Here is what I ambitiously hope to accomplish with my kiddies this year in school:
We will be trying lapbooking and notebooking with a little bit of lap-n-note thrown in. I might even have them do an exploding box or two. I will have them do a few research type papers (maybe) and book reports on free reading books, but I think the intense study of essay writing can wait a little longer.
I purchased the program Accelerated Achievement (A2) when we first started in January. It is a K-12 curriculum that encompasses L.A., History, Math, Copywork, Reading, Writing, and Science. We will follow the courses as suggested for each grade level. I started all three of them in Kindergarten. They each are working at their own pace. Obviously I expect both girls to breeze through the lessons and reading materials until they get to their current grade levels. I just felt that having them start at the beginning will give them a better foundation for what they should be learning in their grade levels. Savion will join in on anything he has an interest in.
Language Arts:
History:
Penmanship: copy work from various resources encompassing a variety of topics and hand written letters.
Social Studies: We've decided to adopt missionaries around the world in a country that each child is interested in. What I mean by adopt is to write to the mission president in the country of interest and ask him to forward our letters to a missionary that does not get letters from anyone. We would like to write to those missionaries to let them know that someone out there does care about them and hopefully learn about the country, language and culture from their perspective while we also look up the same information in library resources. Negina - France, Natania - Tasmania, Stevie - Spain.
Computer Literacy: I have a great program called Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. I like it because it has basic typing lessons with games that reinforce what was learned. It gives tests to help see where additional lessons would help and there is a practice area where you can download your own documents for the children to copy from if you wish. I am considering purchasing the Mavis Beacon Keyboarding Kidz, but I haven't decided yet. I'm not sure how I feel about spending money on another program if the first will work out fine. I will give it one month and if it is too difficult for any of them, I will buy the Kidz version. We also have quite a few JumpStart games and other educational programs both on- and off-line that the kids can use during their allotted computer time. I hope to purchase a membership at Jump Start but that will have to wait until it fits into our budget. The kids have limited access, but it really isn't much fun when you get into it and the site tells you that you need to buy a membership to continue.
Character Building: I will be using The Book of Virtues by William Bennett Study which is free. This book of lesson plans that is based on the stories in this book was created by a homeschooling mom who wanted to help her children develop good character.
Gospel study: Scripture Hero book. I hope that by the end of the year they will know these great people intimately. The hope is that as they learn about each hero they will get a better understanding of the gospel principles, a better understanding of who they are and who they can be, and a stronger foundation in their faith to help them through all the trials they will face in this life. So, this will be a continuous project. Once they finish one, they will move on to another. I got the idea from The Redheaded Hostess and her printable booklet is here. She has a booklet that is more girly here. I also intend to have them learn songs from the Hymn book and the Children's Songbook by doing music charts like we used to have when I was in primary . . . the kind that had pictures to represent the main words to make it easier to learn it.
Art: I found a drawing course called ABC You Can Draw. After that, we'll see what peaks each child's interest and try to learn about it. And I'll count all the other projects they'll be doing this year in other subjects.
Music: We will be using the Church's Keyboard Course.
Foreign Language: We will again try to teach both Hawaiian and Japanese. Hawaiian will be very limited until I can find a "textbook" or program and we will use Free Japanese Lessons, for none other than, Japanese. Thankfully Steve knows the correct pronunciation for Japanese sounds, so that will help a lot.
Health, Nutrition & P.E.: basically have the kids continue to plan and prepare healthy meals for the family and play, a lot.
Like I said, this is totally ambitious. I really would like to be able to do all of this, but . . . we'll see.
We will be trying lapbooking and notebooking with a little bit of lap-n-note thrown in. I might even have them do an exploding box or two. I will have them do a few research type papers (maybe) and book reports on free reading books, but I think the intense study of essay writing can wait a little longer.
I purchased the program Accelerated Achievement (A2) when we first started in January. It is a K-12 curriculum that encompasses L.A., History, Math, Copywork, Reading, Writing, and Science. We will follow the courses as suggested for each grade level. I started all three of them in Kindergarten. They each are working at their own pace. Obviously I expect both girls to breeze through the lessons and reading materials until they get to their current grade levels. I just felt that having them start at the beginning will give them a better foundation for what they should be learning in their grade levels. Savion will join in on anything he has an interest in.
Language Arts:
- phonics activities and sentence building cards from A2, the girls will help Stevie with these so they can learn proper grammar also;
- McGuffey's Readers;
- Anderson's Fairy Tales, Pinocchio, Dr. Doolittle, Aesops Fables, Just So Stories, Jungle Book, and Alice in Wonderland for literature;
- new words introduced in McGuffey's Readers and Dolch Sight words from Mrs. Perkins' Dolch Words for spelling for Stevie while the girls will work from Word Lessons in A2;
History:
- History of the United States: Told in one syllable words by Josephine Pollard
- Life of George Washington by Josephine Pollard
- and various materials available in the public library and online
Penmanship: copy work from various resources encompassing a variety of topics and hand written letters.
Social Studies: We've decided to adopt missionaries around the world in a country that each child is interested in. What I mean by adopt is to write to the mission president in the country of interest and ask him to forward our letters to a missionary that does not get letters from anyone. We would like to write to those missionaries to let them know that someone out there does care about them and hopefully learn about the country, language and culture from their perspective while we also look up the same information in library resources. Negina - France, Natania - Tasmania, Stevie - Spain.
Computer Literacy: I have a great program called Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. I like it because it has basic typing lessons with games that reinforce what was learned. It gives tests to help see where additional lessons would help and there is a practice area where you can download your own documents for the children to copy from if you wish. I am considering purchasing the Mavis Beacon Keyboarding Kidz, but I haven't decided yet. I'm not sure how I feel about spending money on another program if the first will work out fine. I will give it one month and if it is too difficult for any of them, I will buy the Kidz version. We also have quite a few JumpStart games and other educational programs both on- and off-line that the kids can use during their allotted computer time. I hope to purchase a membership at Jump Start but that will have to wait until it fits into our budget. The kids have limited access, but it really isn't much fun when you get into it and the site tells you that you need to buy a membership to continue.
Character Building: I will be using The Book of Virtues by William Bennett Study which is free. This book of lesson plans that is based on the stories in this book was created by a homeschooling mom who wanted to help her children develop good character.
Gospel study: Scripture Hero book. I hope that by the end of the year they will know these great people intimately. The hope is that as they learn about each hero they will get a better understanding of the gospel principles, a better understanding of who they are and who they can be, and a stronger foundation in their faith to help them through all the trials they will face in this life. So, this will be a continuous project. Once they finish one, they will move on to another. I got the idea from The Redheaded Hostess and her printable booklet is here. She has a booklet that is more girly here. I also intend to have them learn songs from the Hymn book and the Children's Songbook by doing music charts like we used to have when I was in primary . . . the kind that had pictures to represent the main words to make it easier to learn it.
Art: I found a drawing course called ABC You Can Draw. After that, we'll see what peaks each child's interest and try to learn about it. And I'll count all the other projects they'll be doing this year in other subjects.
Music: We will be using the Church's Keyboard Course.
Foreign Language: We will again try to teach both Hawaiian and Japanese. Hawaiian will be very limited until I can find a "textbook" or program and we will use Free Japanese Lessons, for none other than, Japanese. Thankfully Steve knows the correct pronunciation for Japanese sounds, so that will help a lot.
Health, Nutrition & P.E.: basically have the kids continue to plan and prepare healthy meals for the family and play, a lot.
Like I said, this is totally ambitious. I really would like to be able to do all of this, but . . . we'll see.
2 comments:
Wow!! Your busy!!! We homeschool too. This is our second year :) We actually coupon too :) Are you on pinterest? Would love to follow you and see what cool things you find. Sound like you have some great things planned for the year
I have not looked into pinterest ... yet. I've been meaning to, but haven't found the time, and I've been wanting to use stumbleupon also. I'll let you know when I do get around to those.
How is your homeschooling adventure going?
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