A curriculum I actually like

I've lost track of how many years I have frantically spent the month of August doing our school planning, but it's a lot. It is so many that you would think by now that I would have a good sense of exactly how long the process takes me. Clearly, I still have no clue. Not only did I spend the majority of last weekend when I was all alone planning for school, but I spent about seven hours straight yesterday working on it as well. I wish I could say I was completely done, but I can't.

I am soooo close, though. I am to the point of writing everything neatly down on my real list, making lists of library books and when I'll need them and of craft supplies and when I'll need them as I go. I only have the spring left to do this for. What is still left is making the photo copies that I need, K's study of Afghanistan, and I think this year I am going to make weekly checklists for each student of what they need to do on their own each week. With everyone going into 8th grade and above, starting the process of weaning them off my planning and taking over their own educations is high on my list of things to do. I also want to make some new activity boxes for R., but if those have to wait for a bit, that's fine. I'm really only wanting to do it because I am the one who is bored with what we have.

Last weekend I had thought I had gotten the basics all sorted out. Over the week, I had over 40 books arrive at the library that I wanted to look through and decide if they would be useful. If so, then I needed to figure out what parts and add them into the schedule. I did this for the Middle Ages first, finishing that completely up about 1pm. 

And then botany.... 

I had initially planned on doing what I had done with geology last year. Then I used a college text to create my outline of topics and we read appropriate amounts and sections from the textbook, adding in more age appropriate books and activities as we went. It worked well. I was hopeful that I could use the same plan for botany. In my planning last week this is what I did. 

You know that feeling when deep down you just know something isn't quite right? That is how I had felt about our botany study for days after planning it. I decided to do yet one more book search just in case I had missed some middle school/high school botany curriculum. I came across one thing. It was marketed to homeschoolers and said it was aimed at middle school/early high school. Plus, it was fairly inexpensive. I don't normally buy books sight unseen, but I was feeling desperate and it wasn't terribly expensive. It arrived the next day (Amazon... I was deperate), but I didn't get a chance to really look at it until yesterday. 

Now, if you are a long time reader, you know that I find some curriculum useful, but as a rule I'm not terribly excited by prepacked learning. I rarely take things as they are written and nearly always end up tweaking them so much I might was well not have bothered. This is the preface to give you a clue as to how little hope I had for the botany curriculum when I started to look at it. 

While I may hold a lot of opinions, I am perfectly happy to say when I am wrong about something. I was totally floored by this curriculum. I am using it nearly completely as written, not only because I was desperate to get school planned but because it was good. My only beef is that it could have been twice the length. I am adding in other resources to turn it into a full year's study. 

So now you are all wondering what this curriculum is. It is called Botany in 8 lessons by Ellen Johnson McHenry. Each lesson is divided into two sections, the first is more basic, introductory information that can be understood by a younger student, the second section is that topic extended and deepened for an older student. (I love a curriculum that can be flexible for multiple ages.) Then, following the lessons are a set of activities... games, songs, art, cooking... all the things that I would usually be adding into the lesson plans on my own. Finally, at the end are lapbook suggestions if you wanted to record you learning as a lapbook. Some of them are very unique and we'll be making them even though we won't be making a lapbook this year. I really was blown away. It really was some of the easiest planning I've done.

In looking at the author's website, she has a lot of different curricula which she has written. She seems to focus on combining science with art... which I love. So, if you're looking for a really decent and affordable (did I mention that their are reproducibles in the book so you don't need more than one per family?) science curriculum, I highly suggest you check out her website.

I'm still on track with my master how-to-survive-the-next-two-weeks-and-get-everything-done to-do list. I have just a little bit more to finish with the school schedule and I think I can add that into tomorrow's items and stay on track. I'm also pretty sure the librarians are going to very excited to see all 40+ books get returned tomorrow. I'm done with them now. Most of them will be reappearing throughout the year as their particular topic comes round. It will be a lot less overwhelming that way. In fact, I'm feeling so good about the school schedule that this will probably be the last time you have to read about it! It's a win for everyone.