Friday, July 29, 2011

Curriculum: What worked this year...

My plans for this year and what actually happened...
The red is a post from my old homeschooling blog... the black is my notes on how it actually panned out...



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2010


2010-2011 Curriculum picks… a work in progress

This will probably be changed and added to a hundred times but this is the plan for now…

Nathan (3 years old):

In addition to the list below, he will be around for most of Rylee’s lessons. I am sure he will pick up some things from that too.
Basic Preschool Skills-
Cutting, gluing, coloring, shapes, colors, alphabet sounds, numbers, etc. I will mostly be using the wonderful things that have been created by Confessions of a Homeschooler as well as Home Grown Hearts. I will also be reading a lot of books and we will be playing a lot of games.

After printing all those printables I found out that you can buy ink for almost any printer on Amazon for dirt cheap. It would have cost a lot less.  We made it through the Alphabet and then about 1/2 way a second time. He loved them and wants to do them all the time.

Rylee (5 almost 6 years old):

Rylee will be welcome to participate in all of our Toddler activities as well as…
Math:
We are using Math-U-See Primer for Math.
I have to admit I find this curriculum boring. The workbooks are black and white with very little pictures. Rylee on the other hand enjoys it. I catch her watching the Math Lessons on her TV without me sometimes during the day. :) She has finished all of the lessons multiple times on the DVD. We are still catching up with the workbook.  Nathan loves to play with the blocks. I love the way it teaches to tell time.
Science:
Our choice for Science is
Exploring Creation With Astronomy (Young Explorers)
I have heard so many wonderful things about Apologia. I know that my kids and I are going to love these books.
I think a different topic would have worked better for their age. Perhaps one with animals. They loved the activities but lost interest sometimes during the reading. They still learned a lot. I loved the book and I am sure my kids will get a lot more out of it in a year or two.
Language Arts:
We will use
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
and
Bob Books, Set 1: Beginning Readers
We have already started this and I am so impressed! My daughter begs to do more then one lesson a day! We will begin the Bob books about halfway thru the book.

I am still very happy with Teach your child to read. We are still working on lessons. This may not be necessary for all children but as the lessons became harder we ended up breaking each lesson into two unless she was up for the second half. We also did lessons 1-15 twice. This is one of the wonderful things about homeschooling. You have the freedom to make things work for each individual child.
Art:
We will be using
Artistic Pursuits Book One: The Elements of Art And Composition
and
Drawing with Children
this year. We are starting with the preschool Artistic pursuits called:
The Way They See It: A Book for Every Parent About the Art Children Make
We will then move on to K-3 Book 1. My daughter wants to be an artist when she grows up, so I will be putting a special emphasis on art. We will also be making “Beautiful Junk” a couple of times a week. Basically I will give them “Junk” (paper towel rolls, cereal boxes, old ribbons, etc). With a little tape or glue you have “Beautiful Junk”.

We finished the way they see it. I really wasn't very impressed. If I had it to do over again, I would go straight to Artistic Pursuits: K-3- book 1. We will start that in the fall.
We never did use Drawing with Children but Rylee specifically asked me to make this a priority for next year. I definitely will.
Music:
We will use…
Stories of the Great Composers (Book & CD) (Learning Link)
We do a lot of singing and dancing as well as play with percussion instruments. So that will count as music too.

I was shocked at how much Rylee loved this. She would ask for a lesson at least once a week which is basically me reading about a composers life and then listening to music they composed. 
Geography:
We will be using
Around the World in 180 Days (2-volume set)
as well as Expedition Earth from Confessions of a Homeschooler. My children are going to love filling up their passports!

We will use both of these in the future but they seemed a little old for my kids this year. Instead we started using a US State Study by Musings of Me. Very fun!!
History:
We will be learning about American History this year. We will read books, do games, activities and make lapbooks for added enjoyment.

We didn't make it through all of the US History but we still had fun learning the earlier part of our history.
Gospel Study:
Aside from our family scripture study and Family Home Evening. We will be studying the New Testament. We will read the beginning reader- New Testament Stories. We will be watching videos fromLiving Scriptures: New Testament (We love these!!) We will practice songs from the Children’s Songbook and work on Scripture Mastery.
This pretty much went as planned. I have a few fun things up my sleeve for next year.
Reading:
I will be reading a lot of picture books as well as chapter books. I will ask them to tell me what I read to them or draw a picture about what I have read.
We read tons of books. We read the "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" series and then started on the "Little House on the Prairie" series.
Other:
We will be watching Signing Time Videos  as well.
The are great, we stopped all television watching midway through the year. These became a lot more valuable to my children after that. :)

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