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.

Alphabet Poem by Flossy

We have The Poetry Pad and have used a couple of the prompts for writing poems over the last year.  Today Flossy worked on an Alphabet Poem.  We didn't follow the prompt exactly as we have already done one Alphabet Poem 'by the book' so i allowed some free reign.  Here is what she wrote.

B is for book,
as in storybook,
with characters such as Captain Hook.
Then there are books that give you looks,
with words such as beach or bee.
So come and sit under a tree,
and read a book with me.

First we brainstormed subjects for the poem.  Then Flossy wrote a draft.  We edited it together then she typed it up on the computer herself.  After it was printed Flossy illustrated it.  Here is the final product.

I am really impressed with her effort on this task today.  Flossy is generally very resistant to writing for school, but will happily write letters to friends, short notes, shopping lists etc.  Today she had a great attitude toward her work and the final product reflected that.  Language is her strong suit and she has a lot of potential.  I really look forward to seeing what the future holds in this area for her.

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.

Back to School

School is back in full swing at our place :)

Bugsy is working on -

Horizon K math book 1

Explode the Code 1

All About Spelling 1

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, 30 lessons to go

Nora Gaydos Readers

Bugsy seems very keen at the moment and his reading is coming along smashingly! I've seen a huge difference in the last couple of months.

Flossy is working on -

Writing With Ease 2

All About Spelling 3

Miquon Blue

Kumon Word Problems 2

Getting Started with Latin

Grammar Island

Story of the World 2

Real Science Odyssey 'Life'

Currently reading The Chronicles of Narnia

Flossy isn't too inspired to work at the moment. I think she really enjoyed her time off last year and is finding the workload a little tough. It hasn't helped that we have been inconsistent over the last month with Possum's hospital stay. Hopefully things will settle down over the coming weeks.

Year 2

Learning areas, curricula and resources for Year 2 (7yo) to be addressed in a formal manner -

MATH - drawing from

Professor B math

Rightstart math games

Activities for the AL Abacus

Miquon

Kumon Word Problems

LANGUAGE ARTS

All About Spelling

Writing With Ease

Michael Clay Thompson Island Level

Shared reading :

• Chronicals of Narnia
• Little House Series
• The Jungle Book
• Parables from Nature
• Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
• The Secret Garden
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• Through the Looking Glass
• 50 Famous Stories Retold
• Black Beauty
• The Adventures of Robin Hood

HISTORY

Story of the World Vol 2 (Medieval)

Story of the World Activity Guide

Supplemental reading (Book basket) :

• Otto of the Silver Hand
• Canterbury Tales
• Beowulf the Warrior
• Marco Polo for Kids
• Joan of Arc
• Days of Knights
• Knight at Dawn
• Viking Ships at Sunrise
• Story of Islam
• Good Queen Bess
• Ancient Celts
• Galileo
• Who Were the Vikings?
• Muslim Child
• The Miracle of Saint Nicholas
• Knight
• The Girl Who Lost Her Smile
• Viking Tales
• Liang and the Magic Paintbrush
• Baboushka and the Three Kings
• Sundiata
• The Orchard Book of Roman Myths
• Favorite Celtic Fairytales
• Bard of Avon
• What were Castles for?
• The Ch'i-Lin Purse
• Indian Tales

SCIENCE

Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding K-2

Going deeper where needed with Real Science Odyssey Life, Earth & Space and Chemistry

Snap Circuit 100

EXTRAS

Getting Started with Latin

Logic & puzzle books

Violin (lessons plus The Violin Book Series)

Playdough

Puzzles

Wedgits

Painting

Drawing

Cooking

Singing (Sing Books)

More new materials arrive

This week we received -

Story of the World 2 : The Middle Ages

Story of the World 2 Activity Guide

Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding

So now that I have these in my hot little hands I will be pre-reading and planning for next year. A somewhat mammoth task as I plan out our go-alongs and materials at the same time. Flossy has also requested a more exciting notebook so I will be searching for some pre-made goodies or going the whole hog and making up some pages myself.

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.

An unofficial grade skip

As the middle of the year approaches it is time to review what we have been up to and where we are headed. It has become very obvious to me that the course of study Flossy has undertaken this year, her Pre-Primary year, is far in excess of what Bugsy will be capable of next year which will be his Pre-Primary year. It is also certainly in excess of her age peers at public school. So with much thought and reflection I have decided this Pre-Primary course is actually a Year 1 level course and on completion Flossy will move into Year 2 next year.

That leaves a gaping hole in my programming. Not only do I need to come up with a Year 2 plan for Flossy, I now need to come up with a Pre-Primary year for Bugsy. He will then roll into the Year 1 course of study the following year.

So all hands are now on deck to get some decisions made and materials purchased so that everything is scheduled out and ready to go well before the end of this year. I want it all ready to move on well before our new baby arrives throwing life into chaos.

*Watch for some shuffling in the plans on my sidebar*