Classical Academic Press God's Great Covenant, New Testament 1
It is a little text book "ish" but we seem to do better with this approach for Bible so I am going to go with it. It is meant for 4th grade and up so I am hoping to meet all the kids needs with it- Emily is used to material a little above her grade level.
I also like that it has audio- which is great for us!
We have a few more weeks of our Old Testament but will be done by June--- this curriculum says it is available summer of 2011 .... so we will do some smaller studies like Armor of God, Fruits of the Spirit, maybe work on memorization, or just focus on our Word Of Life Curriculum for a few weeks until we get the new curriculum.
Math curriculum:
Math U SEE-- we are keeping for math, just need to order the new book for Kate and new workbooks for Matt and Emily!
Science curriculum:
We are doing a May - August study of Apologia Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day, but we will shorten it of course.
Starting in September we will be doing Physics.
We will be either using Christian Kids Explore Physics
Here is a review of this series...
Or
English curriculum:
I am stuck on this. I would really like to get away from using three different books to do one subject, I think the kids would prefer a more text book like approach to this and just be done! I don't want to over "teach" this either simply because I THINK I am supposed to be teaching it! I am thinking about doing LLATL and each child doing their own level-- which is more work for me of course, but it give the kids "what they need to be learning on their level".
Here is a review-- most mention that it teaches the "subject" matter but in a whole way which is more what I am looking for- I can say I am teaching grammar but not be all text book about it!
If not I will probably use Rod and Staff English.
We will continue using All About Spelling.
Literature- we will continue with our reading lists, history period readers and books from LLATL.
Writing-
We will begin Institute for Excellence in Writing Kate, the full program in the Fall
Matt- will continue working with him- without pushing
Emily- we will simply work on sentence structure and fun books and stories OR I will possibly use Write Shop with Emily and Matt with the story builders. But I would be real laid back and easy about it-- YOU know because I am so laid back and easy! :0)
History curriculum:
We will continue with our study of American history, we should get through 1850 by August and start our next school year with the Civil War! Over the course of next year we will study 1850 to present.
Along with our state study and president study.
ART/ MUSIC
We will continue using for our study of American artists.
We will simply continue studying composers/ artist and terminology.. choosing one a month and going from there with living books, listening, watching and hopefully experience "real life" performances as often as possible.
I am hoping for Kaitlin to continue art at the Glassel School of Art next semester-- I would like her to take a sketching course.
Unit Study--
I will continue to base these on
NEED- like for instance us doing a baking unit because the kids were struggling with measurements.
Opportunity- if a play like Pinocchio is coming up I would like to utilize the weeks leading up to it by reading the book, seeing a movie, studying the author, learning about marionette puppets etc.
Season-- of course Fall is a great time to study weather or "elections", winter is great for snow, Advent study, spring- you can learn about planting, butterflies and summer is great for fun stuff- the water cycle, geology.
Historical period-- breaking down time period, doing a unit on a particular person and studying them more in depth, learning about a custom or particular event...
Living events- the tsunami or earthquake can start questions and doing a unit on this can help Or obviously an election or important vote coming up can spark an interest in the election process or how you get a bill passed. A re-do in the bathroom can be used to learn carpentry, color palettes, measurement and planning. Baseball season can be used to study players, history, the math of baseball or terminology.
Physical Education...
HA. No just kidding. We will swim all summer, we will look into starting tap and gymnastics up again in the fall. I would love to find a christian karate some where close-- I am looking into it again.
The kids often do 20 straight minutes of workout/ type active Wii activity a day. We scooter, walk over 2 miles regularly, play at the park and HOPE to go back to the YMCA or find a different program, as that is not working out very well for me right now. We will see. Mostly whatever I say is subject to change, due to no motivation, scheduling issues and just plain too many balls juggling!
Handwriting:
They will all be using cursive next year. We will probably continue using A Reason For Writing. It is four days a week and then on the fifth day they have sheet to write out the whole passage and they can color it.
But I will possibly simply use Write Start-- which allows me to print what I want on the sheet, so I could really conform it to scriptures we are already learning, dates, name of history and or quotes. I could even use vocabulary or spelling words for each child!
Those are my thoughts SO FAR.... what are you doing next year?
2 comments:
Look @ Erin's review of Writing Tales today..... www.afullheart.blogspot.com
It's really got me thinking about it. Maybe not what you want, I don't know.
And thank you for reminding me about Write Start. Does it do HWT font?
The Write Start program is really neat :)
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