Getting Excited!

This will be our first year homeschooling...it's no secret that I'm wavering between being extremely thrilled to be starting on this journey with my daughter and being completely and utterly terrified that we are crazy, too late and going to mess up our child's future big time!! Ack! Seriously though, we're feeling pretty darn ready to DO THIS! All of our books are here (most purchased from Thrift Books) for our planned curriculum. I'm going into this with the idea that some things will probably not go as planned and I need to be okay with that. We're using Build Your Library's Grade 7: A Year of World Geography curriculum for History which will be great for Zoey as she's had minimal map work up to this point and the literature she'll be covering (see above) is top notch! She is truly so pumped to get started! We're incorporating lots of additional things into the mix to tie it all together too, learning about world religions, culture, arts, etc. So fun! *Side-note - Since it's an election year, in October I want to have a mini break-out unit on the election process since it will be more meaningful with what will be going on...or perhaps "meaningful" isn't the correct word considering how you may or may not feel about the given candidates.

For science this year Zoey wanted to learn about the human body so anatomy it is! I found Guest Hollow's Anatomy curriculum and it looked like fun. After reading some reviews and asking around it seems that it's been a hit for those that went with it. We..can't..wait to start this study! The books are quite a mixed bag - from silly to serious, with lots of experiments and hands on activities throughout. We also have a cow eye, sheep heart, kidney and brain awaiting us in the basement for when we're ready for dissection! In addition to basic human anatomy and all that entails, health and nutrition is thrown in throughout as well which I appreciate since she didn't get a health class last year at the public charter that she attended. *This summer we've been pursuing some things on plant identification and herbs and we will try and continue that a bit throughout the school year since that is of interest to Zoey at this point in time too. Zoey is a science kid so the reality of our taking on additional learning opportunities as they arise, experiments, field trips relating to other areas in science is pretty much expected. I'm leaving things open in that way so we can follow any rabbit trails that may come our way. 

To see a more comprehensive list of what we are using for our curriculum this year check out my full listing here. I'm trying to keep things up to date now that we're getting close to the big first day!