School Planning for Thomas

It's raining here - perfect for cooking and working around the house. We are changing our church service time to an hour earlier with Sunday School following, so I need to spend the day getting everything ready. We are having taco salad and cranberry date bars for lunch tomorrow and will do most of the prep today and make the dessert. Katie has peach sorbet mixed up, ready to freeze, and I have David's Blue Bell in the freezer. We cleaned the house yesterday and I ironed earlier in the week, so I thought I might deep clean somewhere today - maybe the small bathroom so we can still have time to pop in a movie this afternoon or read to Abby! I love a rainy day, don't you?

I'm continuing to work on planning for next year.

Thomas has learned so much this past year in 4th grade. I can see much improvement in his reading, which has been such a concern. He learned his multiplication tables, too, and he has enjoyed reading about missionaries as a part of Bible.

This next year he'll be in 5th grade.

For reading, I'm planning to use real books instead of a reader. I have looked at the list of readers for Sonlight and I think we'll start there, since we own some of the books. We'll continue with Explode the Code to help him with phonics. Sequential Spelling is perfect for him because it teaches him to spell based on patterns in words. He has come a long way since we started using it and we'll continue with the program. We will switch to a different level of Daily Grams and perhaps move to a new unit in our Institute for Excellence in Writing program. I'm planning to add Easy Grammar, too.

He'll move up to the Delta book in Math U See and will begin division.

He'll join Abby for another round of TruthQuest American History for Young Students. He loves to be read to and this program is a good fit for our family since it's basically a reading list. Normally, we leave off the writing part, but we may add it for him this year, since he enjoys writing.

Science has always been a problem for me. I've never been able to hit on just the right thing and, frankly, it's not my favorite subject (I'd rather be reading history!). Since Thomas is interested in science, particularly inventors, I've been thinking about how to better teach this subject. I think I've come up with a good plan for him.

I've looked at the manuals for Beyond Five in a Row, which I already own, and have chosen a few books which are strong in the area of science. I'm going to work on a plan where we will read one of the books and do only the science part of the unit. We'll probably start with Thomas Edison. This summer, I'll map out the book and gather the supplemental books and materials I'll need so we'll be ready to go with only a minimum amount of work for me during the school year.

For Bible, he's already told me he wants to read some more missionary books. He has started reading his Bible in the mornings on his own and I'll encourage him to keep a prayer journal by buying a nice one for him to use. This past year we've been learning to pray with the ACTS pattern and I think he can go solo now.

For extras, I'd like to add typing, we'll work on art and music appreciation, he'll continue with drawing lessons on his own, and he'll keep up fiddle lessons.

It's challenging and fun to teach a wiggly, noisy, creative boy!