Planning..

Well, it is time to "start" planning for this coming school year. I shouldn't really say "start" since all I ever think about when it comes to schooling is "hmmmm....what can we do next?" And believe me, there is NEVER a shortage of ideas. We do unit studies and I like them to be child driven, so I start the summer telling them to contemplate ideas for the next school year. I start writing them down and thinking on ways to combine their ideas, or projects we could do, or books we could use. They have given me quite a list already....it includes:

Police/Detectives/Bounty Hunters - Jacob
Human Body - Sarah
Cowboys - Jacob
Hurricanes/Tornadoes - Jacob
Princesses - Sarah
Knights - Jacob
Underwater Creatures - Sarah
Ninja/Samurai/Gladiators - Jacob

Malachi hasn't yet given me any ideas yet, but he is interested in the topics I've chosen to study which include: Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece (this will incorporate Jacob's gladiator interests), Rocks, Mammals (we started the Classification System last year and covered all Vertebrates except for Mammals), Insects (starting on Invertebrates), and cover more American History. We have already studied weather so I'm thinking the tornadoes and hurricanes will be a mini-unit...as will the Police/Detective/Bounty Hunter idea. Maybe we'll do a 4-H trip to the Police Station and Sheriff's Department to go along with that. :) We covered the Human Body a couple of years ago...it turned out really well. We traced their bodies on white paper and made life-sized organs to go on them. We taped the ribs on the sides only so you could pull them back and see the lungs, etc. Anyway, so I'll probably just pull that info out and go over it again with Sarah. Princesses and knights will be a good joint study ...we covered that when Malachi and Jacob were four and two so a little review won't hurt. I made a book with Malachi and Jacob covering the sea creatures when they were younger which is why I'm thinking Sarah wants to cover them again. I found hardback journals at The Dollar Tree and we altered it to make our own little books. They turned out so cute.

I like to try and have all my notebook/lapbook things printed out - or at least what I am positive we will use...as well as, have a list of all the key words and topics that I want to include. I put several hands-on activities books on request at my local library and they ordered them!! Yeah!! I'm so excited that when we cover Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and Geology, the activity books will be available and I will not have to purchase them :)