Here we go with year 16!

Tweet

Can you believe it? We started year 16 of homeschooling today! Wow, never in a million years did I think we would be in this spot doing life, living and learning under our roof. You want to know what's equally impressive? We have lived in this same house for 15 years! What was once just supposed to be a quick tour on the east coast has turned into an extended stay with two children added to our family. And you know what...I am so glad that God has placed us just where we needed to be. 

Montana started her last first day of high school this morning! So bittersweet. I can't believe we have another hgh school senior. She will be our 4th graduate from ASBCA in May and our first graduate to be fully home educated. That alone is a huge accomplishment in my book.

Montana has a pretty loaded plan of study this year and I am really excited that she has the opportunity to knock out some of her general education requirements by doing dual enrollment. The local community college has lowered the tuition to just $25.00 per credit! Currently she is set up to take three dual enrollment classes in the fall semester. She will also start her college applications process in September. As of right now, she is qualified for the full tuition/fees scholarship at her first choice school. She doesn't want to go too far and she is familiar with the campus as she did a summer intensive last year so she may only apply to this one school. In my mind that is scary for some reason. But, the school has the major she wants to study and it's close so maybe we will just sit back and see how it plans out. 

McKenzie is officially a high schooler! I don't know if I am ready. The high school years fly by so fast. I know she will be prepared to fly the nest when it is her turn, but man, my baby girl is a freshman!

She too has a jam packed schedule, but I do think it will be manageable even with her busy training schedule. She is set to compete Level 9 again and she is hyper focused to stay healthy so she can qualify for Eastern's next May. McKenzie is taking three courses online with Veritas Press and she is looking forward to them. She was wanting to start her modern foreign language this year but we held off to finish the Latin series with Latin II. I know it will pay dividends down the road and at most schools it is now an accepted foreign language. She is hoping to start Russian but we may settle for German because it is offered more widely online and she would have the option to do dual enrollment German in 12th grade. Thus earning 5 foreign language credits for high school, 2 Latin and 3 German. I know that will make her stand out come her university application season as she has her heart set on a highly selective school. 

Our Micah is in 5th grade! If you are a long term reader you're probably thinking that that went by super fast...because it did! He's 10 years old now and knows it all and can already argue his point about all things. Which honestly sometimes all I need to hear is "Yes, Ma'am". But in all seriousness, he's a good boy and we are super proud of the young man he is becoming.

Micah has spent the summer playing baseball on All * Stars and his travel team. The boys had a good run even after all the adult stuff that interfered with them playing. When I tell you it was H-O-T, I definitely mean it was HOT on the fields. Some had trees to shade the grounds but many did not. Fall ball is starting up in a few weeks and Micah has invited to a new training program just across state lines. It's only 45 minutes and he is looking forward to the training to improve his batting and overall game play. He took lessons this summer and we have already seen huge improvement so we think it is worth the time and drive commitment. 

I know I have been absent from this blog for awhile...I do hope to get better at that this year. Like I really want to try and write something weekly. I don't even know if anyone but my Grandma will read it, but it's okay! {Hi, Grandma!} So, stick around and see what is happening in our neck of the woods. 

Until next time friends!

2024 ~ 2025 Plan of Study: 5th, 9th, & 12th grades

Tweet

Morning friends! It’s that time of the year again. You know the one where I share all the grand plans we have for the upcoming school year. I don’t know about you, but I am super excited to share our plans with you. It’s very freeing getting the plans out of my head and onto paper and the blog. Once again, I have had all three kids enrolled in their upcoming online courses with Veritas Press Scholars since the beginning of February. Our initial plans went from Montana only taking two courses to her enrolling into five! More on that in a minute. Veritas Press has been a huge blessing in our schooling since we started utilizing their a la carte courses when Madison was in high school. I am grateful to be able to take advantage of a classical education model and come alongside the amazing teachers to give my children an amazing classical education. 

I’ve been planning for next school year since last December when I had a consult with our fabulous VP Consultant, Jen. She really helped me see the big picture of things for the rest of McKenzie and Micah’s schooling. I was <this> close to enrolling McKenzie in the Veritas Press Diploma program. I didn’t for several reasons, but mainly because I don’t want to give up our way of doing history or math. What’s the saying? “If it’s not broke, then don’t fix it”. 

I am excited to say that we are entering our 15th year of homeschooling! For you Mama’s in the trenches with littles or those in the middle, keep going! Bottom line… it is worth it! Every.single.minute. There will always be doubt that you’re not doing enough or doing something wrong that will mess up your child for life, but you’re not! “Do the work of homeschooling” and you will reap the benefits down the road. As always, I want to note that any links below are not affiliated links. I just put them in for my reference and yours if you want to check the curriculum out. Also, because we have been schooling for so long and I am coming up on my 5th time through high school, I already own most of the curriculum listed as I try to shop our shelves first before investing into something new. 

Without further ado, here’s our 2024 ~ 2025 Plan of Study.

Micah, is rising to 5th grade! He started his online learning this school year for 4th grade, and it has been the best thing for him. He is finishing up Latin 3, Linguistics 4, and Saxon Math 3 (Saxon 5/4) online. I made a mistake and had him enrolled in Linguistics 4 instead of Linguistics 5 which would have been a better fit challenge wise. But the silver lining is that he now knows the spelling rules and his spelling is even better. For 5th grade we are going to go back to our beloved Rod & Staff Spelling because he now can read cursive which is the reason why we switched last year. For 5th grade Micah will take two courses online including Latin 4, Grammar & IEW Writing 4. We will continue using Sonlight for History for him, but I am going to tweak it to fit us as I have done with the girls for 5th grade. He will also use the self-paced history course from Veritas Press to round out our study. It's a biology year in science for us but I’m still up in the air about which curriculum we will use for Micah. I have narrowed it down to three programs, Elemental Science Logic Stage Biology, Real Science Odyssey Biology 2 (minus the evolution chapters), or BJU Homeschool Life Science. I have done both Elemental Science and RS Odyssey with his older sisters, but I am thinking he will need something different to fit his learning style. Plus, I would like something that is Christian based, so I am leaning towards BJU’s Life Science. 

 Micah's Plan of Study for 2024-2025 will be: 

 Bible 

 ~ Veritas Press Genesis to Joshua Self-Paced Bible 

 Math 

~ Saxon 6/5  

 Language Arts 

~ Shirley Grammar 4 online with Veritas Press 

 ~ IEW Structure & Style Writing, Year 1-Level 2A online with Veritas Press 

 ~ Rod & Staff Spelling, Book 6 

 ~ Script and Scribe Truth Traveler

~ Veritas Press Literature 4 

He will read: 

• Mary Poppins

The Hobbit

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Charlie & the Chocolate Factory

Twenty-One Balloons

Faerie Gold

Leepike Ridge

Dangerous Journey

 History/Geography 

~ Sonlight Core G – Ancient History, we will spread this Core over two years 

~ Veritas Press Self-Paced History – Old Testament/Ancient Egypt 

 Science

 ~ BJU Homeschool Life Science 

 Greek Myths 

~ Memoria Press D'Aulaires' Greek Myths 

 Latin 

~ Latin 4 w/ Latin for Children, B online with Veritas Press 

 PE 

Baseball – Sunday Select team, off season training

 Weekly Co-Op 

~ Magic School Bus Science

~ Around the World Geography

~ PE

~ Blood & Guts

 McKenzie is officially heading to high school! I am excited and a little sad at the same time. Sad because it means she just has 4 short years at home. However, I am preparing her to soar when the time comes so we are going to make the most of each of the years we have left homeschooling. She has done an amazing job at handling her course load for 8th grade. As I said earlier, I was going to sign her up for the diploma program with Veritas Press, but decided against it and we will proceed with our course of study that I know will pass the NCAA Clearinghouse and keep her competitive for USAFA (Not that Veritas Press is not competitive for highly selective universities). McKenzie will earn 6 high school credits for her 8th grade year to count towards high school. A combination of three core classes and three electives.  

McKenzie's Plan of Study looks like this for 2024-2025: 

 Bible {1 credit} 

 ~ Sonlight Bible 210 with Westminster Catechism 

 Math {1 credit} 

 ~ Saxon Algebra 1 

 Honors English 9 {1 credit} 

 ~ Composition 1 online with Veritas Press 

~ Rod & Staff Grammar, 9/10, Book 1 

~ Rod & Staff Spelling 8 

~ Wordly Wise, Book 9

Honors Science {1 credit} 

 ~ Apologia Biology online with Veritas Press 

 Honors Literature {1 credit} 

 ~ Sunlight Core 210 Classical Literature

 Honors History {1 credit} 

 ~ Tapestry of Grace, Year 1(Rhetoric level) – Ancient World History 

 Foreign Language {1 credit} 

 ~ Latin II online with Veritas Press 

 Electives 

 ~ Apologia Health {1 credit} 

~ Drawing basics @ co-op {1/2 credit ?} 

~Yearbook / Photography @ co-op {1 credit}

~ Theater @ co-op {1/2 credit ?} 

 PE {1 credit} 

 ~ Level 9 Gymnastics, 28 hours a week 

 Extras 

 ~ SAT/ACT Prep (30 minutes/day)

 Total yearly credits: 11 credits 

 Montana will officially be a high school senior in August! Remember how I said time flies once they hit high school? She will continue to take dual enrollment courses to finish out her high school years. This year she will take four courses that will count for 5 dual enrollments. She is still undecided on what she wants to study at university in the fall of 2025, but these courses will give her a jump start on her general educational requirements. Montana is going to take the ACT one more time over the summer to try and raise her score a little more. She is on the bubble to going up one full point, which translates more merit money or full ride depending on which university she attends. 

 Montana's Plan of Study looks like this for 2024-2025: 

 Bible {1 credit} 

 ~ Sonlight Bible 510 Worldview Studies 

 Math {1 credit} 

 ~ Calculus 1: Early Transcendental Functions online with Veritas Press (AP exam)

 Honors Science {1 credit} 

 ~ Apologia Physics 1 online with Veritas Press 

 Honors English 4 {1 credit} (DE) 

 ~ Sonlight Core 630 British Literature (AP exam)

 Honors History {1 credit} 

 ~ Sonlight Core 500 World History 

 Honors Foreign Language {1 credit} (DE)

 ~ Spanish 102 at local CC (DE) 

 PE {1 credit} 

 ~ home workouts 

 Electives 

~ Psychology 101 at local CC  (DE) {1 credit} 

~Art History at local CC  (DE)   {1 credit} 

~ Principles of Advanced Drawing @ co-op {1/2 credit} 

~ LEGO Creativity & Problem Solving @ co-op {1/2 credit} 

 Extras 

 ~ Mother’s Helper 1/day a week for 4 hours 

~ Student Teaching Spanish 6-12 @ co-op

 Total yearly credits: 9.0 credits for High School / 15 credits for College 

 That’s it in a nutshell! Thanks for reading this far. If we happen to change anything over the course of the year I will update this post. 

 Until next time friends, have a blessed day!