1st Grader - VBS, so no school
9th Grader
1st Grader - VBS, no school
9th Grader
All kids have VBS this week, so the 1st grader won't do school. It would be too much for him. Last week was a five-hour long ballet intensive every day/all week, so no one was able to do school last week.
9th Grader
After sitting down and flipping through my Trail Guide to World Geography, several volumes of Five in a Row and my KONOS vol. 1, I decided to drop Trail Guide for the 1st grader and go back to Konos.
I'm dropping Trail Guide, because he would get so much more out of it if he were older. I'm going to put it away until he's about 4th-5th grade.
I'm not going to use Five in a Row with him, because we "rowed" several FIAR books earlier this year and he was ok with it, but he very much loved the hands-on activities in Konos. Five in a Row spends a lot of time on art and relationships. The book selection is also very relationship-oriented. My 6 year-old boy will choose following animal tracks and making a frontiersman's possible bag any day over learning about relationships. (sigh, boys)
So, back we are with Konos. I'm going to restart the Frontiersman/Trapping/Tracking Unit in Attentiveness. I ordered books about Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Texas history, Sacagawea and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Maybe, since he's a little older now, he'll be able to get more out of it than before.
One major complaint about Konos: it needs serious updating. It is so outdated that it's very difficult to use, which is one reason I stopped using it after a couple of the units. None of the books are available from the booklist. They're all out of print. I'm going to need to find my own books and then pick activities that he's capable of doing.
I wanted to compile some links to good booklists of picture books about the Saints. I'm going to use these lists for future reference as I plan our Friday hymn and saint studies.
Picture Books About the Saints (Goodreads) (a lot of these are actually at our library)
Ultimate List of Picture Books for Catholic Families
The Motherload List of Excellent Catholic Picture Books
Saints Books for Children (these looked like mostly older books)
Continuing our study of the 12 Apostles...
James the Elder, son of Zebedee
Trail Guide to World Geography
I absolutely love this unit study for high school. My high schoolers are really enjoying it, too. I'm actually learning a ton. But it says K-12 on the description and I'm trying to use it with my 1st grader. He really likes what we've done so far (he's on Week 4), but 99% of it is very much over his head. I think I need to set up a geography unit study for him on his level. He obviously likes geography, but he won't like it if it's too overwhelming/difficult.
I'm thinking of either buying Beautiful Feet's Around the World with Picture Books , Guest Hollow's Jr. Geography Curriculum, or just setting up my own unit study. Either way, I need to sit down with it and come up with a plan.
Government & Economics
I feel like a serious failure in this department. The 11th grader has read a number of living books about government and economics, including reading original source documents like the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, etc, and watching a Senate hearing's live broadcast. But, I really feel like our coverage of these two subjects is pretty abysmal. I don't like government and economics and it's hard to creatively and lovingly put together wonderful unit studies on a topic you absolutely hate (and think is boring). At this point, I'm so burned out from even hearing about politics and government, that I don't actually want to teach it. Ever.
I'm thinking of using this as a springboard for economics https://mru.org/teacher-resources/courses/high-school-economics , but I think I might be too dumb even for these videos.
I'm thinking of going through Notgrass Economics together with the high schoolers (I already own it).
