We are into our 3rd full week of school and are getting in the swing of our subjects. I have finally put together a post to share with you what we've got going this year in our classroom. This year I am teaching Second Grade and Preschool.
Little Britches
Bible
This year we are going to be adding a morning family Bible study to our school day. I am going to be using two books that I have seen been used by other homeschooling families that I think are a perfect match for us.
We will be working our way through both of these books doing 1-2 chapters each week. The illustrations are gorgeous and I love the subjects each book covers! This will be done at our kitchen table immediately following breakfast. I will show you how it's going and give you a 1 week plan that I'm using to do these books later so you can see how the books are working for us.
We also have Bible lessons that are part of our CORE curriculum that we do as well.
English
Pentime 2 and 3
I wasn't originally sure what I was going to use for our English. It's the first time I have had to add in material to our curriculum as the past two years we had full boxed sets. But while I was at the homeschool convention in Cinncinnati this past Spring, I examined products from many companies...but nothing was quire right. Then I came upon a booth with FLL and I went--wait a minute! I have that!
Needless to say, finding out you already own something that will work is a great feeling!
We decided to add in Sequential Spelling (recommend by several friends) as well as Pentime for our Handwriting. I plan on writing another post soon on each subject with samples and updates on how it is going for us.
Math
Singapore Math 1B and 2A
We had to come up with our own math this year. I was drawn to the Singapore Math program, so I was eager to actually use it. We have a great daily lesson plan for teaching it from My Father's World. I opted to start in the 1B to fill in any gaps and after using it for a couple week's I'm VERY glad I did.
History/Science/Geography
My Father's World: Adventures in US History (2nd Grade)
This is where our core is this year. These three subjects (plus Bible) are my boxed curriculum for the year. History this year is a US History focus which is great since we have been on a world history focus thus far. Science is taught from the USBORNE books in the package and will be focused on Birds as well as Science with Air and Science in the Kitchen. I love that this year Science is put right in the weekly schedule twice a week. Little Britches LOVES doing Science and was happy to flip through the books to see what we were doing this year. Geography is going hand in hand with History of the US, but there is a focus on the states and learning about them and their capitals this year.
There are also some great Read Aloud's this year that are part of this package. They are "extras" which will help drive home the history of the era we will be studying. Here is a list of what books will be read this year:
Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims; The Courage of Sarah Noble; On the Banks of Plum Creek; Sarah Whitcher's Story, In Grandma's Attic, Mountain Born, and Farmer Boy.
Art/Music
Patriotic Songs of the USA
Classical Composers
Art History
Art this year is going to continue similarly to how we've done it thus far. We do some simple projects here at home and then Little Britches goes over to be with my mother-in-law once a week and does something more detailed. If you don't remember from previous posts, she is an art major so she loves being his art teacher. In the second half of the year I am going to have her start introducing him to master artists. I am considering a few possibilities for that...but I think I will let her create her own lesson plans for it which she will love.
Music this year is beginning as a study in patriotic songs...we received a great Patriotic CD as part of our Curriculum for the US History. So we will be learning these songs over the course of the year.
I am also going to be adding some Music History focusing on a few major composers. I am not 100% sure how I'm going to do this...as a piano teacher myself, I have access to a lot of information and I might just create some printables on my own for this. (and yes I will share them with you if I do!)
Erica of Confessions of a Homeschooler has a great composer study...but I don't own any of the books she uses as "textbooks" for her program.
For PE this year we have some goals and things to work on for skills...and we will be doing it here on the farm or over at the basektball and tennis courts down the road.
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Baby Britches
Our "Core" so to speak for Baby Britches is the Zoomin' Moving Alphabet by Royal Baloo
Each one of the letters stands for a vehicle of some kind and this is right up my Baby Britches alley. Baby Britches is three years old and already has complete letter recognition for both the capital and lower-case letters and can say their name. He also can repeat the names of numbers, words, whatever when you ask now. It is amazing how far he's come since May when he was diagnosed with the Expressive Speech Delay.
These packets from Royal Baloo work not only on ABC's but number identification, color identification, sight words, cutting practice, letter formation, graphing and more! They are fabulous! At this time we are doing one letter packet a week and I don't do everything...I just pick the printables I want him to work on and print those off. I do a lot of laminating in this packet too.
I will also be using bits and pieces from the ABC/123 printable page from Confessions of a Homeschooler.
I have the Blue Manor PreSchool Curriculum to draw from.
And naturally he'll be listening in to our Bible time and any other Read Aloud portion of the 2nd grade program. I have Sensory Bins/Trays for him to work on as well as other manipulatives--especially puzzles and sorting. He LOVES puzzles and sorting.
He will also join us for PE outside and hopefully work on his jumping, throwing, catching...normal skills for this age to have!
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There you have it! I will be sharing with you some of our weeks so you can see we are fitting it together. I also am trying something new this year--organization and lesson planning! I know, novel idea huh? (snicker) but for me, I HAD to find something that works, and thus far the system I'm using is working like a charm. So I want to share it with you in case you TOO need something...I will be writing that post up for next week, so make sure you check in for it!
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