far and hasn't asked me to change anything  - other than he'd like to avoid the writing class (his weakest but most needed subject)!  Science is his favorite subject.

That's it for now I think!  I'm happy that God has given me the strength and knowledge to do this and I do enjoy the time with our sweet (but silly) boy.

Hope you are having a good year of schooling no matter which kind of schooling you are doing!

Smiling in the sunshine,
Lisa  :)