Home School Curriculum Plans 08-09

I have spent the last month searching the Internet, talking with other home school Moms, researching curriculum, checking prices, re-checking prices, etc ... and I have FINALLY made my decisions and ordered all of my curriculum for the coming school year. Whew! It's been a little crazy, it's been one of the biggest tasks I've taken on in awhile, but I'm happy about our choices and feel confident that we are going to have a great year.

I'm going to try my best to outline our plans ... hopefully it will come across as organized and easy to understand.

For J - Kindergarten

I purchased (for $4) a book called "Making the Grade, everything your kindergartner needs to know" - in the book they outline literacy, math, science and social studies. This will provide me with some basic guidelines for 'covering all the bases' for kindergarten.

Spectrum workbooks by Mercer Mayer - with those super cute 'Little Critter' characters ... I purchased four workbooks:
{Reading}
{Beginning Phonics}
{Language}
{Math}

{Handwriting} - Abeka writing with Phonics K

I want to keep kindergarten fun and easygoing. J is my one who doesn't like to sit still and I really want her learning experience to be fun and not be filled with too much busy work. The workbooks I purchased are cute and funny and lighthearted. I think they will be the perfect thing for J. (And I pinky swear that I won't high pressure her to finish every page!) =)

We will also spend LOTS of time reading, as this is key in learning to read. And she will join H and I in several other subjects ... you'll read more about that later.

For H - Second Grade

Another great $4 find was "What Your Second Grader Needs to Know". This book covers language, geography, fine arts, math and natural sciences. Once again I will use (some) of this book to help me cover the bases. I also like some of the poetry that is included in this book so I may use some of that.

{Math} - Horizons
{Language Reading and Phonics} - Abeka (we're gonna stick with what we know for language. I thought they did a great job with their language program and we decided to stick with them.)
{Spelling} - Abeka
{Writing} - Abeka writing with Phonics - cursive (our book from last year, we chose not to do cursive for first grade so we'll start that this year.)

Combined subjects:

{History} - The Story of the World (we will also do a group project with our co-op friends once a month)

{Geography} - Children's Atlas of the 50 states
- Fabulous Facts about the 50 states {learning and exploring more about our great country!}
- Children Around the World (we will choose one country per week to learn about and focus on.)

{Bible} - God and Me 2 Devotions for Girls ages 6-9

{Spanish} - Play and Learn Spanish Book and CD {ALL of us will be learning this together since I never took Spanish ... we're just starting off kind of easy.}

{Science} - CO-OP!! YAY, this year we plan to take part in a science co-op. We'll meet once a week with about 8-10 other homeschoolers for a hands on science lesson. We've chosen 9 topics to study for the year which gives us a whole month (or about 4 lessons) to focus on each subject. A few of the subjects are: plants, animals, weather, the universe, light, sound, bugs, etc...
Various Books will be used as all the Moms will take turns with the teaching. A few books that I purchased and will use are:
Let's Read and Find out Science Books
Magic School Bus
Play and Find out About Science
Fascinating Science Projects

{Art} - we will do LOTS of arts and crafts projects at home. The girls will also have more formal art lessons with Grandpa just like they did last year. And will visit a few local art museums too.

{Music} - ??? This is one area that I have no experience. I'm still up in the air about what to do for music.

{Phys. Ed.} - Family hikes, bikes, swims, etc ...
- soccer for Haley in the fall
- swimming lessons for both in the winter and spring
- possibly use some indoor DVD's for winter time?

{Social} - Awana
- Girl Scouts
- Sunday School
- Playdates

{For fun in the classroom}

-I ordered two hand puppets (for teaching the lesson, helping keep things fun, etc)
-Spontaneous activity box (more to come about this)
-More hands on experiments and activities
-Less table time -- more variety and changing teaching locations
-Keep it fun!

As I mentioned above my goal for this year is to keep learning fun. Last year I was so uptight about H needing to complete worksheets that I failed to enjoy all the wonderful resources around me. This year we plan to do more field trips, more exploring, more laid back reading, more FUN!! I have some great ideas that I've been picking up here and there from other homeschoolers (on the Internet and in person) so I'll be adding some of those ideas in the coming weeks.