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The last three summers, I’ve created learning programs for our daughters (2009, 2010, 2011). We’ve enjoyed having a theme for each week and taking extra time to do an in-depth study on topics of interest to them.
However, now that we’re finishing our first year of homeschooling, I’ve decided to take a different approach this summer. This is going to be “The Summer of Science” (and a few other things I think the girls need to practice….)
We will focus on four areas:
1. Science, mostly through experiments. I’m thinking of ordering The Everything Kids’ Science Experiments Book or Adventures with Atoms and Molecules. We’ll also see what science resources our local library has available.
2. Critical thinking skills. I am so impressed by The Critical Thinking Company’s products. We will spend the first part of the summer finishing Building Thinking Skills Level 2, which we’ve been working on throughout the school year. Then we’ll move into Math Ties or Smarty Pants Puzzles Level 1.
3. Typing/Keyboarding. We have done this informally over the past two summers, but this year I’m going to order either Mavis Beacon or Typing Instructor.
4. Spanish. We also began using Rosetta Stone Latin American Spanish Level 1 during the school year and will continue with that.
My goal is to do our summer learning program three days each week throughout the summer. I know that other activities will come up, so I won’t plan for it every day lest I get discouraged!
Are you making any plans for the summer yet? If you’ve used any of the resources I’ve listed above, please let me know how you liked them.
Amazon links in this post are my affiliate links.
Tracey, you knew I would look forward to this post! =) This sounds awesome, as always! We are hoping to start Rosetta Stone in the coming years ~ I would love to hear your review sometime. The experiments sound fun! I've heard good things about Typing Instructor but have never used it.
Wow ~ can't wait to read posts about how this goes!
Blessings to you~
Katie
Katie,
I might try to do a full review on Rosetta Stone at some point, but I will go ahead and let you know that I think it's a good resource.
My eleven-year-old really enjoys it; she has even written me a letter in Spanish (although she had to translate it for me 😉 It is probably a little bit over my nine-year-old's head. She has a more difficult time getting the pronunciations correct, so she constantly has to repeat them, which frustrates her. She is still using it, but I only have her do a few minutes each day.
A friend told me that Rosetta Stone can't be used in high school for homeschool credit because it's not a grammar-based program. However, I love that it's introducing our girls to the language. It's also neat to see how some of the words are related to the English version. Once they've progressed a bit farther, I hope to check out from the library some children's books in Spanish and see if they're able to read and comprehend them. Couldn't that be a great ministry opportunity some day?!
Now that we own Rosetta Stone, I'm hoping that I'll be inspired to use it someday. 😉
Have a great day!
Since we took a few months off when Mary was born, we've got some catching up to do…although since we're just doing kindergarten, it's not like it's really that important. Anyway, I plan to do school through the summer three or four days a week, skipping days when other more fun things come up and not feeling guilty about it. We're just going to continue what we've been doing: Bible, reading, writing, and math.