Note: J-jo is K4 age, but doing a K curriculum and Bear is in 1st by age, but more at a 3rd grade level overall. I was all excited about Heart of Dakota, received the used copies I purchased, tried them out for a few weeks and was utterly disappointed. It is not the curriculum for us. I should have known after my stint with Sonlight that a complete curriculum is highly unlikely to work for us. Consequently, I have had to revamp our plans for August.
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Bible
K4 and 1st - Long Story Short for Old Testament, Telling God's Story Year 2 for New Testament, Catholic Tales for Boys and Girls, More Catholic Tales for Boys and Girls, and Object Lessons for a Year. (Not all done each day!)Math
K4 - Singapore 1 and Miquon Orange
1st - Singapore 3, Miquon (yellow and purple book) and Life of Fred
Reading
K4 - He'll keep reading Bob books and other leveled readers from the library. I am following a list I found at this blog. I am still considering getting PAL Reading for him. I might just wing it for reading the way I did for Bear at that age. I never had to use a reading curriculum for Bear. I do want to start All About Spelling 1 with him, which should reinforce his reading skills.
Grammar
K4 - Montessori grammar farm
1st - MCT Grammar Island program (plus finishing up FLL3)
Literature
lots of read-alouds as usual.
K4 and 1st - Teaching the Classics - I have scheduled books from the Reading Roadmap's K, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade list, with an emphasis on K and 1st grade books for J-jo and a few 2nd and 3rd grade books for Bear to do alone.
Writing
K4 - A Reason for Handwriting and PAL Writing 1st and 2nd parts
1st - Writing With Ease 2 and PAL Writing (the 3rd part). When we finish the 3rd portion, we will move on to one of the IEW items, but I haven't decided which. I need to look at them all at convention in July. (edited to add: I think I will work through TWSS using our own readings to work on writing as I can't fit in a separate thing from IEW this year.)
Spelling
K4 and 1st - All About Spelling. Love, love, love this curriculum (affiliate link in the side bar) though I do kind of want something more independent for Bear.
History
K4 - History for Little Pilgrims to get a historical overview (Bear at 4 loved Story of the World, but J-jo is not interested.)
1st - Story of the World volume 3, along with Stories of Great Americans and A First Book in American History, plus other historical fiction that ties in with SOTW.
Geography
K4 and 1st - we will follow the CC Cycle 2 geography memorization.
Blob mapping
Beautiful Feet Geography Through Literature.
Science
K4 and 1st - Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding - Mostly for J-jo, but Bear will want to join in.
1st - Apologia Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day with the notebooking journal. This is independent work mostly for her - she reads the text and journals about it. We do the experiments and Try This sections together.
French and Spanish
K4 and 1st - Daily copywork, videos in target languages and speaking more of it at home
Latin
K4 and 1st - Song School Latin 2
1st - Prima Latina
It seems like a lot written out, but some of these subjects are not done daily. On Monday I will share how I scheduled it all out so it would fit into a week.
This list of curricula is linked on the Not Back To School Curriculum Hop hosted by the iHN! Head over there to check more blogs for fabulous ideas, resources, and suggestions!
That sounds like a very comprehensive plan. I am hoping daughter is challenged appropriately in her second grade in school. Last year everything was OK except math, so we supplemented a lot at home.
ReplyDeleteHey! I was just curious how you do both Song School Latin and Prima Latina. We are currently using Song School Spanish and love it. I had originally purchased Prima Latina to start with my children, but have been wondering if I wanted to use Song School Latin. Any insight would be great! Thanks!!
ReplyDelete@Sage H. I'll be posting how I scheduled everything on Monday, but in short, only Bear is doing Prima Latina and she will do that lesson on Thursdays and then we will review during our memory time. SSL will be for both of them and will get done during Snack Time on Fridays. SSL will get reviewed through the songs either during their playtime or in the car when they get driven to lessons. We have already done SSL 1 and I purchased SSL 2 on a whim after I had already bought PL:)
ReplyDeleteGreat! After I posted, I realized that you would probably answer my question on Monday:) Thanks!!
ReplyDeleteWe're restarting Song School this year, I got it, but wasn't super diligent with it. Glad to see you back online.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been organized as you are but we share much of the same curriculum. We are planning to start Grammar Island but haven't looked at the entire MCT well enough.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been online much but are you pregnant? If so, congratulations!!
Oh I miss the K curriculum! Enjoy it to the fullest. My son is now starting 6th grade and does not need me as much...
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your plans!
looks great! I'll be checking in all year for inspiration ;)
ReplyDeleteI have one who is doing K5/1st this year, but we are using some of the same stuff. We had the same issue with attempting a complete curriculum. I even looked at "Moving Beyond the Page," which is supposed to be for kids working ahead, but it just didn't seem like it would fit. Did you do Telling God's Story Year 1 already? Did you like it? We are starting that this year. Hopped over from iHN's hop.
ReplyDelete@Kate, We have nearly finished Telling God's Story Year 1. We are not using the activity book to go with it. The kids like it, as do I. I like how each lesson starts with scripture (no more than a paragraph or two, which is perfect in length for J-jo) and then they explain the story from scripture using analogies that the children can relate to. We have the activity guide for Year 2 because Amazon had it ridiculously cheap, but I don't even know if we will bother with it.
ReplyDeleteI looked through the activity guide for year 1 and it is very involved, but I think it will work for us. My daughter loves doing crafty stuff! I am glad, though, that you don't think it is necessary, which means if we have a day/week that we can't get the activities in, the teaching won't be totally lost. I also like that the scripture is just long enough. We used Bible Study Guide for All Ages last year, and while I loved that it wasn't story based, sometimes it would call for 5 or 6 pages of the Bible to be read in a sitting, and that was just too much. She would be done coloring before I had even finished the first page!
ReplyDeleteOh, Julie, your year looks wonderful! Your children are so very intelligent. You are blessed! Prayers for you that you have a fun, happy year filled with lots of special memories and learning together with your family.
ReplyDeleteI have missed it, but why did you not continue on with Sonlight? I will try the link above and see if it answers this question. If so, don't worry about taking the time to email me with the answer.