The Shady Lane Academy

Established in 2003, our homeschool has since doubled enrollment. Call it good teaching, or blame it on keen fertility. Our goal is to increase the student body by another 50% by fall 2011, when our prime mascot will enroll in kindergarten.

This year’s curriculum:

The Princess -

• Bible – Four days a week we begin our morning by reading Character Sketches. Each unit uses animals and biblical figures to illustrate character qualities. I love that they cover a lot of people that you don’t hear about much in Sunday School.
• History, Reading, and Science – Sonlight. Someone mentioned this company at an open house when the Princess was a toddler and we were researching homeschooling. I was a goner the minute they said “a lot of books.” Sonlight uses novels, historical fiction, and non-fiction to teach history. In addition, their science is very hands-on and full of experiments, but without me having to run around searching for wiring and clothespins. Because it avoids textbooks and goes in logical, chronological order, it fits in beautifully with Charlotte Mason, Classical studies, or outright eclectic teaching. This year the Princess is plowing through Core 5 and Science 5.
• Math – Abeka. It’s not sexy. It’s not flashy. And there is a lot of review. But they are academically spot-on. I don’t get the manipulatives, lesson plans, or other gee-gaws – just the work text and the answer book.
• Language Arts – This is where I have done the most agonizing (and switching). No one curriculum seems to fit, so I braid together Writing Strands, Wordly Wise, and the grammar and punctuation sections of the Abeka LA book. This is the first year I have been completely happy with where she’s going in LA.
• Spelling – Another tough one, since the Princess is incredibly strong in this area and most spelling programs drop off at the high school level. I printed off the Spell It! booklet from the Merriam-Webster/Scripps site and am giving her lists by language of origin. I am embarrassed to say that we are only six lessons in (15 words each), since I am very forgetful about giving her tests. Bad Mama!
• Handwriting – The final book in the Handwriting Without Tears series, Can-do Cursive. We really battle over this. The Princess hates cursive, has even brought me articles proving that it isn’t any faster/neater. And yet I insist. HWT makes her life easier, anyway.
• Other – Rosetta Stone (Spanish), Typing Instructor, and ARTistic Pursuits (when I can remember). How lousy is it than an ex-art major forgets to teach her kids art?  Yikes.
• Extra – Piano, AWANA, swimming, and sassing her parents.

 
All of the Princess’ school stuff is entered into my Homeschool Tracker program – yup, even all of the Core 5 and Science 5 IGs. It keeps me sane. Every Sunday night I print out the week’s assignments for her and click them off as they are completed. Next year I will use it for the Bear, as well. Which reminds me: 

The Bear -

• Bible – Egermeier’s Bible Story Book. The whole Bible, Genesis to Revelation, at a kid’s level without talking down to its audience.
• History, Reading – Sonlight. Last year and over the summer I used How to Teach Your Child to Read… and it really lit his fire. He has already read through all the Core K advanced readers so I am lining up the next level. History is blowing his mind, since he never realized how much world there is out there. It’s a kick to watch him absorb it all.
• Math – Abeka. He will finish the Kindergarten book by mid-January, and I’m hoping the 1st grade one comes in the mail soon.
• Handwriting – Handwriting Without Tears’ My Printing Book. I am a big fan of this curriculum. It flows developmentally and is very logical.
• Science – A study of human biology that I cobbled together using From Head to Toe: The Amazing Human Body and How It Works and Earthlings Inside and Out: A Space Alien Studies the Human Body as a jumping-off place. After studying each body system, I print out a life-size coloring sheet of that system, he colors it and cuts it out, and we paste it onto him. Well, not him really – we have an outline of him hanging on the wall. (He would probably like wearing a cut out of his intestines to the store, though.)
• Other – Starting to dabble with Rosetta Stone.
• Extra – Piano, AWANA, swimming/soccer, and battling space aliens/his parents.

Moo -

As mascot, her duties are:

• running laps around the living room, followed by spinning until she falls over and bonks.
• distracting her siblings and stealing their pencils.
• coloring.
• generally tearing apart the house while I am distracted.

Dang, I love my job.