We school year round and don't really follow grades. Brianna started Nov 15, 2010 coming from 3rd grade in public school and will go until whenever of whatever year. Olivia started "Preschool" on Feb 6, 2012. We don't follow specific grades but Brianna is anywhere from Gr. 6-9 and Olivia is generally Kindergarten, some Gr 1.
So, since we don't have set grades or set school years, I figure every 4-6 mths I'll post what we are currently working on. We use a mishmash of traditional homeschool curriculum, workbooks bought at teacher supply stores, stuff made up completely in my head and most subjects are supplemented by printed worksheets from various sites and of course, library books. In a nut shell, we're eclectic homeschoolers.
Olivia:
Olivia will now start daily school work. Previously we did school work whenever I thought to ask her if she'd like to, or if she asked for it. Now, we will do something every day. Certainly not 6-8 hours of school, but at least one worksheet or game or project or craft every day.
We bought a subscription to ABCMouse.com and Olivia loves it! It has all the way from Toddlers to the end of Kindergarten. We started from the pre-school path, only because Olivia has had very little use of the computer mouse before. She knows most of the activities they show her, but she's also learning how to control the mouse, so it's a win-win. She's roughly half way through the pre-school program right now.
For printables we mostly use 1+1+1=1 (there's also great tot school and preschool printables here!). Confessions of a Homeschooler also has great printables. I love 1+1+1=1 as they have a lot of themed units. They cover a wide variety of skills but under one theme (Olivia has done cats, pizza, Octonauts and more).
We'll start dabbling in Brave Writer's "Jot it Down" program which focuses on dictation for Olivia's age group. And we'll pick up 1+1+1=1's You Can Read program again later in the fall.
We have a stack of assorted workbooks but those are on a "if Olivia feels like it" basis. Some weeks she'll do 20+ pages, other weeks she'll do zero. As she's only "supposed to be" (by her age in public school) in Kindergarten, I don't feel the need to focus on so much seat work. I do, however, encourage her any time she's in the mood for it!
These are the items left on her "needs to know" by the end of Kindergarten list:
* Identifying all upper case and lower case letters (she knows approx 90% of upper case and 50% of lower case)
* Cuts simple shapes
* Phonics
* Beginning writing process
* Meaning of addition and subtraction
* Introduction to number line
* Calendar (I'll be doing a calendar board with her each day, full blog post later about it)
* Denominations of money (she's already very interested in what the coins are called so I don't see this being an issue)
* Basic chart and graph concepts
Olivia loves to help take care of Joshua, cooking and household chores (unless it involves cleaning up her toys lol). We, of course, encourage her as much as possible!
Brianna:
Math:
We really Math Mammoth. It's almost self-teaching once a kid can read. It breaks the new concepts down into step by step instructions in a way that really gets through to Brianna. Sadly we're on our last year and will have to find a new regular math curriculum. We're also slowly working our way through Khan Academy. Brianna really likes the videos explaining new concepts. Also, the math review in her daily binder.
English:
We jump into Brave Writer's "Writer's Jungle" this year! Brianna's especially looking forward to their Poetry Teatimes. We were using McGraw-Hill's spelling, but the site is currently down and there's no indication of when it will be back up. Brianna enjoys the curriculum though and it has greatly improved her poor spelling in the last few months, so I hope to be able to use it again. Generally though, I keep track of words she has spelled wrong in her general school work and base spelling practise off of that.
Daily Binders:
Each day she has a math review (5 questions of varying math problems/vocabulary), handwriting practice, vocabulary (words that she has misread/mispronounced have to be looked up in the dictionary for their definition and a sentence with the word made), and journal (with various quick writing prompts).
French:
We will FINALLY be doing Rosetta Stone! Life has just gotten in the way of using it previously but now Brianna is flat out asking to do it, so I know I need to *make* time for it. We'll be using Living Languages for extra activities. Brianna already knows more French than I do, so thankfully Rosetta Stone is a self-teaching course!
Arts:
Brianna wants to learn guitar and we have a child's guitar and a great book - The Complete Guitar Manual, hopefully we can get around to that. She has also expressed interest in learning about some Shakespeare, so we'll learn about him and read/watch some plays.
Phys Ed/Health:
Brianna runs with a local MultiSport club. Her last run of the year is her Terry Fox run on Sept 14th. She actually bikes the Terry Fox run, but as she chooses to do the biggest route (10km), it's certainly nothing to laugh at! Once that is done, she's done until May. She'll spend that time doing training at least twice a week (running, yoga, strength training, cardio) and of course, we live in Canada, so there's always snow to shovel! We'll also be going over substance abuse and sexually transmitted diseases.
Computer:
Brianna was using Garfield's Typing Pals which focuses on speed and accuracy. Now that she has a cell and texts, her speed has gone up drastically, but her accuracy needs some work, so we'll go back to using that. She's also been champing at the bit for a Minecraft account, which is currently up for discussion, depending on work ethic of her school work. Up for discussion (between Lee and I, not Brianna yet) is Brianna getting her own laptop (that isn't older than her like her current one). As she gets older, especially her English work is getting to be more research intensive and she does much better "long" assignments on the computer as opposed to writing by hand.
Life Skills:
Brianna is learning more and more grown-up tasks, like mowing the lawn and trimming shrubs/brush. We're working on her being more responsible for her time in order to get the stuff that she needs and wants to do done. She's starting to do more cooking/baking from scratch (great-grandma even pays her to make her favorite oatmeal cookies) but we're going to work on her doing some meal planning as right now it's just me telling her what to cook. She really wants to learn to sew. I am up to my ears in sewing for customers, I just don't want to look at my machine if I don't have to lol So we've signed her up for a pre-teen sewing class this fall/winter. We didn't get her basement room drywalled, re-ceiling-ed and insulated, but it *needs* to be done before my basement turns into an ice cube for the winter, so more learning there!
Both:
History/Geography:
We're continuing to do Country Studies. The kids have really enjoyed them so far. We read about the countries, find them on maps, watch videos about them and make a bunch of food from that country. We'll be using History of the World and Geography of the World at home and whatever oodles of books we can snag from the library. World Atlas is fantastic for maps and National Geographic Kids has a bunch of videos and articles I made both Brianna and Olivia's country reports on Microsoft Word because I couldn't find anything I liked that wouldn't cost me an arm and a leg. If I can figure out how to share them here, I will.
Science:
For the most part, science is done through day to day life with no set curriculum. We'll be doing a lot of interest based topics. One thing we'll be doing is identifying everything in the yard. Plants, animals, bugs, rocks. It'll take us a few weeks, but with the help of the library and internet, we should be able to identify everything! Both girls want to do the human body. We'll have to do a refresher in a few years for Olivia, but with the random stuff she picks up on of Brianna's school work, I'm not worried about doing a joint class with them.
Arts:
I want to work on art some more. Brianna loves it but is fairly terrible lol So she wants to learn little ways to make her art better. Olivia on the other hand, has this idea that her drawings aren't good enough. No telling her otherwise changes her mind :( So for both girls, we'll be going over simple art techniques.
Joshua:
He will to continue to be cute and get into stuff and steal school work *wink*
Linking up with the iHomeschool Network
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