back to school special

Monday was officially our first day back to school. Zoe is in... 7th/8th grade now.

This Fall we have a very detailed schedule. It looks like this:

Math - Singapore, 45 minutes a day five days a week.

Plus she wants to continue going to our local Math Circle group that she had her camp with this summer. It's in the evenings twice a week and on Sunday. I don't think she'll be going every time, maybe once or twice a week to work on applied math projects.

Language Arts - Michael Clay Thompson Grammar Voyage, Essay Voyage, Caesar's English II, World of Poetry and Lightning Literature 8th grade. She will do L.A. four days a week for 45 min and on day for 1 hour.

Zoe is signed up for an online humanities program for gifted students, Online G3. They also use MCTLA and LL. So she will be doing some of her Language Arts assignments online and will attend two 50 min Webinars a week.

Social Studies - A History of US and various other resources. She's doing Social Studies 4 days a week, 30 minutes for two days and 45 minutes for the other two.

Zoe gets Calliope and Odyssey magazines which cover a lot of great social studies topics in a fun way. This year I am going to spend more time on geography. Zoe really doesn't know much about it. I will be coming up with fun mini projects for that.

History of US is another class Zoe is taking with Online G3. I am really interested in how these online classes are going to work out. She will be distance learning with other gifted kids and with teacher's who really get gifted kids.

Science - This year Zoe is doing middle school science from Singapore. I did a lot of research this summer and came up with their Interactive Science for Inquiring Minds. I also found this great company that provides hands-on science lab kits, eScience Labs. I am ordering her the Life Science kit for middle school.

Zoe will be doing science four days a week, 45 mins for 2 day and 1 hour for the other two.

Her other classes are:

Art - Artistic Pursuits, 45 mins twice a week

Reading - assigned reading from Lightning Literature and books from Classics in the Classroom by MCT. 30 mins four days a week.

Read-Aloud - I like to read-aloud certain books. I still enjoy being part of that experience with Zoe. Our whole family regularly reads aloud to each other. 30 mins a day 4 days a week

Then Zoe has her lessons that originate outside of the home, Music, Japanese, and Gymnastics.

Zoe's music teacher has big plans for her this year, some competitions and stuff. Her lesson is one hour and at home she practices piano and voice for one hour a day. She loves to sing more than play on the piano but now that we have the baby grand both her and Pere wander over to the piano and play me little tunes throughout the day.

Zoe is studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Exam this year. Japanese is getting extra hard, for me anyway. I can't keep up with her. I think she is doing well but it is hard for me to tell. She has an hour long lesson at the college once a week and gets her homework done in 30 min a day 4 days a week.

Zoe is getting back into gymnastics this Fall. She didn't really like her class at the YMCA last fall. So now I am driving kind far to a bigger better gym. *raised eyebrow* But, really the drive is not that far compared to what I used to drive in Los Angeles. Zoe. Zoe is taking gymnastics twice a week. She really loves gymnastics and needs to get her energy out.

So that is everything... (except choir and Sunday school which have no homework)

The big difference this year is that I am taking time in the afternoons to write my novel. So I ordered Zoe's classes so that the classes that don't really require my presence are after 2:00. It doesn't totally work. I would rather be there to listen during music and Japanese. But writing my book is very important to me so I have to make this compromise.

I made a written schedule fitting in all her lessons and classes and downtime and freetime and mommy time and lunch and tea time. We will see how it works out.

I like having a schedule like this. It is easier for me. It is kind of like how I write up a menu for the coming week so I know what we are going to have for dinner each night and not waiting until 5:00 p.m. and going "Hmmm, what am I going to make for dinner?" When have my menu and all the ingredients dinner is much easier. And the meals our personalized favorite, nutritious and healthy for our particular diets. But that doesn't mean we can't scrap dinner plans and go out to eat or order take-out.

Same with the schedule, the schedule is there for most days and it helps us not waste time wondering what to do next. But the schedule is not the master. It is a tool.