By the Book

Well, I’ve posted several versions of our curricula for next year, and I have one more revision. I swear this is the final draft. (Unless, of course, something changes mid year and something is not working.)

K
Math – Math Mammoth (2nd grade)
Spelling – After we finish up the McRuffy 1st-grade material, we will be starting the first book of Sequential Spelling. This should be in January sometime, if each lesson only takes a day. Sometimes, however, she likes to do a week’s worth of spelling in just a couple days, so we could be done much sooner.
Grammar – After the McRuffy is complete, we will be moving into 2nd-grade Growing With Grammar. I’m not quite sure when this will be completed, though. There are roughly 3 to 4 grammar lessons in each week of McRuffy, and I’m still breaking them down into individual lessons.
Writing – Writing With Ease. We are using the text version and not the workbooks. I have the first 8 weeks of copywork and narration already figured out and put into my "All That’s School" binder. I’ve pulled sentences and narrations from The Adventures of Robin Hood, Little Women, Charlotte’s Web, Anne of Green Gables, Story of the World, Harry Potter books, and others.
Reading – We have about 5 weeks of reading to finish up with McRuffy. After that, I’m not sure we will do a formal reading program. I might just use her history and science readings to asses her reading and comprehension. If we do decide to do reading separately, she got the Treasury of Illustrated Classics set for Christmas that I might just make up comprehension questions for and have her read a chapter a day. She is already reading Jane Eyre and she read the first few pages of Alice In Wonderland last night.
Bible – Continue on with Alpha Omega Lifepac 1st grade and then move on to 2nd grade.

H
Math – Math-U-See Primer
Language Arts – McRuffy Phonics & Reading (includes handwriting and spelling)
Bible – Once she is reading a bit, we will probably start the 1st-grade Alpha Omega Lifepac. I’m guessing this will be sometime closer to spring. I want to make sure she is able to read some Arnold Lobel books comfortably before I start on that, since some pages of the worktexts are for the students to read.

Both Girls
Science – R.E.A.L. Science (Life)
History – Story of the World (Finish book 1, Ancients)
Art – Meet the Masters

Unfortunately, we still have to purchase Math-U-See and Meet the Masters, but somehow it will all come together. We will be starting our year on August 25th, and attending school Tuesday through Friday. We were originally going to be involved in a co-op on Mondays, but I think that will have to wait for one more year. However, I think we need that Monday to do our major cleaning and chores, so I have left our schedule the same.

In the next couple weeks I will be busy finishing up our lesson plans. I would like to have our plans completely done for all subjects for at least the first 8 weeks of school. All I have left to finish is K’s grammar and bible. So far, I think the biggest challenge has been breaking up the McRuffy Phonics & Reading program into separate subjects. However, it had to be done for K since she gets bored with certain things and still needs practice with others. I think this year will be a great one just for that reason. Everything is finally on its own, so she can work at her own pace and we can easily skip over extra practice of things that she already has down.

We will also be using workboxes this year, and I hope to have those completed soon so that I can post some pictures. There is only so much removing of Velcro backing that can be done in a day.

This is the final piece of this year’s animal study. We have moved on to the study of the human body now.

In light of several factors, one being the advice of a good friend, we have decided to make some curriculum changes. We are already loosely following The Well-Trained Mind (WTM) for science and history. It has been working really well, albeit slow in the history department. (I don’t want to overload my young children!) We have now decided to also add language arts into the mix. We will be using First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind (FLL) with K once she finishes up the McRuffy 1st grade program. This book will cover grammar for 1st and 2nd grade, and includes memorization.

I originally balked at the idea of using this approach. However, through lots of research of different programs, I somehow found my way to it. Also, I had been curious last month and put a hold on the book from the library. Yesterday when I looked at my library account, the book was in! So, I went and picked it up and so far I like what I see. So, I think this will be the next step for us.

We will also be using Rod and Staff for 2nd grade spelling. The ultimate plan is to go through FLL and then move on to 3rd grade Rod and Staff English. I am really interested in this program because it looks really solid and includes sentence diagramming. I didn’t make the correlation at the time, but this is also the program recommended to follow FLL by the WTM. So, my guess is it works really well.

For H we will continue using Hooked on Phonics and McRuffy concurrently. She is really starting to make some good progress. Once she is through McRuffy K, we will move her on to McRuffy 1st grade, and then eventually to FLL.

I do not worry about going through 1st-grade material more than once, as I have realized that with gifted students it is sometimes better to expand rather than to accelerate. Many thanks to the homeschooling mom who has tread these waters before me and was kind enough to share what she has learned.

So I just have to make a post about this. I was researching the math program Math U See last night. On one of the demonstration videos, Steve Demme mentions a class that he was teaching once. He had 7 students and he brought in 14 objects. He asked them how many each would get. They asked him if they were supposed to add, subtract, multiply, or divide. So, I decided to ask K a similar question. I said, "I’m going to bring home 8 apples. How many do each of us in our family get?" She thought for about 5 seconds before answering. She said, "Two for you, two for Dad… Four for H, and zero for me, because I don’t like apples."

We have been doing fairly well at sticking with our schedule lately. We have implemented the 10:00-12:00 schedule, and that seems to work well for us. We take a short recess from 11:00 to 11:15, and just try to get in as much schoolwork as we can in that time frame.

We had to put the desert lapbook aside for a while, due to an interest in wanting to learn the skeleton. We are using Nonfiction Read & Write Booklets by Scholastic for our human body study. This is the perfect idea for K, and I wish I could find them for many more subjects. She also decided, all on her own, to do some copywork from our human body encyclopedia for her science notebook.

I am finally starting to notice a breakthrough with H’s reading. Every night before bed she wants to practice out of her "yellow book." (It’s the yellow book from Hooked on Phonics Kindergarten.) Last night she did really good at reading some new short /i/ words and reading a new story. She even asked me if she was reading.

I think we have made our final decisions for next year’s curriculum. The things that are going to remain the same are K’s McRuffy Phonics and Reading program (although she wants to learn cursive next year) and Alpha Omega Bible; Story of the World for history for both girls; a nice mix of HOP and McRuffy Kindergarten for H (or whatever else is working at the time!), and Saxon math for H.

K will be switching from Saxon math to Math Mammoth, although we still have the 2nd grade Saxon that we can pull lessons out of for reinforcement if we need to. We will also be using the Saxon meeting book still. We will also be using a new science program. We are going to use R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey by Pandia Press and cover Life science again. We have covered a lot this year just by reading books, coloring, copywork, and making minibooks. However, the R.E.A.L. program is very hands-on and will give us a new way to approach science. Since the girls are so young (and I’m not sure what H has really gotten out of it lately) we decided it would not do any harm to cover the material again. They will get to work with thermometers, binoculars, and bugs. They will begin to get a feel for the scientific method. R.E.A.L. covers animals in a different way than we did this year, too, so it won’t just be more of the same. They will learn the difference between vertebrates and invertebrates next year. This year, we learned them grouped by biome, and just discussed whether they were amphibian, mammal, bird, etc. I think they will really enjoy being out in the world doing fun stuff and getting dirty.

So, there’s an update on this year and a preview of what we’ve decided to do for next year.