Planning for 2013

WOW!  The past year has zipped by at a VERY rapid rate of knots! It's time to plan and purchase for 2013 already!

Flossy will be year 4, Bugsy year 2, Chicky Pre-Primary (US K equivalent) and Possum will be 2yo.

So here is what we have planned for a super fun year -

Flossy age 8, year 4 -
Galore Park Junior Maths book 2* & 3
Kumon Word Problems Grade 3* & 4
Khan Academy
Logic workbooks & games
IEW SWI-A*
Galore Park Junior English Book 2*
Classical House of Learning History & Literature (SOTW4)

Bugsy age 7, year 2 -
Rightstart C
Kumon Word Problems 2
Khan Academy
Logic workbooks & games
All About Speling 2* & 3
Explode the Code 6, 7 & 8
I See Sam Readers*
Writing With Ease 2

Chicky age 5, Pre-primary -
Rightstart B
Kumon Word Problems 1
Logic games
All About Spelling 1 & 2
Explode the Code 1, 2 & 3
Handwriting Without Tears My Printing Book
I See Sam Readers*

Possum age 2 -
Speech Therapy
Occupational Therapy

Together -
Auslan using various resources from Bilby Publishing

Engineering is Elementary which i will flesh out to include cultural study for Bugsy & Chicky as their 'program' for the year.  We will spend 2 weeks on each book, which will include the engineering project and geography/culture for the country.

Lego Mindstorms, Snap Circuits 750 & other STEM programming activities as listed here.

Come & Look with me (art appreciation)

Various art and crafts as instigated by the children

Nature study

Music appreciation (classical)

Swimming, surf club & Scouts

NOTES -
Bugsy & Chicky will not 'tag along' with Flossy for SOTW4 this year.  I think it is too heavy for them at their ages/maturity and Flossy will follow her own course of study mostly independently for the year.  Bugsy & Chicky will instead have a STEM focus for the year and Flossy will join in as her science.

Yes, we are changing up our maths.  Flossy completed the entire Miquon line up as per our maths scope and sequence posted here.  You learn a lot about a program when you complete it from start to finish that you wouldn't know without using it in it's entirety.  Whilst i love Miquon and what it has to offer i have learned that it isn't going to be the right fit for Chicky and i think Bugsy is far enough into it that it's time for a change for him.  He's set off on the right foot as Miquon is such a solid foundation that it's the right time to change him.

We are also dropping Latin.  This has been a really tough decision for me.  I can see and completely understand the benefits that Latin has however it is taking up a significant portion of my time working with Flossy and understanding it all.  Possum needs to learn more Auslan as he doesn't talk.  So we will be switching Latin for Auslan for the time being.  I already have Latin Prep from Galore Park which is what we were going to do after Getting Started with Latin.  I will now shelve this and hand it on to Flossy to complete independently maybe in year 5 or 6.

Items marked * are programs that we have been working on this year which need completion.  As we school year round we start new books as and when required, not necessarily at the beginning of the year which means that some books hang over to the following year :)

Tentative plan for 2014 is an Australian History year for everyone before beginning the 4 year history cycle again in 2015.

Homeschool Plans for 2012

Flossy Aussie Year 3 -

All About Spelling 5, 6 & 7
First Language Lessons 4
Reading & narrating/notebooking from history & literature selections
Institute for Excellent in Writing Student Writing Intensive A
Unjournaling
Writing With Ease 3
The Poetry Pad
**Writing programs are not used in their entirety. They are used to complement each other and provide diversity.**
New American Cursive
Miquon yellow & purple - will move to Singapore from SGBox once completed
Math Mammoth - used as a supplement to help cement Miquon understanding where needed, topic books only
Kumon Word Problems grade 3 - used a grade below instructional level to ensure thorough understanding of the arithmetic needed so the focus is on decoding the problem
Getting Started with Latin - continue

Bugsy Aussie Year 1 -

All About Spelling 1 & 2
Explode the Code 4, 5, 6 - will use 1/2 books as necessary
I See Sam readers - needs more confidence then moving onto 'real' books
Writing With Ease 1
Handwriting Without Tears Letters and Numbers for Me & My Printing Book - needs more confidence
Miquon red & blue
Kumon Word Problems Grade 1 - again used a grade below instructional level

Chicky Aussie Kindy -

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
Explode the Code Primers
Reading Eggs
Bob Books
Nora Gaydos readers
Handwriting Without Tears Get Set for School & Letters and Numbers for Me
Activities for the AL Abacus unit 1
Miquon Orange

For everyone -

Literature selections -
Adventures of Don Quixote
Great Expectations Stepping Stones
Gulliver's Travels classic starts
Les Miserables stepping stones
Moby Dick Classic starts
Robinson Crusoe classic starts
Three Musketeers stepping stones
The Princess and the Goblin
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Tom Sawyer
A Pilgrims Progress
Favorite Jane Austen Novels
Perrault's Fairy Tales
Anne of Green Gables
Around the World in Eighty Days
The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin
Children's Stories from Dickens

Story of the World 3 with Activity Guide
Go along books -
American Revolution MTH
Amos Fortune, Free Man
Eyewitness Ancient China
Boston Tea Party
Carry on Mr Bowditch
Eyewitness Castle
Civil War on Sunday MTH
The Door in the Wall
Explorers News
Ginger Pye
Meet a thomas Jefferson
Night of the Ninjas MTH
Eyewitness North American Indian
Peter the Great
Pirated MTH
Pirates Past Noon MTH
Revolutionary War on Wednesday MTH
Sign of the Beaver
Squanto's Journey
Thanksgiving on Thursday MTH
Tigers at Twilight MTH
Who was Ben Franklin?
Witch of Blackbird Pond
You wouldn't want to be Mary, Queen of Scots
You wouldn't want to be Sick in the 16th Century
Norwegian Folk Tales
The Boy Who Held back the Sea
The Village that Vanished
The Cat who went to Heaven
Folk Tales from India
Russian Gypsy Tales
The Best Book of Pirates
The Gold Coin
Famous People of Mexico

Geography - home grown studies
Geography of the World
A Childs Introduction to the World
Around the World in 80 Tales
Material World
Maps & globes
Geography A to Z
Complete Flags of the World
Flags of the World sticker book

Science in a Nutshell kits fleshed out with science encyclopedias to form unit studies
The Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia
The Usborne Internet Linked Science Encyclopedia
The Usborne Illustrated Dictionary of Science
DK Science
Vision & Hearing kit
Body basics kit
Weather wise kit
Destination Moon kit
Energy and Motion kit
Snap circuits

Nature Study
Keeping a Nature Journal
The Nature Connection
Local field guides

Harmony Fine Arts - art appreciation, artist study, art creation, music appreciation, composer study all relating to our history time period

Institute for Excellence in Writing Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization

Swimming Lessons

Logic games and workbooks

Mid Year Review

So it's July and it's time to have a mid year review just to check how things are going and see if we are on track.

Flossy -
She has completed Math Mammoth Addition & Subtraction 2B and has really cemented those concepts. She is about half way through Miquon Blue. I had planned on her being further along in Miquon but we needed to pit stop so the delay is to be expected. In saying that she has a solid understanding of multiplication covered in Miquon and is probably working on a late 2nd early 3rd grade level. We have shelved Kumon word Problems for a little while as it was presenting some concepts that we had not yet covered. We will be getting back into it in the second half of the year.

She has been motoring along in AAS3 and is almost done. She very rarely makes a mistake and really enjoys it. I'm hopeful that we will finished AAS4 and be part way through AAS5 before the end of the year. That would see only AAS6 & AAS7 for next year.

WWE2 has been going well. She narrates well and rarely makes a mistake with the copy work. I am starting to have her write the first sentence of her narrations. I'm thinking of changing things up a bit with writing and might take a look at Galore Parks Junior English books. I've also got a book about writing poetry on the shelf and we might have a go at that. We won't drop WWE2 just mix things up a bit. It's good keep it fresh.

REAL Life Science is proving a hit. We are right on track with that. I honestly feel that this is below her level. She isn't learning too much new material, but it is getting done and it is fun.

With SOTW2 we are a little behind. I'd like to see us do a few more projects in the second half of the year and be a little more consistent with narrations. I'm thinking of posting them here so she can see them published, she'd think that would be neat. She has been reading plenty of the go along books and enjoying them. She is also loving our literature selections.

We have not been consistent with MCT or GSWL. We need to change that moving forward. With MCT I'm going to have to think about how to be more proactive with it. It is enjoyable but I'm not sure if it's sinking in properly. I'm sure consistency will help. With GSWL we need to make a vocab chart so that we can remember all the nouns we are learning.

She has been swimming well and passed level 3.

Bugsy -
He is flying through ETC, he completed book 1 and is now half way through book 2. That's ahead of where I had planned him to be.

He is right on track with Horizon K math book 1. At this point I think we will switch back to Miquon at the end of this book and see how he handles it. If we need another pit stop book 2 is on the shelf.

Reading wise I had hoped we would have finally completed 100EZ but we still have a few lessons outstanding. He has been reading plenty though and that is coming along well. He seems to struggle with silent e words.

We have not been putting much time into AAS1 but will focus more on it in the second half of the year. I would like to see him complete level 1 by the end of the year.

He has been swimming well and making great progress with his kicking.

New Curricula - First Impressions

In the last two days we have received in the mail Writing With Ease 2 and Getting Started with Latin. These are for late this year or next year whenever we finish up what we are currently using. I thought I would share my first impressions.

WRITING WITH EASE 2

This is a significant step up from Writing With Ease 1 which we are currently working through. The copywork selections are longer and the children are introduced to dictation. The selections are somewhat difficult. This is not a graded text so Level 2 is not necessarily designed to be used by a Year 2. I can see that an older child (Y3 or Y4) would have little difficulty with the dictation exercises but I personally feel that your average Year 2 would find it difficult, mostly because of spelling issues. I am hoping that Flossy will find it the appropriate challenge. I certainly don't think she will struggle in any way but I don't see us doubling up lessons as we have been doing with Level 1. Looking through the book I like the way SWB encourages beginning summarising skills which is one of the main reasons we are using this writing program.

GETTING STARTED WITH LATIN

From the moment I open this book to take a proper look at it, I love it. It is such a gentle, systematic approach to learning latin and it makes me wonder why we have bothered with Song School Latin and Minimus to date. They have both been fun programs, don't get me wrong, but this book is 'really' learning latin if you know what I mean. I can't see a problem moving through 1 lesson per day but should we need to slow up it will be very easy to do so. Most lessons have 10 sentences to translate from latin to english. The grammar instruction looks solid and the writing requirement is minimal. This book is excellent value for money and the audio is available free from the authors website, what more could you ask for? One thing to note is that your child really needs to be reading well, I would think a middle school level at least. Not a problem for us, but not all Year 2's would be ready. (I guess that is where Song School Latin comes to it's own, your child really doesn't need to be reading at all to get something out of that program.)

So on face value these are both winning purchases.

Our Latin Progression

We are studying latin for the reasons outlined in TWTM and in CM's writings. We are really enjoying it and I can already see the benefits.

Our latin progression will be -

*disclaimer, this is subject to change!*

Song School Latin

Minimus

Getting Started with Latin

Latin Prep 1 (we may spread over 2 years)

Latin Prep 2

Latin Prep 3

So You Really Want to Learn Latin 2 (we may go straight to level 3)

So You Really Want to Learn Latin 3