Our Curriculum 2011-2012

Well we have successfully completed our first official year of homeschooling.  Now it’s time to plan the next!  So here are our choices:

                                                                                          

As our core we will be Exploring Countries and Cultures with My Father’s World.  Typically we would be doing Adventures with My Father’s World for 2nd grade, but we have the opportunity to continue our co-op with my sister and some dear friends. So we are choosing ECC this year and looking forward to it!

 

We will be traveling the world exploring different countries and their cultures!!!

ECC includes lessons for Bible, history, geography, science, read alouds, art/crafts, cooking, nature study, and music!

Every Thursday our co-op will meet to complete ECC projects, crafts, cooking, geography games, memory verse games, science projects, etc.

 

Geography supplements we are using: (Since some of the books that came with ECC seem to be to advanced for a second grader, we will be supplementing with more age appropriate books.  We will use the other items in 5 years when we travel with ECC again.)

 

Some added read aloud resources:

Other supplements:

Math-U-See Beta and Gamma

Learning Language Arts Through Literature Red Book and Readers

All About Spelling Level 2

Harmony Fine Arts Grade 1 Overview Year in addition to I Can Do All Things art book and paint cards.

American Sign Language-  I took 7 classes of ASL in college (which was a VERY long time ago). I pulled out my old resources and am working on word cards to add to our morning board.

 

So what will little ladybug be working on? 

Well I am throwing a few things together to keep her busy.  She wants to do “school work” and coloring just doesn’t cut it!  If she is not cutting and pasting, then she thinks she isn’t doing “school work!”  So we will be using:

Before Five in A Row-  We will be reading age appropriate books and adding hands on activities that go with the book, such as, lapbooks, cooking, crafts, and games.  Check out Delightful Learning’s great rowing posts!

Learning the letters of the alphabet.  Little Ladybug is working on learning the alphabet song, but that’s as far as we have gotten in this area.  So she will be learning a letter a week, or every two, depending on her readiness to learn.

To do this we will be using Teach Me Joy Animal Play downloadable preschool curriculum.  It is described nicely in this blog post. 

 

 

Added resources: 

And Little Lizard will be joining in as we go. 

So for now I am busy planning and setting up a file workbox system.  I am excited that all the planning will be done in advance and everything will be printed and ready to go, week by week.

Check out the details for setting up this great system at Discover Their Gifts. 

You can also check out what others are planning for their 2011-2012 school year here!

Upcoming Review: Time 4 Learning

 

 

Required disclosure:

I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. Time4Learning can be used for homeschool, afterschool and summer skill sharpening. Be sure to come back and read about my experience.

Where and What We Are Learning

Our schooling mainly happens at the kitchen table.  I would love to have a room dedicated just to schooling, but for now, the kitchen it is!  Big ladybug loves the morning board I put together.  Here she is able to post the color and shape of the day, weather for the day, review her calendar, post what day of the week it is, write the date, write the time, review her memory verse, and the books of the bible she is learning.  She also has a coin cup that she adds a penny to every day of school, and is responsible for exchanging the coins as needed.  She thinks the sparkle rainbow boarder is a nice touch!

We do not have much extra space in our home, but I found this great 4 drawer cabinet at Hobby Lobby.  We put most of our school supplies in here.  One drawer is for all the pencils, markers, scissors, etc.; another has our math manipulatives, morning board tags, etc.; the third stores the readers; and the fourth has all of the science books for the week.  The kids also love drawing on the dry erase board!

 

Big ladybug loves knowing what we are doing for the day, so the grid sheet schedule works great.  My sister was great and made tags for me of all of the curriculum and activities big ladybug is involved in.  They are attached with Velcro tabs so they are easily added and removed as needed.  I store all of the tags for the morning board and for the schedule in this little container.

View Full Album

Our version of workboxes is a binder.  Big ladybug has her own binder with her daily school activities in there.  Each subjects has its own folder and Velcro tab.

View Full Album

We chose My Father’s World First Grade this year.   It is a bible-based curriculum and a phonics-based reading program.  Science includes Things Outdoors, Science with Water, and Science with Plants.  Overall, I am pleased with it for bible and science, however, I am supplementing it for math and reading.  It moves pretty fast with the reading and I felt as though big ladybug needed a little more.   

We are using Horizons Math 1, Christian Light Education’s Learning to Read and Language Arts, Writing with Ease, All About Spelling, and I Can Do All Things for art.

                     

                    

Overall we are enjoying most of our selections, however, I wished we would have picked something else for our math.  I am not to crazy about the Horizon’s teacher’s manual, but we are making it work.

Stay tuned for what we have learned so far.  I am new at blogging and have some catch-up to do!