And so begins another school year! I decided to start homeschooling Micah to a degree since his reading and writing are so advanced. Plus last year he would often ask to "do school too" so I figured we could start him on pre-K stuff. Of course within the first couple of days he was tearing through preschool-level workbooks we already had in our stash plus several free worksheets from education.com, so I decided to order Horizons Math Kindergarten for him! As for language arts, I think we'll wait on formal curriculum. He's bored with preschool or kindergarten level since most books focus on letter sounds and how to write the alphabet, which he already knows, yet I don't necessarily want to start him on first grade stuff yet either!
We started school on August 6 and already have a couple weeks under our belts. Here's a breakdown of the curriculum we're using this year!
Math: Horizons Math for both (3rd grade for Caleb, K for Micah)
English/Language Arts: BJU Press English 3 for Caleb, independent reading/writing practice for Micah
Spelling: We did exactly one week of the second half of Spelling You See (Level B) and it wasn't a good fit at all. This workbook relies heavily on dictation and focuses on "vowel chunks" (two vowels used together) and Caleb doesn't learn well that way. So we switched back to Explode the Code; we're starting with Level 2 1/2 since it will reinforce what he did on Level 2 back in first grade. Plus I incorporate a very informal quiz at the end of the lesson to make sure it sticks. It's easier for him right now which is fine since he really struggles with spelling. We're also continuing with Daily Word Ladders (Grades 2-3 level).
We try to get these three main subjects done daily, and then loop through the rest of the subjects below (doing two or three of them a day):
Science: Sassafras Science Adventures Volume 3 (Botany) (both kids)
The first week was an introduction to botany so we took an "observation walk" around our neighborhood and looked at plants and trees. Also saw LOTS of caterpillar nests.
During the second week, we started learning about some of the plants and fungi of the Amazon rainforest. We focused on orchids and ferns. I modified this for Micah by finding free coloring pages online for him to color while Caleb filled in the information in his logbook. We also studied a fern frond and talked about how it uses spores to reproduce instead of blossoms or seeds.
History: Homeschool in the Woods' Time Travelers Units: New World Explorers (both kids)
This is a really neat curriculum so far. It all comes on a CD-ROM; the only downside is you have to print out everything, but this way you can also pick and choose what you want to do since there are lots of activities and projects there. I mostly chose this curriculum because of the big hands-on factor; Caleb often enjoys putting things together and I've noticed he remembers information better if he has a project to do along with it. This unit focuses on explorers and their ships during the age of exploration. Each kid has a binder to keep their papers in, plus they will each also put a lapbook (file folder) together with information in it. We've learned about the reasons for exploration and made spice cookies (spices were one of the reasons!), and also the differences between today's world map and Ptolemy's map (people used to think the world was mostly made of land so maps used to look quiet different!). We also learned about life on a ship; we tried dried blueberries since any fruit you'd find on a ship would be dried (the boys were not fans!), learned about scurvy, and practiced knot-tying.
Bible: Picture Smart Bible: Old Testament
This is also a cool curriculum. The students listen to the lesson and color in sections of the lesson page; most OT books have their own page but some pages have a few of the shorter books clustered on it. The pages have pictures and symbols on them that help tell the main events of each Old Testament book. We did the Introduction to the Bible page and then the Genesis page. I colored the Genesis page for fun!
Spanish: Vocabulary Pages found on teacherspayteachers.com
I didn't want to get too complicated with a foreign language yet. Since both boys have expressed an interest in Spanish, I found free vocabulary pages online and we use an Usbourne Spanish picture dictionary to look up words (this book is great because it's also divided into categories..."at school," "at home," "colors," etc.). The first week we learned colors and the second week we learned some of the numbers.
P.E.: This is the most difficult subject to incorporate because it's so hot and humid outside right now! Mostly this consists of free play outside for now, but we do want to get both kids running around, throwing and catching better, cycling better, etc. Randall sometimes works with them in the evenings after dinner. :)
Piano: We're starting Caleb on the Alfred Basic Piano Course, including theory. We try to shoot for at least 15 minutes a day but hopefully as he gets more confident we can go for 30 minutes.
We also try to do a read-aloud most days...right now I'm reading The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White aloud and Caleb especially is enjoying it.
Sometime during the year I want to do more handwriting practice as well; I have Handwriting Without Tears Kick-Start Cursive for Caleb, and one of the printing HWT for Micah too (he writes letters and numbers but can be pretty messy; I'm not going to focus just on neatness for now but if he finds it fun to do this workbook too then we'll do it this year).
Here's to a great year!
