My Year 7 Organizer

I have been in search of the perfect assignment/record keeper for fall. I wanted something to fill in AFTER the work is done, and I wanted a WEEKLY, not daily format. Oh. and it needs to be pretty. Yes, pretty matters.

Since dd is not using a daily, paper checklist this year, I wanted to be able to keep a record of what was actually done each week, and I also wanted a place to keep my notes and assessments of skills that I need to follow up on. This Organizer is for assessment purposes, recording what was actually DONE (after the fact), and making notes for myself. I ended up making my own using a combo of some Tanglewood Corebook pages, and my own weekly planner pages using my Creative Keepsakes Designer, Simply Charlotte Mason Narration and Handicraft ideas, Donna Young Academic Calendar, and the free Shabby Princess paper kit "Spontaneous Delight".

Organizer COVER

LEFT side of Organizer

RIGHT side of Organier

I laminated the cover, and am taking it to Office Max to be spiral bound (hopefully!)today. I spent a crazy amount of time on this, but I love it! *Update - I added pictures below of what it looks like spiral bound. With front/back cover and binding, it only cost $3.99!


My Assignment Organizer pages:

1) School Calendar (Donna Young)

2) Goals for the Year (Tanglewood Corebook)


3) Course Outline (custom)



4) Thirty-six 2-page academic organizer pages with space for subject-by-subject notes, skills observed and general notes (custom)


5) Six 6-week goal assessment pages (Tanglewood Corebook)


6) Narration Ideas (Simply Charlotte Mason)


7) Handicraft/Practical Life Ideas (Simply Charlotte Mason)

Ta Da!

Great Books

I just finished placing my book orders from Overstock.com

and Christian Light Education. (We use Christian Light for Math

and Language Arts and love it!) With most of the curriculum

details are finished, and I am excited for fall! So what was in my

book order? I mainly ordered good read-alouds, since I prefer to

have those on hand, and Christian-oriented biographies not

available at the library. Most of the selections are from

AmblesideOnline Years 5/6. We will get all of our additional

reading books at the library, using TruthQuest AHYS III for

suggestions. Let me know what you think!

Click for PDF

Read-alouds:

Cheaper by the Dozen

All-Of-A-Kind Family

Miracles on Maple Hill

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Little Britches

Good-Bye, Mr. Chips


Biographies not available at my library:

George Washington Carver

Always Inventing (Alexander Graham Bell)

Carry a Big Stick The Uncommon Heroism of Roosevelt

Thomas A. Edison

Never Give In (Winston Churchill)

Ordinary Genius (Einstein)


Music:

Brahms - Greatest Hits


Whew! I am glad that we are basically ready for fall. I will get
to have a planning-free summer!

How is your fall planning and curriculum purchasing coming along?

Merry Christmas to me! I just put the finishing touches on our rough draft for 2008 fall term. We have used some CM principles, some helpful ideas from Ambleside Online, and mixed them together with what works for OUR family. I still have to choose some Fine Arts components, but here is what I came up with so far.

Download SCHEDULE (PDF)


Blank SCHEDULE that you can edit (Open Office)

6^th Grade Curriculum - Term 1

American History (1865-1890)

• Reconstructing America by Joy Hakim – Ch 1-37
  (Pre-read 3 chapters per week as teacher background.
  Assign as independent reading or read together and
  discuss)

• TruthQuest History AHYS III – use commentary as
  teacher background and discussion material.
  Use TQ book list to set up a Book Basket of free reading.

• Keep a history notebook or timeline book.

• Create a reading log of books read.

Bible

• Discover 4 Yourself Bible Studies by Kay Arthur or

• One Year Bible – New Living Translation

Biography

• Always Inventing: A Photobiography of Alexander Graham Bell
  (6 weeks)

• biography of Booker T Washington or George Washington Carver (6 weeks)

English

• alternate 2 weeks of grammar instruction with 2 weeks of
  writing instruction

• dictation and Calvert School Spelling CD

• typing software

• narration

Geography

• Integrate with American History using weekly
  blackline maps & Trail Guide to US History

• Memorize States/Capitals using games, software, songs

Literature

• Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

• Old Yeller by Fred Gipson

• Book Basket reading and additional selections as desired from Ambleside Online
  

Music (See Fine Arts-At-A-Glance schedule)

• Classical Composer - Johann Straus Jr.

• Hymns (2) - tbd
  

• Folk Song (1) - tbd
  

Plutarch

• The Children's Plutarch: Tales of the Greeks by Gould or Our Young Folks Plutarch by Kaufman

Poetry

• John Greenleaf Whittier

Science

• Variety of inquiries and readings from TOPS Science, Bob Jones University Science, Janice VanCleave books, home library, public library, kits, local classes. Emphasize vocabulary and labs.

• Keep a science notebook of vocabulary words, hand- drawn diagrams, reading lists, and labs.

• Complete one major science project or participate in a
  science fair.

Shakespeare

• Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by E. Nesbit

Download SCHEDULE (PDF)


Blank SCHEDULE that you can edit (Open Office)

Hot Resource! Miss Mason's 1908 PNEU Weekly Schedule

Scheduling the Charlotte Mason Way

I admit it. The more that we implement Miss Mason's ideas in our homeschool, the more smoothly things run and the more productive we are. This past week I have been looking at Mason's PNEU school schedules for the grade level we will be doing next year. This would be Class II, or approximately 4th-6th grades. Her schedule looks refreshing and do-able. There is plenty of food for the mind here! We are planning on Greek instead of Latin, and science over the summer, but other than that I am following her weekly subjects and time tables pretty closely. We 'school' from 8am-12:00 using
short lessons and a timer. If you've never tried this, I recommend you give it a two week trial. What do you have to lose? After a morning of concentrated effort, afternoons are for productive free time!

We are using Sonlight 5 and most of our 'Reading' will come from that. However, I'm sure we'll add in some AmblesideOnline literature titles and some library finds.


Monday
Reading---(30-60 min)
Memory Work & Poem-a-Day---(10 min)
Bible---(20 min)
Composition---(30 min)
Music & 15 min play---(30 min)
Spanish---(20 min)
Reading---(30 min)
Math---(40 min)
Copywork---(10min)

Tuesday
Reading---(30-60 min)
Memory Work & Poem-a-Day---(10 min)
Bible---(20 min)
English Grammar---(30 min)
Phy-Ed & 10 min play---(30 min)
Reading---(30 min)
Math---(40 min)
Dictation---(10min)
Spelling---(20 min)

Wednesday
Reading---(30-60 min)
Memory Work & Poem-a-Day---(10 min)
Bible---(20 min)
Composition---(30 min)
Music & 15 min play---(30 min)
Math---(40 min)
Reading---(30 min)
Spanish---(20 min)
Copywork---(10min)


Thursday -- Hands-on Day
Notebook Time---(60 min+)
Reading---(30-60 min)
Geography---(30 min)
Hymn/Folk Song---(10 min)
Art and Projects---(60 min+)

Friday
Reading---(30-60 min)
Memory Work & Poem-A-Day---(10 min)
Bible---(20 min)
English Grammar---(30 min)
Phy-Ed & 10 min play---(30 min)
Math---(40 min)
Dictation or Spelling---(10 min)
Spanish---(20 min)
Reading---(30 min)

Now that I have my fall schedule done and books purchased, I can spend the summer at the beach relaxing. We do summer science, but since we enjoy science so much, it doesn't seem like school work!

For this year's summer science, we are trying Apologia's Botany using the supplies kit from Home Science Tools. We will probably get started sometime this week. Dd has a few math lessons to finish up and that is about it. Woo hoo! She is nearly a 5th grader! ; )

***UPDATE 8/5/07
I have tweaked the above schedule a bit from the original to accommodate Sonlight 5 better. You can also download as a PDF here: http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=135458