The girls will get to keep a binder this year with all of their subjects which they are excited about. I am still watching for sales to pick those up this week! Most of their projects are short and sweet and do not require much work, so they cannot wait for school to start. On Monday's we will all be starting an educational Co OP where both girls will be taking an art class. Audrey will also have a science and math class and Ally will have a writing and science class. Ian will have a few preschool play/learning sessions.
We start off each day with prayer, journal or free writing, and calendar math. I started last year with one sentence a day in their journals and by the end of the year they were writing three good sentences. My goal for the end of the year is to have them writing five good sentences on topic! Our calendar skills will also get harder.For example, last year they skip counted by 1, 2, 5, and 10 to 100 this year we will continue that but be doing so starting at any given number.All of this but journal writing, which will switch to two days a week instead of everyday, is oral and in a game like format!
This is the teacher's guide for HOD and you can already see it has week 1 ready to go! In fact I have copied all of the girls history, science, and copy work for the year and the first 10 weeks of spelling words. It is for ages 6-8 and though the girls are on the young end, they will do well and I have added some things to challenge them along the way.
We will be using these books for our history this year. They look amazing and have questions and projects that we may do in addition to our reading and discussion. These books I will read to the girls and Ian and we will talk about it and find a way to apply it to us today and to His Word.
This will be our main text for science with at least two experiments weekly. I wanted to add more science since last year we didn't do that well with it but I want to see what interest the kids before going all one subject. This year they will get exposure to all four main science branches.
I will be adding this book to do some more grammar practice, even though there is some in our HOD guide but since the girls are not as skilled at grammar yet I thought the more practice the better. They are good writing but grammar was something we only hit the basics like nouns, verbs, capitalizing, punctuation, and things on. We will do this orally except for correcting sentences, we will do those on the big board! I didn't feel comfortable moving into 2nd grade in this area yet since it was not a big focus last year.
These are the main books Paul and I will be reading aloud to them this year, one for each of the nine main literary genres. I am pretty excited to expose them to some classics and to different types of literature. That is one of the things that drew me to HOD this year. I am a book/literature lover and I love a curriculum that has a foundation in that!
For their independent reading they will each have 15 minutes to read a book of their choice, usually a library book and as the year goes along that time will increase to hopefully 30 minutes. With HOD they will also have assigned readings with questions to answer each day either orally or in a reading response. I also have these literature response projects for them to chose each week. They may pick one book they read for the week and then chose the response they want to do. They are very easy and fun and a great way to showcase what they read. These are the first few HOD readings try will have. I still have to buy or get the rest from the library. They will be great for Audrey and I am hoping they are not too easy for Ally. That is why I will be doing the literature response to challenge them and to help get them reading for next year's reading HOD: Drawn Into The Heart of Reading program.
I will also be using this book to keep a good focus on non fiction reading and how to use those key non fiction reading features. I used this when I taught first and second grade and it works great! We will probably do one lesson a month and practice on it. We did the first two lessons this summer, distinguishing fiction and non fiction and then using and index and table of contents. My girls have those things down! The book only has 10 lessons total.
The math we will be doing is Singapore Math Primary Mathematics 1B, which I am proud to say is a second grade level math book :) My girls have worked so hard in math last year!! We will probably take math alot slower this year. Last year they completed Singapore Early Bird Math K1 and K1 as well as Primary Math 1A. I am hoping that they get through 1B and 2A this year but we will see.
For phonics this year I chose to use Explode the Code because I can easily put the girls on different levels but still work the same routine with them. Audrey is just like me in that spelling is a challenge so I wanted to focus really good on phonic another year to help with her reading, writing, and spelling. Those skills come easy to Ally so she needed a challenge. Audrey will start out on level 2 and Ally will start out on level 4. I am hoping that they will progress quickly and be out of phonics this year. We will also be using spelling out of HOD but I will change it up. I am going to start with the words the book suggests even though they seem way EASY, even the level 2 words. I want both girls to be better spellers than I am. I found several activities on Pinterest to use with them such as how much is your word worth, roll a word, word tic tac know, and spelling chants.
In writing this year I will be purchasing this book for the girls. We are attending a homeschool conference in a few weeks and I am hoping to get a good price without shipping and if not I will order next weekend and have it in time to start school, so please pray it will not be on back order or that I can get it at the conference. Even though my girls are 6 and should be just starting first grade they know how to write a short little story. We spent time last year on just getting a good beginning, a middle with three details at least, and an ending. It looks like just what the girls need some help in their style and structure plus it is over familiar topics to them! Our history last year was all bible history!
For extra art we have these books given to me by a dear friend. The kids love them and I also have an extra pack of materials for Ian. We just pull these out when they want to. As for music the kids learn some in their church choir but in the fall the girls will be starting piano lessons so their music will be covered.
Now onto my little man and his curriculum. I should probably change the blog name to include him but he is my baby and I am not ready yet! Ian and the little guys that I babysit will use this book as their main letter/art/story book. It looks so cute and fun for them as well as tons of learning! I will throw in math and motor skill work through play!
I am really excited about this year and while it may look overwhelming like I am pushing the girls, we should only spend 2-3 hours tops per day as we will not cover every subject every day! Plus we have all day to work if needed, weekends, and holidays :)
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