Planning for 2010-11 :: Writing, Art & Music Appreciation

I haven't received everything for our writing curriculum yet, but here is my plan.
This past year, Adrienne and I have been using the Write Source 2000 as a reference for her writing assignments.
The history curriculum that we use, History Odyssey, has many writing assignments and Andre and Adrienne do a few of these per month. Most of these are biographies, research papers, narration, or even some opinion papers (one was which middle ages time period occupation would you like?).  We will continue with the same format this year.
I did add one more writing curriculum for Adrienne, the Jensen's Format Writing. We will probably take two years to complete this. Once I receive it, I will be able to plan out her year. She is starting grade 8 this coming year, and I want her to be completely confortable with writing essays. You can read a quick review of this program here .

For Andre, along with the history assignments, I will start using Story Starters this year. I have used this in the past with Adrienne, and I think it is a much more interesting way to get our writing done than a regular curriculum or textbook. You can read a review for this book here . Celeste will be starting oral narration with this too, using the black and white illustrations as a starting point. I will write them down for her or type them.

I try to keep writing assignments fun and interesting. I know that my children write better and more without even thinking about it if they are inspired by the assignment.
I see the Writing Source 2000 and the Jensen's Format Writing as tools to help us with writing, not as curriculum.

We will be using Sequential Spelling for the first time this year.
Celeste will continue with the Explode the Code workbooks. Since those include handwriting practice, I didn't order any extra for now. 

Art and music appreciation. It is always something I want to include in our homeschooling, but we haven't been consistent. We do get around to do some, but it has only been once in a while in the past.
This year, I decided to purchase a plan from Harmony Fine Art. I chose the Grade Seven plan, even though none of my children are in that grade, because it mirrors the time period that we are studying in history.
I have looked at this plan and already I am so pleased with it. It is simple and has 3 different options on how to use it. I can adjust it so that it can be used with all 3 of my children. I am really looking forward to this!



Once I am finished sharing all my plans for 2010-11, I might do a post where I talk about our schedule and how we fit it all in.