Thursday, July 22, 2010

School Year Plan....so far

I really haven't had a lot of time to ponder what our year will look like. So for the moment I kind of mostly know what we're going to be using, but I'm not sure yet how we'll be structuring our days. I do know we are hoping for a 4 day school week, but we'll see. We may just have a 5 day with one day being a lighter load. Here's the breakdown thus far:

All
Bible together - We typically have a short devotion, Bible story, then take turns reading the corresponding scripture, a short discussion, scripture memory practice and prayer. Sometimes we also sing praise and worship music. This usually takes about a half an hour or more, but we LOVE this time together.
We'll finish this time together with a lesson from 1st Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind, mostly for Mason's benefit, but the girls enjoy reviewing the poems and it doesn't hurt them to review the language rules while he learns them. These lessons are very short.
Science - Apologia's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day ~ We may also buy the corresponding lapbook or notebooking pages.
History - The Mystery of History Volume 1
I definitely have to figure out how we are going to structure this time together and exactly how we will do the science and history. I'm leaning toward spending two days on Science and two days on History each week, but I'm not sure yet.

Mason
Reading - We need to hit this subject hard this year. Mason can sound out words, but has no confidence in his own abilities, so we'll really be working on that. I plan to use a combination of things: MCP Plaid Phonics; Explode the Code and Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. He's been through most of 100 Easy Lessons, but enjoys the lessons, so I thought going back through it might help boost his confidence. We'll also be using Bob Books.
Math - Modern Curriculum Press as well as some math games and memorization tools.
Spelling - Spelling Workout
Language - Possibly - Scott Foresman's Grammar and Writing Handbook

Keeli
Math - Modern Curriculum Press and Memorization tools
Spelling - Spelling Workout and ???? She struggles in this area and I may look into some curriculum for struggling spellers.

Kelsi
Math - Memorization tools and ?????? probably Teaching Textbooks, but I'm still slightly undecided.
Vocabulary - ????

Both Girls
Language - Simply Grammar? and Scott Foresman's Grammar and Writing Handbook
I will also add journaling this year.
Literature - I will be assigning books and book reports this year. Not sure which books yet, another decision that must be made soon.

It looks a little overwhelming, but I plan to break it down into very manageable days and we are not participating in co-op this year, so we should be good. I'm hoping for a 3-4 hour school day. Their reading and journaling would be done in "free" time. Both girls like to read and I'm pretty sure they will enjoy the journaling as well, so I don't feel like those will make their load feel any heavier.

I'm also planning to start a Bible Study with the girls this year and think we'll all enjoy that time together. We may also try to find a way to squeeze some art in. I have some good curriculum and the supplies and think they'd enjoy doing that at least once a week. Also, some of the subjects that have multiple things listed, if we find that some of them are unnecessary we will drop them. I'm pretty flexible (took me a LONG time to learn that) and like to do what works for us, so I usually make out a schedule then adapt it as we go to what is actually working for us.

1 comment:

Jordan@Me and My 8 said...

So exciting! I love this time of the year.