Next Year's Curriculum Choices

Wow, it has been a busy and fun month watching all the curriculum for next year (2008/2009) coming in. We've had at least one Box Day every week this month! I've waited until I had everything to make this post which highlights what we'll be using for the upcoming school year.

We are year-rounders so we don't have a specific date to start but will start using the new material when the old material is finished in each subject.

Here we go!

2008/2009 Curriculum for Grade 2

If you want a closer look at the pictures just click on them to see super-size.

The only subject not shown here is Math. I won't need to purchase that until 2009, but we will continue on with the next Math U See, Beta.

For science, Winter Promise's World Around Me



Our main program this year will be Winter Promise's American Story 1, which includes history, geography, art, crafts, bible, and read alouds. We will be studying US/North American history with an emphasis on Native Americans. All the books we will be using are shown below with the exception of one biography on George Washington which is still on backorder. Plus I added an extra book: Draw Write Now which covers Native Americans/Pilgrims/North America. Ds had so much fun with the DWN book we are using this year he asked if we could do another one. I also went with Sonlight's Book in Time for our timeline.







This next picture, sorry it's so dark, are the read-alouds scheduled with the program.



Since AS1 above is American History I will be tweaking here and there. Removing overtly patriotic American topics and substituting Canadian history topics. We will be using Donna Ward's Canada, My Country to learn Canadian geography plus the following history books. I also intend to use the library for more books as appropriate.



Ds will be using Sonlight Grade 2 readers for his personal reading.



Every school day morning just before lunch we read a short myth, legend or fairy tale. We will most likely read more than these but they are the three we will use for sure. They cover Canadian fairy tales, greek/roman myths and legendary heroes.



We also read poetry daily. Monday to Thursday we read two poems (one new and the other a favourite we've read so far from the current book), on Friday we just read favourites. Sometimes we end up reading more though so it is likely we will read more than the two shown below but these are the two I want to cover for sure.



Again, ds enjoyed the Ed Emberley book we used this year so much that he asked to do another one. I got a deal for buying two so picked up these. This will cover formal drawing instruction. There are also plenty of other arts/crafts in the above materials.



Art appreciation is covered informally with a new picture introduced and displayed each week on a little easel in our kitchen for viewing and discussion.

From Rod and Staff we will be using their English, Phonics and Health. For Handwriting we will continue with the next Handwriting Without Tears book.



All About Spelling



And finally for Music we will use God Made Music which covers both theory and appreciation.



It is going to be a fun year!

June Recap

We had a short month of school for June. We've been on holiday since the 22nd and we go back on July 3 after the Canada Day Holiday. Ds also celebrated his birthday this month and turned 7!

Language Arts - We finished Lesson 30 of First Language Lessons. We've covered all the variations of nouns that are persons, places and things. Another poem has been memorized "Work" by Anonymous and a new one "Hearts are Like Doors" has almost been memorized. Ds has learnt to write his whole name (first, middle, and last) though he hates writing anything other than just his first. Since we talked about addresses I also added daily memorizing of our complete address and he has it down pat. We moved not too long ago, so he didn't know it very well.

We stared using Spectrum Phonics Gr. 1 and have made it pg 20 and the short a sound. I'm glad we added this in as he has been having a bit of problem with the work of actually hearing the sounds in the words. He really enjoys the workbook though!

We also started doing Word Families this month. These are actually really improving his reading skills. I am picking one that compliments our Phonics program each week. The last family we did was 'The _ash Family'. Ds's latest narration:

The Little Girl Who Wanted To Be Dirty

The little girl wanted to be as dirty as a pig. Then her looked around and she wasn't in bed she was in a pig pen with two cute little pigs. She had fun at first then she went to supper and it was yucky and gooey. She got out of the pen and sneaked around to the back door and went upstairs to her bathroom and cleaned herself. She put on her jammies. The End (ds, 7yo)

Reading - We finished Lesson 12 of our reading curriculum. He has now gone through all the magic 'e' long vowel sounds, which he already knew but he has them down pat now. We've also covered the sounds 'th, ch, sh, ck' and he picked those up very quickly as well. He is starting to become more confident and fluent with reading. He isn't guessing what the words should be as much now. He has finished the first box of first level of Now I'm Reading readers and was very proud to accomplish that. We've started the second level box of Bob book readers now.

Handwriting - continuing with HWT the last letter he did was 'g'. His handwriting is coming along nicely and he actually enjoys doing his work with this program. He hated Abeka handwriting last year.

Math - We finished Lesson 33 of Right Start Level B. His level of understanding has greatly improved with this curriculum and I am so pleased with it. He is working on all the addition facts up to 10. Geometry was introduced and he loooves it so much. We've covered parallel lines, perpendicular lines, right angles, right triangles, triangles, squares, rectangles, and quadrilaterals. He is learning the months of the year and almost has them down. Reading large numbers up through the 1000's has been introduced and he understands but doesn't quite have it down yet. He also learnt to add 10s and understands well (ie. 50 + 20 = 70 ) as well as 10s and 1s (ie. 60 + 3 = 63). Commutative law was introduced but he already knew this from Abeka's 'twins'.

Read Alouds this month were: Pippi Longstocking, The Adventures of Grandfather Frog and James Herriot's Treasury for Children. We are currently reading the Complete Beatrix Potter Tales. Dad continues to read the Andrew Lost books at bedtimes when he is home. They have just finished #6 In the Whale.

And that is all the official curriculum we are currently using. When we get back to school we will be starting Animals and Their Worlds.

Box Day!!!!

Oh, we are so excited today! Our WP box came at 6:50 am this morning. We had no restraint and dove into it right away. We got the complete Animals and Their Worlds program and received everything except 4 books which were on back order and should be coming shortly. Everything looks wonderful, ds was very excited. We love box days! Here are the pics, though I'm afraid they are rather dark:

Monthly Recap

This is the first of a new series of posts I'll be making. On the last Friday of every month I will be posting a recap of where we are with our curriculum.

Language Arts - We just finished Lesson 12 of First Language Lessons. We are both enjoying this book very much and the lessons are going very well. Ds has memorized the poem "The Caterpillar" by Christina Rossetti and the definition of a noun. Here is his last narration we did yesterday.

The Lion and the Mouse

The mouse stepped on the lion's tail and the lion almost ate him. The mouse said, "I will help you when you are in trouble, lion." So the lion let him go. The hunters caught him in a net and the mouse heard him and bit the rope. The lion was free! - The End (ds, 6yo)

Reading - We just finished Lesson 9 of our phonics program which focused on cvcc words. Reading is progressing nicely but he really had to slow down with these words and make sure he got the last consonant on the end of each word. He finished the first set of Bob Books this week also. These focus on cvc words and he is reading them nicely now. He has about 12 sight words under his belt now and we've been struggling with "of" for quite some time but it appears he has finally succeeded in remembering it.

Handwriting - Progress with Handwriting Without Tears is going well. His handwriting has really improved with the move to this curriculum. He's gone through the capital letters and now working on the small letters. The last letter done was "w".

Math - We have finished Lesson 18 of Right Start Math B. We are having a blast with this curriculum! Ds is really picking up all the concepts very well. We "camp out" on a few lessons here and there when he struggles before moving on. The last concept we've just started working on is even and odd and he really enjoyed the lessons and games for this.

That is all the official curriculum we are using at the moment. I'll leave you with a painting ds worked on this week.

Alice and Animals

We finished Alice in Wonderland tonight! It was such a quick read. This is my third time with the book. I read it as a child and then read the sequel. I can't remember how old my now 18yob was when I read it to him but probably around 3rd grade. He did enjoy it but I only remember him yelling "stop crying" at Alice, as she does tend to cry quite a bit in the beginning. Ds6 really enjoyed the book, though I must say the first half is much better than the second. This is one of those books that mums may think is too "girly" to read to their sons but I encourage you to give it a try. Other than the main character being a girl it has a lot of appeal to boys.

Some days ago I read Barn Owl to ds6. It is a quick read being an old oop science I-Can-Read book and such a wonderful, sweet, touching story. He just loved the story so much, it was delightful to watch the light his eyes as he listened. He truly has a heart for animals and nature.

And this brings me to another decision. One would think that with 15 years (one way or another) of homeschooling experience I would have got over the curriculum anxiety I am experiencing this year. I have made major changes to the curriculum plan for next year! Again! This time though I am 100% sure of my decision. I will not be using History Odyssey or Apologia Science, instead I am going to use Winter Promise Animals and Their Worlds. This is a science-based program, so for history I will read CHOW. Even though I would have liked to start a 4-year history rotation with him this year, I know that he will enjoy WP-AW much more than anything else and I finally feel at peace with this curriculum decision.

So, to recap, here is the curriculum I will be using for my 7yob:

**Reading/Phonics - Stairway to Reading and easy readers ( Bob books, Dr. Maggie's, Now I'm Reading books)

**Read-Alouds - Living Books from our home library plus the RA's from AW

**Language Arts - First Language Lessons 1

**Handwriting - Handwriting Without Tears and copywork

Spelling - Spelling Workout A, possibly move onto B

History - Child's History of the World

Science/Geography - Winter Promise Animals and Their World

**Math - Right Start Level B

**Thinking Skills - Easy Sudoku Puzzles

**Art & Music - no curriculum, implement into real life fostering appreciation and enjoyment

Those marked ** we have already started and we'll start the rest sometime in Aug or Sept. We school year-round. The only time we didn't school year-round was the year my ds18 was in 7th grade. He asked, that year, if he could have the summer off like his friends, so we did. That September when we started back to school he said to me "Let's not ever do that again!" Needless to say, he didn't enjoy it and we went straight back to year round. It's so much nicer to have the freedom to take a day (or week) off whenever we want.

Revised Curriculum For Grade 1

I posted my list of curriculum choices a couple of weeks ago in the hopes it wouldn't change but, alas, I've changed my mind again! Here are my new choices and this time I'm hoping "that is that!"

The first major change is that I've stopped using Alpha-Phonics. I wasn't too crazy with the way they don't actually teach the rules of phonics. Guess I've been spoilt with the way Abeka teaches rules. But that was easy enough to supplement by adding in Abeka's rules as the phonetic sounds came along. It is the sight words that drove me crazy in the end. Nothing against sight words, there are words that just have to be learned by sight. But Alpha-Phonics' sight words are weird!

First problem I always run into is the word "a", every curriculum I've seen teaches that this is pronounced "uh". Uh, not here! We pronounce it /a/, like short "a". I can live with this. Next thing is AP introduces sight words by boxing them when they are first encountered. We reached a lesson on the short /o/ sound and the words "dog" and "off" were boxed as irregular words. Excuse me? I can't for the life of me pronounce those words without a short /o/ sound! How on earth is the author pronouncing them? So I skip ahead in the teacher manual reading the lessons and come across this sentence, to paraphrase: "Inform the student that "been" rhymes with "sin". Huh? Reading that, it might as well have said "apples rhymes with oranges"! Both are phonetic and follow normal 2 vowel and 1 vowel rules. I realize that some, maybe all?, Americans say "bin" for "been" but again, we certainly do not. It's pretty hard to tell my son that when he sees a boxed word in AP it is a sight word and then keep telling him that this boxed word is not a sight word just sound it out. Ugggh!

So to make a long story even longer, one day I followed a link to a website and from there followed another link to another website and discovered an awesome phonics program. It is very complete, Free!, and Canadian! Hallelujah!!! It is called Stairway to Reading and we've been using it for a week now and I am thrilled to bits with it. I'm skipping the writing portions (copywork and dictation) as my son isn't ready for all that writing yet.

Next change is that I've added in the Now I'm Reading readers. I also decided not to add Considering God's Creation to our Astronomy study. I was looking through my older son's Grade 5 notebook and looking over his work and decided it would be too advanced for ds#2 just yet. I'd have to do most of the fiddly notebook work for him and that would be missing the point.

Then the last change I've made is to add Spelling Workout A. I wasn't going to do spelling this early but after reading through WTM for the umpteenth time and noting that SWB recommends not skipping this book and then looking at sample pages online and seeing that it is very simple, I've decided to go ahead with it. If it ends up being too much, we'll just put it aside for later.

Now for the revised, list of curriculum:

Reading/Phonics - Stairway to Reading and easy readers ( Bob books, Dr. Maggie's, Now I'm Reading books)
Read-Alouds - Living Books from our home library, a few to tie in with history, but mostly others that do not
Language Arts - First Language Lessons 1
Handwriting - Handwriting Without Tears and copywork
Spelling - Spelling Workout A, possibly move onto B
History/Geography - History Odyssey Ancients Level 1
Science - Apologia Elementary Science Astronomy
Math - Right Start Level B
Thinking Skills - Easy Sudoku Puzzles
Art & Music - no curriculum, implement into real life fostering appreciation and enjoyment

Curriculum Choices

I've been going through the angst of curriculum choices these last few months and every time I think I have it all planned out I start re-thinking and change my mind! But I finally think I have it all sorted out and below is what I have decided on. Perhaps, if it is written down here I won't change my mind again. This is for a 7yo.

Reading/Phonics - continue on with Alpha-Phonics and easy readers (Abeka Gr. 1 readers, Bob books, Dr. Maggie's, etc.)

Language Arts - First Language Lessons 1

Handwriting - Handwriting Without Tears and copywork

History/Geography - History Odyssey Ancients Level 1

Science - Apologia Elementary Science Astronomy & Considering God's Creation (astronomy section only)

Math - Right Start Level B

Read-Alouds - Living Books from our home library, some to tie in with history, others not.

So that's the plan for this coming year.!