The New Curriculum for 08-09 is Here!

Well here's the low down on what we'll be using for next year.
Everett will be 9 years old and in 4th grade. Annika will be 6.5 years old and in 2nd grade. Lucas will be 3 years old and in "tagging along as he's sees fit" grade.

Here's the curriculum
LANGUAGE ARTS
Annika's
(Evan Moor Daily Handwriting Contemporary Cursive, Growing with Grammar 1/2, Spelling Workout B)


Everett's
(Growing with Grammar 4, Spelling Workout D, Evan Moor Paragraph Writing {not shown})


MATH

Annika's on the left, Everett's on the right
(Saxon math 2 & Teaching Textbooks Math 5)
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Geography
(Don't know much about the 50 States, Trail Guide to US Geography, Red, White Blue and Uncle Who?)


History (This is the curriculum I made up myself)
Spines: DK Children's Encyclopedia of American History, History Pockets Native Americans, History Pockets Explorer's of North America, History Pockets Life in Plymouth Colony {not shown}

History Readers/Read Alouds
If you lived with the Iroquois, Sioux, Hopi, Indians tribes of the Northwest, in colonial times
If you sailed on the Mayflower in 1620
Step Into Reading Christopher Columbus, Pocahontas, The First Thanksgiving
The Skippack School, Tooga: A Polar Bears Story, Pedro's Journal, Ben and Me, Sarah Witcher's Story, The Courage of Sarah Noble, A Lion to Guard Us, The Matchlock Gun, The Corn Grows Ripe, Pocahontas and the Strangers, Secret of the Andes, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Birchbark House, Meet Kaya, Squato: Friend of the Pilgrams, The Sign of the Beaver

Science
R.E.A.L. Science Life Science level 1, Butterfly Garden, Quick Pix Animals


Just for Fun Read Alouds

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, How to Eat Fried Worms, Frindle, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, The Secret School, Freckle Juice, A Wrinkle in Time, The Twenty-One Balloons, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Socks, Bunnicula, Emily's Runaway Imagination, The Toothpaste Millionaire, McBroom's Wonderful One Acre Farm, Strawberry Girl, The Door in the Wall, The Backward Bird Dog

That's all she wrote folks.

Kel

Week in Review Feb 25-28

Well as many of you noticed I didn't post a week in review last week. That's because we did no schooling last week. We spent the whole week having fun with Mamo and Papa (my parents) it was a blast. The kids had so much fun. Lucas decided he was Papa's best friend and he and my dad watched "Ratatouille" about 4 times a day. My mom and dad both enjoyed themselves and we can't wait for the next time they can come visit.

This week we had a few days of school but we also ended up with some lengthy dentist visits as well. Also since Matt leaves for some at sea time on Saturday we have been trying to spend as much time together as a family before he goes. The kids PE class ends next week and we'll be hitting the books pretty hard the next couple weeks while Matt is gone so I'm not worried about where we stand.

We also spent some time this week enjoying all the boxes of school books that have been coming in for next year. I also bought the kids some new desks since they have outgrown the table we had. It was a preschool table and could grow heightwise but my kids are like me and like to spread out their work all around them so they really need their own desks. I found some "computer" desks at Walmart that actually were practical for a school desk. The keybord tray can be used to keep their weekly binders and anything else they that may be a "work in progress" then it has 3 drawers down the side. The bottom one is acutally file sized and that's where they have decided to keep their small whiteboards and timeline books. The middle drawer is for any workbooks they choose not to keep in the "Subject boxes" on the cubbies and the top one holds all their supplies such as pencils, markers, erasers, ruler, etc. They both really like them and they fit nicely into the room. I have new pictures of the room in the slideshow.

Have a great week every one. I'll post pictures of the books for next year in a bit.

Kel

Week in Review Feb 11-15

This will be short and sweet this week. The kids did their usual lessons. We will be finishing up our penguin unit today and will move onto geology now. I've been working on my Elementary American History curriculum and finished it last night. It is only 18 weeks long as we alternate 1 week of history with 1 week of science. The kids do better when we focus on 1 of those subjects for a whole week instead of trying to do a couple days of each. I'll post it under the Original Curriculum heading on the side sometime today.

My parents are coming for a visit next week so school is "closed" next week. We are all looking forward to seeing Mamo and Papa. I especially need it. Some things have happened in the past couple of days which have me feeling really beatup emotionally. My kids can tell that I'm feeling that way and keep telling me "cheer up mom, you're the best mom in the world" My dh keeps telling me I'm the best too, which helps tons. I know that seeing my parents will help.

No pictures this week. I'll try to do better next week.

Kel

Well I've delved into the realm of making my own curriculum

After much reasearch for next year's history program, knowing the kids wanted to do American History, and not being able to find a secular elementary curriculum I liked, I decided to create my own.

I picked a bunch of books I thought the kids would like. I picked a bunch of Evan Moor History pockets I know the kids like and I also bought the wonderful DK Children's Encyclopedia of American History. I then set to work trying to figure out how it all fit together. After many outlines I've now finished the 8 week Native American study portion of the curriculm. It's simply a schedule of all the books I've bought. I am not a teacher, a writer, or a publisher. I'm simply a homeschool mom, so it's nothing out of this world, but it's mine and I'm happy with it.

If you'd like to see it feel free to click on the link below or let me know in a comment and I'll gladly send it to you.

http://www.divshare.com/download/3760097-94a

This link can also be found on the sidebar listed as Native American 8 week Study under the Original curriculum heading.

It is a complete study of Native Americans in my eyes, it is not however my finished American history plan for next year. I'm now off to work on the outlines and eventually the schedule for North American Explorer's, Colonial America and The American Revolution.


Happy Homeschooling,

Kel

Week in Review Feb. 4-8

It's been a busy week for us. We started out with a trip to the local teachers store on Monday to pick up a few things we'll need for science. The kids have been working very hard.

Everett:
Languages arts: He wrapped a week of spelling working on words that use the long /i/ sound spelled in different ways. Grammar is continuing to go very well, he has been learning about the different types of sentences and is retaining tremendous amounts. I think we've found a grammar program we can really stick with for the long haul. He's also continued reading various books and we've been working through Evan-Moor's "Write a Super Sentence" which he really enjoys.

Math: We've continued workin on graphing and reading various types of graphs. We also started to work more with imperical measurements. Next week we'll begin 2 digit by 1 digit multiplication. We've also begun using the Timez Attacks multiplication computer game which has been great fun.

Penmanship: He continued to work on his cursive writing which is coming along nicely

Geography: He worked on learning to read a Political Map.


Annika:
Language Arts: She has continued to work through the Click n Kids phonics program and her Explode the Code phonics books. She successfully covered all of the short vowel sounds and read her first 5 real books over the last few days. The books are very simple phonics readers that are only 7-8 pages long and come from Starfall.com

Math: She has been working on reading the calendar, has been mastering left and right and finishing up learning ordinal numbers 1st-3rd.

Penmanship: Continuing to work on perfecting her manuscript printing.

Geography: Learning to read a world picture graph.

Both Everett and Annika:

History: We covered The Maori from Austrailia, The Franks and finished the week with the Islamic Invasion and the Rock of Gibraltor.

Science: Even though it wasn't a science week we still did a Pocket in our Penguin pocket book.

Physical Education: The kids have started soccer in homeschool PE at the Y, but we also had a beautiful warm day and had some fun playing on the playset as well as a fun game of dodgeball in the backyard.

Lucas spent the week coloring and playing as usual.

Have a great weekend.

Kel

Not quite Wordless Not quite Wednesday

I'm a day late in getting this up.





Sometimes playing trains is so tiring.

Week in Review Jan 27- Feb 2

Boys being Boys



The kids decided to draw pictures of crabs.

The week went well for school we took off on Thursday since we were all feeling a bit rundown.
Here's a little of what we did.

Everett is still enjoying his Growing with Grammar program, he says it's fun and I so happy we found something that just clicks for him. He's also kept up with his math lessons and was learning some more multiplications tables, working on time to the minute, and did some graph work. He also took the Teaching Textbook placement test to see where he'd fall for next year. He placed into the 5th grade program, no bad for a kid that's only 1/3 of the way through 3rd grade. We didn't do history this week as we've decided to adopt a rotating schedule with Science for the rest of the year. This week was a Science week so we continued our Penguin pocket book and reading Mr. Popper's Penguin. Ev has also almost finished reading The Chalkbox Kid and is starting to look for the next book he'll read.

Annika has been doing really well with the Click n Kids online phonics program and her Explode the Code books. She is doing really well reading simple phonics readers. She's also still really enjoying the Saxon math that we recently started. She's doing very well with the 1st grade math program and is very proud of herself since most kids of her age are in Kindergarten.

Both kids have been enjoying Homeschool PE class in which they are learning some basketball fundementals.

Lucas is just busy being a 2½ year old. He's been learning about Pokemon from his older brother and sister and enjoys trying to squeeze in to color during school time and loves listening in to the read alouds. He's a busy boy.

Kel