School Begins Tomorrow

We begin school tomorrow. All the books and notebooks are lined up on the book shelf ready to go; pencils are sharpened and the erasers are ready. I love the smell of new curriculum! ;) This will be the last time that the book shelf will look this orderly, that is, until the beginning of the next school year.

We use Rod & Staff for the main subjects, and the St. Joseph's Baltimore Catechism and Reading God's Word with daily reflections for Religion. We also use the Schoolaid curricula. This year, as in past years,  we'll be using their reading program with vocabulary, and the health workbook. We begin these books after we finish with Rod & Staff because we usually run out of work by spring, and the extra reading, vocabulary, and health books are excellent.

Free time reading will include vintage ebooks and books from the library.

I decided to begin Apologia Science(General Science) next year, or the next, Physical Science for eight grade. Rod & Staff Science may be enough preparation for him to jump right into Apologia in the eight grade; we'll see.

We've been using Rod & Staff curriculum since Pre-K/Kindergarten. It has worked well for many years, so we just kept going with it. It's been especially nice for my son who is an independent learner. He has been able to self teach himself with these materials. The only intervention on my part has been to go over corrections with him, identify weaknesses, and fill these gaps with extra study materials.

I guide his free time reading, but most of the learning is tackled by him. A few years ago I gave him a notebook for journaling. At first I had to assign minimum writing requirements, but now he writes long creative stories. I don't correct these, letting him write freely for himself instead.

We've filled in science experiments with trips to our local science museum and summer science camp, but we'll need to do labs at home soon. My husband has volunteered for this task.