I will come back through the year, or at least at the end, to update our progress.
X indicates an accomplished goal
+ indicates an added goal or activity/resource

June 2016-June 2017
Age 10 (public school grade 5)

Science
Building Foundations in Scientific Understanding Vol. 3 (we'll spend at least two years with this book)

Technology and Engineering
Snap Circuits Student Guide (with Snap Circuits Pro SC-500 kit)
Javascript for Kids
Lego Mindstorms (beginning with Geek Mom's lesson plans and branching out from there)

The Arts
X Drawing with Children on level three (first term)
X Artistic Pursuits grades 4-5 (second term)
X Art and theater classes through our homeschooling group
X Piano Adventures Level 5 (plus Performance, Theory, and Pop Rep)
X Public school band classes—clarinet (twice weekly rehersals, plus performances)
X Boychoir of Ann Arbor (twice weekly rehersals, plus performances)

Physical Education
X Twice weekly dance classes: tap and ballet
Biking, running, or yoga twice weekly depeding on weather
Hiking several times a month  

Math and Logic
X Math-U-See Geometry
X Perplexors Level E 
X Building Thiking Skills Level 2 (first term) 
Red Herring Mysteries Level 1 (second term)
X Mind Benders Book 4 (second term)

Language Arts:  
Spanish
X Avancemos Level 1 Homeschool Package plus the Cuaderno

English
X MCT Level 4 Grammar of Literature plus the practice book
X MCT Level 4 Vocabulary of Literature
X MCT Level 4 Poetry of Literature
X MCT Level 4 Writing of Literature

Assigned (mostly read-alouds) for discussion and analysis (one or two a month):
X Moby Dick
X David Copperfield
X The Red Badge of Courage (with Novel Ties study guide)
Frankenstein (also Gris Grimly's version)
X War of the Worlds (possibly this version)
A Christmas Carol 
Silent Spring
X All Quiet on the Western Front (with Novel Ties study guide)
Paradise Lost (with this plain english assist)
X A Separate Peace (with Novel Ties study guide)
X Animal Farm (with Novel Ties study guide) 

Social Studies 
Geography
X Draw the USA (first term)
X Draw Europe (second term)

History
X Story of the World Volume 4 with the student workbook (I'm not sold on this curriculum: it's too biased and not secular enough, but we've been successfully using it as a backbone and supplementing with literature, living history books, and documentaries as the true meat of our study).

Supplementary reading for history (about 1 book per week; we won't get through all of these but will choose at least one per topic area):
X Where Soldiers Lie, Wilson, John
Begumbagh, George Manville Fenn
The Sebastopol Sketches, Leo Tolstoy
X Out with Garibaldi, G.A. Henty
X The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily, Dino Buzzati
Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom, Katherine Patterson
X Flags of War and X Battle Scars, John Wilson
Stories of Young Pioneers, ed. Violet Kimball
At Her Majesty's Request, Walter Dean Myers
The Shadows of the Ghadames, Joelle Stolz
X Nory Ryan's Song and X Maggie's Door, Patricia Reilly Giff
X Journey to the River Sea, Eva Ibbotson
X Where the Flame Trees Bloom, Alma Flor Ada
Caddie Woodlawn, Carol Ryrie Brink
Ties that Bind, Ties that Break, Lensey Namioka
X The Night Journey, Kathryn Laksy
The Wave, Todd Strasser
China's Long March, Jean Fritz
Bud Not Buddy, Christopher Paul Curtis
X The Bread Winner, Deborah Ellis
X Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
The War that Saved My Life, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
X Twenty and Ten, Claire Hutchet Bishop
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, Eleanor Coerr
Hiroshima, Laurence Yep
Escape to West Berlin, Maurine Dahlberg
X The Year of Impossible Goodbyes, Sook Nyul Choi
X The Fire Eaters, David Almond
X Linda Brown, You Are Not Alone, ed. Joyce Carol Thomas
Escape from Saigon, Andrea Warren
Phoenix Rising, Karen Hesse
X Red Scarf Girl, Ji-li Jiang
China's Son, Da Chen

I will come back through the year, or at least at the end, to update our progress. An X means the goal was accomplished (or the book read), a + indicates was an added goal. No marks mean we did not accomplish or dropped the goal.

June 2015-June 2016
Age 9 (public school grade 4)

Science
X Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding Volume II (this is our second year with the book and we will probably finish it) (completed)

Computer
X Typing with Mavis Beacon (completed)
X Blog upkeep 
+X Gaming (mainly Minecraft)

The Arts
Music
X Piano Adventures Level 4 Lesson, Performance, Theory, Technique, and Pop Rep (finished)
X Piano Adventures Level 5 Lesson, Performance, Theory, and Pop Rep (started)
X Boychoir of Ann Arbor (twice weekly practice)

Visual
X How to Teach Art to Children  (completed)
X Photography: Capture Your 365
X Classes through our homeschooling group (theater, sculpting)

Math
X Math-U-See Algebra I (completed)
X Perplexors Level D (completed)
+X More Perplexors Level D (completed)
X Orbiting with Logic (completed)

Physical Education
X Running or biking twice weekly (only in good weather)
X Gym once weekly through our homeschooling group (first term only)
X Dance class once weekly: Musical Theater

Language Arts
Foreign Language 
X Spanish for Children B (completed)

English
X Spelling Workout Level H (completed)
X Michael Clay Thompson's Level 3: the Voyage Series: (all books completed)
X MCT Grammar Voyage and Practice Voyage
X MCT Caesar's English II
X MCT Essay Voyage
X MCT A World of Poetry 

Reading: in addition to choice and history supplementary reading, we will have one to two assigned books per month, many of which we will read aloud together and discuss, some of which will also have accompanying study workbooks. 
X Holes, Louis Sachar (with study guide)
X The Yearling, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (with Novel Ties study guide)
X The Canterville Ghost, Oscar Wilde
X Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beacher Stowe (with study guide)
X Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift
X Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
X Treasure Island and X Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson
X The Prince and the Pauper, Mark Twain
X The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare (with Novel Ties study guide)
X Kim, Rudyard Kipling
X The Last of the Mohicans, George Fenimore Cooper
X The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Franklin
X The Secret Garden, Francis Hodgson Burnett (with Novel Ties study guide)
X The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy
X The Invisible Man, H.G. Wells 

History and Geography
The Story of the World Volume 3 and Activity Book (we use this as a backbone only and supplement heavily with reading and video materials)

Supplementary history reading (about 1 book a week; we won't get to all of these, but will pick at least one title per topic area):
X indicates read, + indicates added/ to the list mid-year (and read)
X I, Juan de Pareja, Elizabeth Borton de Trevino
X The Wheel on the School, Meindert DeJong
X Pocahontas, Joseph Bruchac
X The Broken Blade, William Durbin
X The Samurai's Tale, Erik C. Haugaard
X Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Kate Douglas Wiggin
X Grimm's Fairy Tales, Grimm
X The Cat Who Went to Heaven, Elizabeth Coatsworth
X Rama and Sita, David Weitzman
A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe
X German Hero-Sagas, Barbara Leonie Picard
X Egg & Spoon, Gregory Maguire
X Sign of the Beaver, Elizabeth George Speare
X Mr. Revere and I, Robert Lawson
X Johnny Tremain, Esther Forbes
My Brother Sam is Dead, James Lincoln Collier
X Ben and Me, Robert Lawson
X In the Reign of Terror, G.A. Henty
X Kashtanka, Anton Chekhov
X Lyddie, Katherine Patterson
X The Monkey King, Aaron Shepard
X The Gate in the Wall, Ellen Howard
Midnight is a Place, Joan Aiken
The Courage of Sarah Noble, Alice Dalgiesh
Lewis and Clark and Me, Laurie Myers
X Streams to the River, River to the Sea, Scott O'Dell
X The Legend of Lord Eight Deer, John M.D. Pohl
Nightjohn, Gary Paulson
The Journal of Jesse Smoke, Joseph Bruchac
X Only the Names Remain, Alex W. Bealer
X The Whale Rider, Witi Ihimaera
X The Call of the Wild, Jack London
+ White Fang, Jack London
X The Ballad of Lucy Whipple, Karen Cushman
X By the Great Horn Spoon!, Sid Fleischman

We have used many books in the "Biographies from Ancient Civilizations" series, and I keep coming back to them. They provide information that is far more detailed, and far more correct, than that which is provided by Story of the World. In this chapter in particular I was disappointed by several pieces of misleading, if not outright incorrect, information. We relied on Erik the Red a lot this time around, and really enjoyed reading it together.

This happy little Usborne book really caught Calvin's fancy; he drew long houses and dragon boats all afternoon after reading it. Focused more on their general way of life than on the details of any particular Norsemen, this picture book is full of charming cartoon-like sketches and good-natured humor.

East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon is a collection of traditional Norse fairy and folk tales. It reads with the same dark magic as books like Lang's Fairy Books, or the works of Grimm brothers. Wild tales with unimaginable hardships and unforeseen outcomes. The old tales didn't at all shy away from death and disfigurement. They're fascinating, and we really enjoyed them together.

And because he couldn't get enough of Vikings this week, Calvin also read two books about them for his free reading. Beorn the Proud is anther title from the "Living History Library" series. It is the story of a young girl who believes she was the only survivor after her town was destroyed by Viking invaders. She is taken captive, and is eventually befriended by a Viking boy. Calvin couldn't put this book down, but he found large parts of it heartbreaking. Thankfully it comes with a happy ending.

And Life as a Viking is a choose your own adventure type of book (from the "You Choose Warriors" series). These books are truly just for fun, but fun they certainly are. Since there are books from several different eras we will probably pick up others as we wend our way through history. Just for fun.

In science this week: protecting our food and other things from fungi and bacteria (BFSU2 B-17). All of our energy was focused on seeing and understanding this time, rather than reading, so hands-on activities instead of books.

But in literature this week, a fun treat. In Building Poems we were studying Rime Royal, so we read Chaucer's Parlement of Foules together. I read it aloud from a modern English translation while Calvin followed along with an Olde English approximation. When we reach Chaucer in history we will revisit the poem again, and if we're lucky that will be around Valentine's Day.

Lastly, Calvin is still making his way through the "Chronicles of Prydain" series, this week devouring book three, The Castle of Llyr. He really loves these books and has been heard wandering around the house pretending to be one or another of the characters and talking to others. Our home is a great forest of adventure these days.

Lastly, we are still reading The Subtle Knife together most night's before bed.

Two main books this week. This first we didn't read in its entirety, but only large sections of. These books are great in information, not so hot on delivery—they are too much like the overly busy DK books with multiple side bars and insets and too many odd icons cluttering things up. But they are a good source of factual instead of fanciful information.

The Son of Charlemagne is historical fiction. It comes from the "Living History Library", a series of about fifty historical fiction biographies from a wide variety of eras. The series is endorsed by Christian homeschooling sites everywhere, and I believe it was written for that exact purpose, so the stories are clean and tend to have a bit of that bias, but they are well written and enlightening, really bringing the time period to life for the young reader. This is not the first book from the series that we've used, and I know that Calvin has found them easy to read and hard to put down. They make great supplementary history reading, but some are hard to find in libraries.

In science this week we were still in the land of the decomposers (BFSU2 lesson B-16), so we were still using Steve Parker's Molds, Mushrooms, & Other Fungi. We also used a few mushroom field guides just for fun.

For his reading comprehension notebook this week, Calvin flew through The Black Cauldron. In this second book in "The Chronicles of Prydain", Taran continues his quest to become a hero with a number of friends, new and old. Together they must find a way to destroy the Black Cauldron so that the evil Arawn can no longer use it to raise the evil army of the dead. Adventure packed and very exciting, it's easy to see why this series has remained in print for so long.

And some extra reading: "The Secrets of Droon" book series. I think he read the whole series this week, getting one pile of books after another from the library. These books are really easy reading, and pretty poorly written. I consider them the junkiest of junk food reading. But they are an imaginative world of magic, which is something that Calvin loves, and I don't believe a little junk food reading has ever hurt anyone.

And we're still reading The Subtle Knife before bed at night.

In science this week we tackled the world's decomposers (BFSU2 B16). For comparison of the various kingdoms, in particular the animal and plant kingdoms, we used Flowering Plants and Mammals from the Classifying Living Things series. For the main portion of our week study, though, we used Steve Parker's Molds, Mushrooms, & Other Fungi. All of these are great books for understanding the criteria that determine kingdom classification, and for deeper study of Kingdom, and more detailed, classification.

For his reading comprehension notebook this week, Calvin picked The Book of Three. It's the first in the five book series, The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander. Taran, a young pig-farmer, is chasing a runaway pig when he meets a prince, and thus begins his quest to become a hero. Calvin was unable to put this one down.

Calvin was also reading Carl Sandberg's Rutabaga Stories. It was a favorite of my dad's when he was little, so when we found his old copy, Calvin decided to give it a try. It's a collection of stories that display Sandberg's talent for the truly absurd. And hilarious.

In science we revisited the concept of seasons and the various movements of our multi-colored orb that brings about the seasonal and daily variations we observe in our neck of the woods. No books, just a few demonstrations with a globe and a flashlight.

One of my favorite parts about this week was our return to poetry performance. When we first started with more curriculum based learning, poem memorization was a big part of our weekly efforts. When we switched to our new curriculum, although we were still studying poetry, the memorization component kind of went out the window. But this week, after spending some time with Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade, Calvin asked to memorize it. We have lots of poetry books, but we used Kennedy's book for this occasion. We also used The Poetry Archive for an amazing audio file of Tennyson reading his own poem.

Continuing in the tradition of October ghost stories, Calvin read The Ghost of Thomas Kempe this week. It is the story of a young boy who is being bullied by a ghost. Framed for destruction wrought by the ghost throughout the town, and believed by only two of the townspeople, he turns to a local man to help him get rid of the ghost's harassing presence. You can also read Calvin's review.

And one more ghost story from this week: The Specter from the Magician's Museum, by John Bellairs. This is one book in a mystery-adventure series. I don't know much about this one, but Calvin categorized it as an enjoyable junk food book.

In science this week we practiced reading latitude and longitude, and explored the ways that these measurements of the earth were made. It was a pretty fascinating week. I've always taken such things for granted, but now I know the why behind the what. The Illustrated Longitude tells the story of John Harrison and his quest to create a sea clock for determining longitude at sea. This is an adult book, and the illustrations are mainly notes and sketches, but Calvin loved it.

Tom's Midnight Garden is a sweet coming of age story. Tom is packed off to his relatives when his brother comes down with the measles. Unhappy about being stuck in a small country town, one night Tom answers the call of a clock striking thirteen and discovers a secret garden where he make a lifelong friend. Mystery abounds, and ends with a large dose of magic.

And our end the day read is still The Subtle Knife.

In science we explored plate tectonics, volcanoes, and earthquakes (BFSU2 D-11). Calvin is fond of natural disasters, so this was at the top of his list. We used Seymour Simon's Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Mountains for this. Simon's Smithsonian books are my go-to series for simple science reading.

Also in science, in preparation for next week's study of latitude and longitude, Calvin read  The Longitude Prize, an historical fiction representation of the story of John Harrison, inventor of the longitude calculating sea clock, lifesaver of sailors everywhere.

I'm slow to get going this semester, and Calvin's comprehension reading shelf is still empty. Instead, this week he revisited an old favorite in the Moomin' series, those beloved fantasy tales by the Finnish Tove Jansson. This series was a favorite of mine, my brother's, and Jon's back in the day, and it makes Calvin smile just as much.

And we're still reading The Subtle Knife before bed at night.

So history this week was review of the first nine chapters in The Story of the World Volume 2. No stand out books there.

But we did make forward progress in science, cracking the spine on our Buidling Foundations of Scientific Understanding Volume II, and beginning with chapter D-10, the water cycle. It's a favorite subject of mine. It's poetry, art, fairy tale, and science all rolled into one. I have two favorite books from this subject. Water Dance is a beautiful picture book that follows water as it flows from clouds to streams, to oceans, and back. The writing is pretty, the illustrations soft and delightful.

The Day the Great Lakes Drained Away is another really fun water book that we have around. It has simple pictures, and even simpler rhymes, and it doesn't really address the water cycle, focusing more on the physical nature of the Great Lakes themselves, but it also touches on the value of the lakes, and the danger of losing them in the changing climate, and more drastically changing population demographics. And I admit—it's mostly a favorite because we're from Michigan, and we adore the Great Lakes that surround our home.

Again slow on the uptake, Calvin and I haven't yet filled his literature shelf with good choices for the year. Instead he's been filling his "assigned" reading time, and a good portion of his general free time, with what he and I call junk food books. It's October, so spooky is the go-to subject matter, and these American Chillers series books have caught his fancy. Of course, being "junk food" books, he goes through them voraciously, and very, very quickly.

And now that we are back home, we are back to reading The Subtle Knife together before bed...when we have time. Lately that's been only a few nights a week, but I'm hoping that will pick up as we ease into our fall schedule.

By the Great Horn Spoon is an adventure story set during the California Gold Rush. A young boy goes in search of gold to help his family back home. It's full of surprises and excitement, and the writing is good enough to categorize as at least side dish reading, even if it's not quite full meal literature. Calvin read it twice.

Esperanza Rising is the story of a young girl who flees Mexico with her mother and settles in a camp of workers in California during the Great Depression. This is great young adult historical fiction. The characters are fully fleshed out, and great description brings the situation validity. Of the two California books, this was Calvin's favorite.

The Swiss Family Robinson, is the classic Calvin brought on our trip. He'd started it just before we left, and was eager to finish it, as he is with most books. I'm not sure it grabbed him the way the other two books did, but he really enjoyed the descriptions of the family's life on the island. Of course.