The Subjects

To begin at the beginning, here are the proposed subjects for the coming school year:

Bible-the hobbits are fairly ignorant of most of the bible, in spite of my having read a couple of children's bible books to them. This year we are going right to the source and I will read the bible and they will (hopefully) narrate. I'll also use You Can Understand the Bible by Peter Kreeft as a parent resource. For Catechism, I found this gem-An Explanation of the Baltimore Catechism by Rev. Thomas Kinkead in a box of books to be thrown out at our Parish so I snagged it! It is a very living explanation of the catechism. I also have monthly themes planned, August is Ave Maris Stella, September is for reading aloud Adventures of the Amethyst, October is for the Rosary and the battle of Lepanto (and Chesterton!), November is of course for saints, etc.

We will stick to Latina Christiana for Latin and I hope to review what we covered last year in book one and also get a hefty chunk of book two into our heads.

English will be Lingua Mater--hopefully the whole book but we'll see. The youngest hobbit will use Intermediate Language Lessons and Ocular Athletics will return. I also bought spelling workbooks from Seton. I have tried over the years to get the hobbits to spell correctly and have spent an inordinate amount of time devising programs and spelling lists. Enough! This is where the rubber hits the road and they will pass those weekly spelling tests or else!!!

For math I want to use Making Math Meaningful by Jamie York. This is a Waldorf book but pretty thorough and includes alot of math tricks like how to multiply by 11's and casting out nines to check multiplication. We also will use String, Straightedge and Shadow by Julia Diggins to get us started in Geometry. Little Hobbit will learn his math facts...or else!

We will meander through New York State history this year and also use The Natrual History of New York by Stan Freeman and Mike Nasuti as a spine for nature study. And because I can only stand United States history for so long I will also read aloud The Old World and America and add some appropriate historical fiction. The Dark Ages aren't so dark in this text!

Art and music study will follow the sequence in What Your 4th (and 7th) Grader Needs to Know. Not bad selections really. I will post on these as they come up.

The Hobbit twins will also study Chemistry and Earth Science this year. We will start with The Mystery of the Periodic Table by Benjamin D. Wiker. After reading the first couple of chapters I think this will be a good book for narration. I haven't decided what to use for Earth Science yet. They will also read The Complete Book of Marvels by Richard Halliburton for geography.

Well, this is the rough outline and is subject to change at any time or as my father always said, "That's the plan now let's see what happens!"