Our Curricula for School Year 2011

I thought that because I am calling a "DO-OVER" that I would do a post about the curricula we will be using once we start over.  All of the stuff will also be listed on the sidebar and most of them will have links.

Everett

Annika

Lucas

We're all really excited about the changes, and about the fresh start.  See you in the New Year!

A crazy season brings some changes to our homeschool

With the craziness that is the holiday season I always begin to worry about our school schedule, how much we've done, and how much we have left to do.  This year like most of the others started out great, then took a sudden nose dive into extended periods of time off.  We then got things righted again and as soon as we start to coast the winter holidays are upon us.  We're done for this part of the year.

We do have a few things that I'd like to have behind us before we are back to a full time schedule, but it will be done at a relaxed pace between now and December 29th.  Matt should be on leave from the 29th of December until the 9th of January, so we'll have fun family time then, and then come back to school refreshed, myself ready to teach and the kids ready to learn.


For now we with you all a wonderful Holiday Season and hope you'll come back and see the weekly reports I'll be posting starting in mid January.

Review -- Dec. 13-17

This week was a hodge-podge week.  We had a few appointments to deal with and the boys both seem to have caught some sort of cold.  We did what we could when we got around to it, because of that, I have not included any slideshows.  There wasn't much to see.   

Everett...

completed lesson 1.7 in Growing with Grammar 6,  which I thought he'd done last week.  He's also played lots of math games with Lucas.  He is very congested and has a pretty ugly cough and runny nose, so I haven't asked much of him school wise.  We did receive our Soaring with Spelling and Vocabulary level 3 book and hope to start that next week.

Annika...

read chapters 3 and 4 in Magic Tree House Book #1: Dinosaurs Before Dark and is doing pretty well with it.  She was very excited to see her CLE Math 2 items arrive and has done pretests 1 and 2 from workbook 201.  She is so excited about this change in curriculum and even enjoyed the flashcard work. 

Science and History for Everett and Annika

was simply watching episodes of Mythbusters this week, through our Wii with their netflix instant streaming channel.  All the episodes the kids picked had a little history as well as science. 

Lucas...

played lots of educational games with his older siblings and drew lots of pictures for me. 

All in all, it was a pretty unproductive week, but at least we got a little bit done.  Hopefully next week will be more productive.

Review -- Dec 6-10

Week 12 has been a good, but short week.  We're working on some school but we've also been feeling really run down and a little burnt out.  I think it has something to do with the big swing in temperature here.  We were used to nice, not too hot-not to cold days and then we plunged down to pretty cold days with some nights below freezing.  I know it's not as bad as other places, but for us wimps that are used to more gentle winters, it's been pretty rough. 

Everett...

Completed lessons 1-3 in Saxon math 7/6 and did pretty well with it.  We switched back to Growing with Grammar 6, because he needs more work on each section than Junior Analytical Grammar is giving him.  He completed lessons 1.6 and 1.7 which worked with sentence types.  His new Soaring with Spelling and Vocabulary level 3 came in so we'll start that next week.  I moved him back a level to go back and cover a few gaps he has.  I'm working on a new penmanship plan for him now that he's finished what I originally bought for him. 

Annika...

completed lessons 76-77 in McRuffy Phonics and Reading 1.  She asked me if she could start reading regular books and picked out The Magic Tree House #1: Dinosaurs At Dawn.   She read chapters 1 and 2 and thoroughly impressed me with the fluency with which she read it.  There were parts she struggled with, but over all it was an incredible accomplishment, which had me reevaluating her phonics and reading programs. At this point I have decided to let her use the Explode the code workbooks 3-8 at a pace that is challenging, but comfortable for her and we'll just keep reading beginning chapter books she picks out.  She completed a couple lessons in McRuffy Math 2, but has been complaining it's too easy, and asked to try something else.  I found the Christian Light Education placement test online and gave her that.  She enjoyed the types or problems and found it to be a nice challenge, so we'll be using that once the books arrive. 

Science and History for Everett and Annika

We have done no history this week, but had a fun Science/Art day on Friday.  We worked on introducing Atomic Mass, and understanding why they call it The Periodic Table of Elements.  We tried making some playdough from cream cheese, honey and powdered milk.  It didn't turn out so I brought out the regular Play-doh and the kids had a great afternoon with that. 

Lucas...

Has been doing well and completed a couple lessons in McRuffy Math K and a couple of lessons in McRuffy Phonics K.  He's having some issues with blending, so we'll take a break from McRuffy and use some of the Explode the Code primers to go over letter sounds again.

Not a packed week, but not bad either.  Next week will be similar due to some appointments, but we'll keep plugging along the best we can. 

Review -- Nov 29 - Dec 3

I thought Week 11 would be rough after a two week break from book work, but it turned out to be a good week with a fair amount of work accomplished.   
On Day 1 we...
started out with a field trip to Matt's ship.  It was no ordinary field trip, we were there to see Matt get promoted to the rank of Commander.  We are all very proud of him and were all extremely excited to be able to be a part of the ceremony. (sorry the pictures are so small, I'm not sure why that is)

Everett...

completed quiz 14 and lessons 86-88 in Teaching Textbooks 6 and after looking into the rest of the book I've decided he's done with it and we'll move on to our next math program.  He chose to use Saxon 7/6 which I'm actually pretty excited about, as I'll actually be the one teaching him again.  He finished the 5th unit of Junior Analytical Grammar covering  Subjects and Verbs, and did great on the unit test.   All About Spelling level 2, has been shelved and we'll begin working on Soaring with Spelling level 3.  Although I love the idea of AAS and have waffled with it, in the end it's just not challenging enough for him. I'm also glad to say that he's gotten back into the habit of reading every night.   

Annika...

completed lessons 73-75 in McRuffy Phonics and Reading 1 and she finished reading Blaze and the Flock. I was really impressed with the progress she made in her reading fluency.  She's still a little choppy but her speed has sure picked up and things seem to be sticking in her mind a little more. She asked to go back to McRuffy math 2 and completed lessons 3-6. We'll be doubling up lessons for a little while until we hit a more challenging spot.  

Science and History for Everett and Annika

In history we listened to Chapter 5 of Story of the World Volume 3 about the Warlords of Japan, they each colored a picture and did some map work.  I'm always amazed at how colorful they make the pictures.   For science we've returned to Chemistry with R.E.A.L. Science Chemistry level 1.  We started making periodic tables, and made a flipbook of the the first 18 elements.

Lucas...

Asked me if he could start doing his "ruff dog" papers again, which means his McRuffy work.  I had put it away because it seemed to be moving to fast, but pulled it back out to give it a try.  He did great.  The math was fun and pretty easy for him and he completed lessons 15-18 in McRuffy math k.  He also complete lessons 15-17 in McRuffy phonics K, and did pretty well on blending the letter sounds into some simple words.  He also completed lessons 10 and 11 in McRuffy Science K which completed unit 3 on weather. 

We'll be working most days for the rest of the month with the 24-25th and the 30-31 off besides weekends because Matt won't have much time off other than that.  We will take our winter break the first week of the New Year instead.