Not that I hate doing it....it's one of my favorite parts of homeschooling actually.
After a week using what I'd purchased, I'm already 'tweaking' (a technical term that we school-at-homers use to explain why we're still obsessing over curriculum choices.)
We're dropping Horizons Language Arts (includes phonics, reading, spelling and handwriting) in favor of MCP Plaid Phonics B, Houghton/Mifflin's 2nd grade reader "Silly Things Happen", CLP's Nature Readers 1, and The Beginner's Bible for reading. Spelling and handwriting will be combined in our daily Copywork: quotes, scripture, poetry, grammar terms, etc that we're coming across in other subject areas. I'm also adding First Language Lessons, where we'll derive poetry and grammar terms, and hone narration skills. I'm zipping thru it 2 lessons a day as it's for 1st and 2nd grades and I want to finish by year's end. I've also decided to try a curriculum for our morning bible/devotions time....ordered Beginnings II: Jesus our Shepherd from the Explorer's Bible Study materials. We shall see....I abhor packaged bible studies, but these came highly recommended, highly non-denominational, and I assume highly Western/American Culture-ish, but I'll work with it. (Does anyone know if Rob Bell will ever publish a kid's bible curriculum????? Alicia?????)
I've also arranged our schedule to more closely reflect what's really happening each day. I'm saving after lunch time for World/American History and geography and our science studies. What You're 2nd Grader Needs to Know from the Core Knowledge series is our spine for these subjects, each one given it's own day. We'll also use this time for art and music appreciation (see below for links to our curriculum choices in these areas.)
So here's our revised curriculum and daily schedule (as my readers wait with bated breath):
8:00 Breakfast, Bible and *Memorywork with Sam
8:45 Copywork--quotes, scripture from bible lesson, poetry and grammar from FLL
9:00 Spanish--Speedy Spanish, Learnables, Powerglide, (cds, dvds, activity books...we're going for immersion here, and I'm learning too!)
9:30 Math--Horizons Grade 2
10:00 Break...usually a walk or bike ride with mom the teacher and Bogart the dog! We try to do a bit of nature observation during this time as well.
10:30 Piano practice--Pianimals Bk A
10:45 Phonics--MCP Plaid Phonics Bk B (see link above)
11:00 Language--First Language Lessons (see link above)
11:15 Reading--Beginner's Bible, Nature Reader, Silly Things Happen (see link above)
11:45 Lunch (my favorite part of the day!)
12:30 Rotating Subjects:
Monday-World History (What Your 2nd Grader...) and Geography (Evan Moor Beginning Geography set)
Tuesday-Science (What Your 2nd Grader....)
Wednesday-Artistic Pursuits K-3 (art practice and appreciation)
Thursday-American History (What Your 2nd Grader....)
Friday-Classical Magic (music appreciation)
During dead time in the car waiting to pick up kids: Classical Kids, spanish cds and activity books from the library, and books-on-tape (currently listening to Peter Pan unabridged!) or read aloud (also reading Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin).
Evenings are Family Read Aloud time. This year we're focusing on 1st grade Literature recomendations, again from What Your Second Grader Needs to Know. (see link above). We'll be reading Grimm's Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales, Andrew Lang's Fairy Books (The Red Fairy Book, orange, green, etc), James Baldwin's 50 Famous Stories Retold.
We'll also have a chapter book going for this time as the above stories are brief. I'm using rec's from Books to Build On for the most part. And of course, we won't forget to revisit favorite classic and picture books, poetry, and Hardy Boys with dad!
*Memorywork includes: quotes, poetry, scripture, spanish vocabulary, artists, grammar terms, and math facts. It takes all of 10 minutes, and I use this for organizing all this memory work and review each day. 'Tis fabulous. Highly recommended.
It seems like a ton when I write it out like this, but it's really not. We focus on getting 'readin' ritin' and 'rithmetic done everyday...if that's all that happens, I'm good with saying "We've done the minimum." When we get bible, memorywork and piano in, I'm feeling pretty darn good. And if the after-lunch subjects get finished then, dude, I'm totally, like, flyin'.
Hope you've enjoyed this little foray into my homeschool. I'll take some pics soon of our study area...still working on getting it set up the way I want. And it might be good if I can find the camera.
Back to lesson planning!
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2 comments:
How is your schedule working out now. I gotta give you credit. I don't think I plan so well here. We kinda just do whatever feels right. Maizie taught me that. Not to say we don't work...just in a non scheduled way. I miss schedules though. Just does not work with Maizie.
Well, we don't really do a 'schedule' per se...more like routine. We start with this, go to that, etc. Sometimes that starts at 9, sometimes 2! Also we always take a 30 minute break after every 2 subjects.
I've never been good at scheduling, even when I *had* to while the 6 kids were all home. I wasn't doing so well back then!
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