Five things to try in your homeschool this coming year- part 1

It's nearly summer! My summer usually involves a little bit of sunshine, time at the pool, my personal professional development plans and tons of organization for the coming school year. The kid and I sit down towards the end of May or early June and try to imagine what the next year will look like and what direction we want to go. In general, we end up with about 50% of our plans sticking for the year. That seems to be an excellent success rate!

In planning for the new year, we try to think big and look at crazy ideas, not just choose a curriculum and a workbook. Recently, a family at school asked what have been our most successful big ideas and how we've incorporated them into our homeschool schedule. I realized that over four years, these ideas that were "big" in the beginning are now the regular part of our days and weeks.

What are those big ideas and what does it look like?


Part 1- Take learning online
It's no secret that we're big fans of online education and learning. We are living in a time where the whole world is at a student's fingertips. I personally feel that a fear of "screen time" is denying children amazing opportunities. I do understand the reticence of some families, but I promise- your foray into digital learning will be worth it.

For those ready to dabble, try these options:

• CurrClick- Totally free or very low cost, low requirements. Classes range from Lego Clubs and Magic Treehouse Clubs to high school science and math
  
• SuperCharged Science- Not sure you want to take an online class? Sign up for the email promotions and you'll receive several opportunities for free demo classes throughout the year.
  
• Athena's Academy- A fantastic resource for short and long term online courses. Students meet in a virtual classroom and discuss the topics of the course, as well as completing other assignments online. A short term 8 week class is a great way to get your feet wet.

Ready to go all in? Here are our favorites:

• Athena's Academy- Long term classes range from literature, history and science to philosophy and math for younger kids. Athena's specializes in elementary through middle school courses online. Your kids will love it!
  
• Gifted Homeschoolers Forum While we haven't specifically used GHF, it is well recommended among friends. The class topics are engaging, with subjects like "Beyond Percy Jackson" and "Minecraft Math". Your kids are sure to find one that looks exciting
  
• OnlineG3- I can't say enough good things about OnlineG3. We plan our entire school year schedule around the G3 schedule and what looks the best. Next year, the kid is tackling Writing From Sources in the fall and is hoping for a return of Science and Science Fiction Movies in the spring.
  
• Mr. Gelston- In a new partnership with OnlineG3 and Gifted Homeschoolers Forum, Mr. Gelston's One Room Schoolhouse is offering opportunities for older students and teens to study journalism, Algebra and to study data and statistics in a thoroughly interesting and tangible way. 

Each of these opportunities teaches digital literacy, online collaboration, online citizenship and encourages students to see beyond their own computers. As a homeschooling mom, it's extremely rewarding to hear your child having a thoughtful debate with other students all around the world!

New stuff we love

Finding curriculum is for a homeschooler is a challenge, only complicated more by finding a curriculum for a homeschooler that is secular, engaging and far enough above grade level to be interesting for the kid without tackling topics that he'll have to repeat in high school. I love to write about new stuff when we find it, just in case you were looking too!

Elements of Mathmatics
The kid finished his high school Geometry course from Plato Edmentum in February. We debated and poked around the web looking for something fun to start, while carefully balancing that line of not repeating in high school. While we could simply forge ahead into Algebra II, it complicates things with UC a-g requirements and high school graduation credit. The kid doesn't want to go to community college for math (at least not yet). So we stumbled upon EMF and he is delighted! Each course is self-paced over a 90 day enrollment period. It's really not like any other math you've probably seen, even if you've been using Art of Problem Solving. It's a little bit of logic, math, cryptography and game theory all woven it one. He loves it so much that we will continue with this program as our primary math curriculum for 8th grade.

E.O. Wilson's Life on Earth
We got so lucky stumbling upon these books! Trying to find a secular biology curriculum that is in depth enough for an advanced science student, while not requiring complex lab equipment at home? This is going to be your very best option. The books are written to a high school audience but go far and wide with the subjects and stray from the traditional class. They're beautifully written, illustrated, with interactives imbedded and pretty much as perfect as they could be. The only downside? They are iBooks and only available on iOS. If we didn't already have one, I would seriously consider buying an iPad JUST to use these books though. That's how much we love them!

Online G3
I've raved about Online G3 before, but they just keep getting better and better with more thoughtful additions. The kid is taking Dystopian Literature this semester, along with the companion writing supplement class. My reluctant, perfectionist, frustrated writer just finished an essay about whether the ending of Fahrenheit 451 was tragic or hopeful. In G3 classes, he may be an 11 year old 7th grader, but his ideas are high school and college caliber. He's surrounded by academic peers, whose squeaky pre-teen voices make me laugh while they debate whether 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 has more dystopian qualities. The writing supplement has shown my kid that revision is the POINT of an essay, not the thing to fight and resist. He's learning, slowly, to take the comments and suggestions into his revision as a thoughtful editing process, not an insult. This, more than anything he has learned this year, is the big lesson of the year.

What are your gems this year? What did you find that was new and interesting?

That's a wrap!

The 13-14 school year is in the bag and all wrapped up now. It's been a bittersweet year, full of changes and learning curves but also full of exciting adventures and discoveries. I went back to work last August as the Academy Coordinator (aka- principal) of our homeschooling charter program. With more than 220 students, two buildings and 15 staff members, it's been a challenge to figure out how to work part-time, homeschool 6th grade and still do all the bits that we love while getting all the work done that has to fit in a day.

Looking at our plans for this 13-14 year, some of our best laid plans were completed but some... they fell apart mid-stream. Our curriculum plans were basically destroyed due to me being less able to provide direct one on one instruction and work. We ended up dropping Bravewriter in late October, in favor of NaNoWriMo and then a writing class from Athena's Academy.  Art of Problem Solving was put on hold while the kid attempted a high school site based Algebra class. He ended up finishing one semester in the classroom and returned home for the last semester via UC Scout.  We did complete Intellego Ancient Civilizations, as well as Horrible Histories related to our spring break travels. The kid happily worked his way through Intellego's Plate Techtonics and Evolution units. These were some of our most fun lessons all year!

We also found huge success in simply free reading. The kid has blown through 60 books this year, raised his lexile score by 200 points and shown that you don't actually need a boring literature anthology to learn. He did two novel studies based around Ender's Game and A Tale of Two Cities. He just finished a fantastic analysis paper on the use of foreshadowing in the movie "Frozen", along with several papers for his academic writing class.

Now that we both have a better handle on middle school homeschooling along with me working, we can start looking forward and figuring out what 7th grade will hold! We're opting for a few changes and a few consistent hits that we've had over the years.  I'm feeling less ambitious and planning to stick to more options that we know were successful in a model where has to work alone most of the day.

Language Arts
Don't Forget to Write for the Secondary Grades: 50 Enthralling and Effective Writing Lessons (Ages 11 and Up)
Dystopian Literature from Online G3 (hopefully!)

Science/History
We're opting for a double-Science approach this year! Neither of us were really excited about studying medieval history (the standards based part) so we opted for history through science. We'll be tackling all of these:
The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way
The Story of Science: Newton at the Center
Intellego: Chemical Reactions and hopefully Oceanography

Math
We are hoping for a site-based high school Geometry class. Plus Math Olympiad and our regular math competition team.

The Extras
Fencing twice a week will continue. He's also hoping to take a Video Game Design class, along with guitar again and at least one dance class. Our school is also adding a student leadership program which he'll be a part of this year. He has at least three mods he's also planning on programming in Minecraft.

We're discovering that he's at the age where everyone keeps asking when he's going back to "real school".  The truth is, the further we get from "real school" the harder that seems to imagine. We have finally found a school that works for us and lets him be himself. He doesn't have to hide or pretend, doesn't have to shove his book in his backpack and pretend that he isn't reading that one. Perhaps we'll stumble across the perfect fit, but in the meantime, we are happy just being happy!