If you’re not a homeschooler and you read this blog, you might want to skip over this post. ha! You may have noticed that us homeschoolers really, really enjoy “talking shop” with one another. So, with that being said…
Here are my plans and ideas for the coming year. We school year round here and our new year officially starts in June 2010. I will officially have THREE students for the first time!! It was a little bit bittersweet enrolling my baby for kindergarten this year! sniff sniff!
All 3 Kids
*Morning “Couch Time” (some might call Circle Time)
~ Bible reading, memorization, prayer
~ Read our unit study book (1-2 books usually)
~ some exercises, jumping jacks, etc. (while practicing skip counting)
~ review of Latin words
*Unit studies
~ My plan is to continue with Five in a Row, I am planning to row 1 Beyond book with the girls in the fall, and then Helen Keller in the spring to go along with our Apologia Science text. I will fill in with other FIAR titles and books that go along with these topics combined.
~ I will “beef up” when needed for the girls, or tone down for Caleb 🙂
The Girls (I’ve been blessed that I’m still doing all their school work TOGETHER still!)
*Math – daily
~ Teaching Textbooks, Level 3 (Hannah is about 20 lessons into this so far, we will just move her into level 4 when this one is finished)
~ Computer based supplement and fun (MathScore, Quarter Mile Math)
*Language Arts – daily
~ Lively Language Lessons
~ Primary Language Lessons
*Science – 2 times per week
~Apologia Human Body/Anatomy
~Weekly “co-op” with 2 friends to go through the Apologia, we will be dissecting cow parts, doing the experiments in the book and taking many field trips based on the various chapters in this book (like to the hospital, eye doctor, etc.) We did get the notebook that goes along with this study and I must say, it is FABULOUS!!
*Foreign Language – 2-3 times per week
~ Latin – Minimus Pupil’s Book: Starting out in Latin
~ Spanish – ? (HELP! I’d like some type of dvd lessons?)
*Handwriting
~ Classically Cursive
Caleb
*Math – daily
~BJU Press K5 math book (he is close to halfway through this book now)
*Phonics and Reading – daily
~ Saxon phonics (he is over halfway through this book at this point)
~ BOB books
~ Explode the Code (after Saxon K is finished)
*Foreign Language
~ He will learn along with the girls in their Latin and Spanish lessons, though he won’t do the written work
UNDECIDED
*History – I would use this 1-2 times per week
~ The Story of the World, Volume 1: Ancient Times
~ Story of the World activity book (just for map pages and coloring pages)
*Worldview curriculum, read small portion daily
~ Who is God? (this curriculum is cheaper elsewhere, but at this link there are very lengthy samples. I think this looks good, has anyone used it?)
Please do share with me your thoughts or experiences on any of these curriculum choices!! I have spent lots of time researching these different subjects and love hearing from other moms who have experience with these books.
Candace- I have several posts on what we did with Helen Keller…just go to my blog and search “Helen Keller” to find them.
I am starting back into Five In A Row, with my youngest, who begins Kindergarten this Fall. I just love Five In A Row so much!!
I have really enjoyed Story of the World and the Activity Book that goes along with it for Volumes I and II. We are moving into Volume III this Fall and I am going to supplement using A Beka’s American History Book. I feel like SOTW is lacking on it’s focus of early American History but, you would not need to worry about that for awhile. 🙂
As far as foreign language, I have to say Rosetta Stone is absolutely amazing. We love their Spanish!! It was easier even for my Preschooler to use.
Your plans sound great … I am planning on posting mine sometime this week.
Alicia
http://www.kramercottageschool.blogspot.com
Hi Candace! When my Makayla was in K we read Story of the World 1 (no activity book). What we did was simply read a story or two a few times a week and my daughter would draw a picture of her favorite part, narrate to me, and I wrote her narration on the bottom of the picture page. She still loves it and knows the stories.
I did skip the Bible stories in SOTW and replace with our favorite Bible scripture reader because it was just more enjoyable with the pictures(SOTW 1 had Abraham, not sure who else… Moses?).
After SOTW 1 we dropped SOTW as we did not want to cover middle ages yet, and I do not think we’ll ever go back as we’re completely into unit studies and chapter book read alouds. You never know though!
Thanks for sharing that Apologia link–that looks really neat! We use My Father’s World and are gearing up to function under a “Creation to Greeks” history theme. It’s always so fun to plan for a new year! ;o)
Our first try at Story of the world we did not like it because we tried to do everything. Later I discovered the CD of the book read by Jim Wiess and we now listen to him read while doing the coloring sheets and pick what else we add. Now the kids LOVE it.
http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/Story+of+the+World+Vol.+1+2nd+Edition+Audiobook+CDs/025448/1274571914-1119295
We are doing Apologia Zoology 1 and so far we like it. I have been looking forward to their Human Body unit:) Can not wait to get to it!
The “Who is God?” book – I just bought it this year at convention. I’m planning to use it with my boys this fall. It looks really, really good.
We’re doing SOTW 1 this coming year, too.
This past year we read a biography of Helen Keller and also visited her birthplace twice. (We live close, so we can do that!)
I blogged about the book here–>
http://www.hopeisthewordblog.com/2009/10/01/read-aloud-thursdaythe-helen-keller-edition/
Found your link on Angie’s blog. I have heared wonderful things about Power Speak for spanish and other lanuages. Have a wonderful year!!
I found your blog via Angie 🙂 DH and I are looking into Apologia as we’re not totally happy with the materials we’re using right now.