Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Our Current Curriculum - Jan 2011

We school year round and don't really follow grades. We started Nov 15th 2010 in roughly the 3rd grade and will go until whenever of whatever year. In most subjects Brianna is in Gr. 3, however, her grade levels go from Gr. 1 to Gr. 5. We are working on a mastery basis so she moves on as she can and stays on certain things longer. 

French is at a grade 1 level simply because there is no such thing as French Immersion workbooks. Workbooks are either meant for French children continuing their education in French (Brianna's in the Gr. 1 level) or English children learning French (where Brianna's in the Gr 4/5 level). Since 98% of French workbooks are meant for French children, I base her in the Gr. 1 level.

So, since we don't have set grades or set school years, I figure every 6 mths or so I'll post what we are currently working on. We are currently mostly not using traditional HS items, but regular workbooks you can buy at the bookstore/teacher stores. Most subjects are supplemented by printed worksheets from various sites and of course, library books.


Spelling:
a mix of a fun Disney Princess spelling book and more serious, me keeping track of words she'll spelled wrong (spelling is not "important" in the rest of her work as long as she is trying to spell the best she can) and she copies, alphabetizes, puts into sentences and draws pictures of her words and on Friday we do spelling tests (she insists, I'd be happy with just working on her spelling words as above).

History:
Currently we are studying Aboriginals before Europeans came to Canada and will be moving into the European explorers and then Canadian Pioneers. We're using, in parts, the Social Studies portion of the Complete Canadian Curriculum Grade 3 workbook. We're also using this Aboriginal People Gr. 4-6 workbook to add to the Gr. 3 portion (the books are by the same company and the Gr. 4-6 book just expands on what is in the Gr. 3 book). We're using several different library books but mainly the How Canada Became Canada series. It is meant for Gr. 6-10, but Brianna seems pretty interested none the less. For the Pioneer portion of our studies we'll be doing another series of books, once I pick them up tomorrow I'll post a link (I need the exact titles).


Geography:
We're not focusing a lot on geography right now, but will be in a couple mths. We'll be starting with mapping skills (drawing/reading), then later move on to actual places. We'll again be using a portion of the Gr. 3 Complete Canadian Curriculum workbook but also Gr 1-3 Mapping Skills and possibly Gr. 1-3 Canadian Mapping.

Math:
Again, we're using the math portion of Gr. 3 Complete Canadian Curriculum, but also Math Makes Sense which was her math book from school. Topping it off is Math Basics. We will in the next couple months be adding Gr. 1-3 Market Math and Gr. 1-3 Menu Math. Our big focus at the moment is mastering addition and subtraction with carrying and borrowing and adding and subtracting money.


English:
Here we're using the English portion of the Gr. 3 Complete Canadian Curriculum and Gr. 3 English Ahead. For reading comprehension we're using this (Gr. 2) and this (Gr. 3). We also do daily writing and a minimum 30 mins of reading.

Science:
For science we're mostly doing hands-on stuff with library book supplement. We've covered weather (and we continually track weather) and are doing animals in winter now. We touch into the science portion of the Gr. 3 Complete Canadian Curriculum but it's a little on the boring side right now. Once spring comes it has an interested looking plant unit though.

French: 
We're using a combo of a duotang full of worksheets from her old French teacher and this Gr. 1 Francais 1ere annee (sorry the website is French only) workbook. Once we're done this workbook we'll be moving back to the workbooks made for English students learning French, Gr. 4 and Gr. 5. Once those are done we'll move back to the French books for French children and hopefully into Gr. 2 there.


Art/Music:
In Art we're working on cross stitching. Brianna is great at the basic stitch and made Grandma a little framed pattern for Christmas. Now she has designed a picture for me to make a pattern of that she wants to stitch next. It's huge though, so I'm thinking it'll be a long term project with lots of other stuff in between. For Music, Brianna got a recorder for Christmas. I've just got to find the right music and finger keys for it (having a printer for this would help too...)


Phys Ed/Health: 
Other than her homeschool soccer, we're just doing fun winter stuff for Phys Ed. Generally playing in the snow, tobogganing, shoveling. Once the snow is gone, Brianna wants to do some walk/jog/running stuff. For Health we're working on general nutrition. Reading nutritional labels, picking healthy foods, comparing foods, ect... Workbooks we'll be using are Gr 1-3 Canadian Health Activities and Gr. 4-6 Canadian Health Activities.


Computer:
The big thing right now is typing skills. While we're stuck on the ooooold laptop this is done via blogging. Once we get a real working computer up and running we'll be adding Garfield's Typing Pal



Life Skills: 
We're focusing a lot of kitchen safety and penpalling. It's hard on my OCD tendencies but I've been letting her do more when we're baking and I want to get her into cooking more too. She can use the microwave and toaster on her own. She wants to learn how to make bread in my breadmaker too. We have 3 penpals started right now, hopefully they take off. She's learning that writing letters to people isn't as easy as it sounds.

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