Our "Book Work" for 2014-15

 I'm not sure which family member first used the term "book work" but that's what we call our formal academics around here.  We do lots of experiential learning as well, but when we sit down at a desk or table and get serious about putting specific information in our brains, we call it "book work."


So here is the basic outline of our 7th and 9th grade "book work" this year...

Poetry

We always start the day with a poem.  I've already posted about my initial poetry choices here, but I'll add that Teaching Grammar with Perfect Poems for Middle School was a good resource last year.  We got about halfway through it so we'll finish it up this year.

Math

Hands-On Equations workbook, disc, and manipulatives

 
My kids typically want to do math early in the day.  To wake up their brains, I give them a challenge problem, and they either work together on the dry-erase board or independently in their math notebooks.  I get the challenge problems from our old Singapore word problem workbooks, Math Starters, or a fun book called Perfectly Perilous Math.  There are tons of resources for challenge problems out there, and I'll bet I've used nearly all of them at some point! 

We have a few lessons to finish in Hands-On Equations before moving on to Saxon Algebra I.  We typically do a Hands-On lesson or two, then a review lesson from their old Saxon 7/6 or 8/7 books, and then a practice packet.  I make the packets in advance (I have 21 ready to go!) but not too far in advance so I can customize them based on what the kids need to review.


The practice packets are five or six pages and typically contain a Hands-On worksheet, practice pages from Saxon or Singapore workbooks, worksheets I've found online, and at least one logic grid from Mindware Perplexors.   

Mindware Perplexors logic puzzles

 Grammar and Punctuation

Last year we worked our way through the very silly and fun A Sentence A Day.  This year the kids will learn some interesting history facts from their daily proofreading sentence.  I'll just make a copy of the sentence from Take Five Minutes: A History Fact A Day For Editing and the kids will tape or glue it in their notebooks and then write the sentence correctly underneath. 

  

Literature and Writing

This year we are using Oak Meadow's Introduction to Literature and Composition I.  They have recently reorganized their curriculum and I'm not sure if this specific course still exists, but it includes To Kill a Mockingbird, A Wizard of Earthsea,  Animal Farm, and Our Town, plus grammar lessons from The Least You Should Know About English.  The course manual suggests discussion questions and writing assignments, and we also use the Notice and Note method whenever we are reading literature.

Notice and Note signposts for close reading

By the way, I can't recommend Notice and Note highly enough--it's a fantastic way to help young readers move beyond the basics of characters and plot and get into the deeper themes of literature.  Come to think of it, Notice and Note strategies are worth a blog post of their own...I'll get right on that! ;-)

After I wrote my post about our literature choices for 7th and 9th, the kids requested two more books, and I added three more, so we are going to be doing lots of great reading this year!

Science

My science-loving kids have already started their Biology I course from Thinkwell.  The lectures and course notes are great.  The quizzes, on the other hand, are kind of confusing--they appear to be written by someone who didn't actually watch the lectures.  After some frustrating experiences with poorly-worded questions, the kids decided to just watch the lectures and study the notes, and I'll make unit tests based on the course notes.  

Vocabulary

Vocabulary graphic organizer from TeachersPayTeachers.com

I believe the ideal way to develop a good vocabulary is from reading and from hearing scholarly speech.  However, it never hurts to build on that foundation!  In addition to collecting any unfamiliar words they come across while reading, the kids can choose interesting words from SAT vocabulary books for their vocabulary study.  They really like using graphic organizers for new words.  

Philosophy

Philosophy is a favorite subject around here.  We have read about two-thirds of Philosophy for Kids, and the kids have enjoyed it so much, I ordered The Examined Life so we can continue discussing Deep Questions!  Philosophy is a good subject to do before or during lunch because the questions always spark a lively conversation.

History

We have been working our way through the wonderful A History of Us series for several years.  I really like the author's approachable writing style, all the great maps and graphics, and the short-but-detailed chapters.  We typically read and discuss two or three chapters a week.  If a topic really fascinates the kids (our never-ending unit on WWII comes to mind) we do some supplemental reading and maybe a mind-map or other hands-on project.

Thinking Skills

I'm adding a new subject to our routine this year: thinking skills.  After reading Making Thinking Visible this summer, I really wanted to try some of the "thinking routines" described in the book.  (One example of a thinking routine is called "See-Think-Wonder."  After silently observing an object or a work of art for a few minutes, students are asked "What does this object/image make you wonder?  What questions come to mind?")  Trying out would be an interesting transition activity to try once or twice a week.  It's an experiment, but it should be fun, and I'm sure it will spark some interesting conversations at the very least!

What's the story here?  What does this image make you wonder about?

Foreign Language

My 9th grader will continue her German studies.  She started with German in 10 Minutes a Day two years ago, and last year she took a German course at our local community college.  This year will be her first year to work with a private tutor, so we'll see how that goes.

My 7th grader decided to switch to Greek this year.  He'll start with Pimsleur Greek and Your First 100 Words in Greek.

Written Conversations/Journaling

We usually end our "book work" days with a journal entry.  Last year, I found this really cool idea in a book called Written Conversations.  The night before, I write a brief letter to each kid in their journal, always including a personal question or two, and then they answer my questions in writing.  These journals are not graded or corrected in any way--they are just an opportunity to put thoughts and opinions on paper with zero judgment.  

So that's pretty much the gist of how we'll be spending our school days this year.  Of course there will also be music lessons, handwriting practice, note-taking practice, volunteer work, travel, museum visits, camping, geocaching, and activities with our local homeschooling group.  We're looking forward to a great year of learning together!

This post is linked to the 6th Annual Not Back to School Blog Hop!  Stop by to see what my homeschooling blog buddies are doing in 2014-15!