Planning the School Year

As I sit here, organizing the coming year for my 2nd grader and the Kindergartener to be, I thought I'd kind of write down the thought process that helps me pull everything together, and maybe attach a document here and there over the next few weeks.

So because we did 2 years of Kindergarten, having started Ian a bit early, we are now entering our fourth year of homeschooling. We initially started out using My Father's World (MFW) Kindergarten, which I very much enjoyed. Then we went on to Sonlight Kindergarten, which I thought was more advanced than MFW, but also more expensive.

Some things worked better than others, so I began to look for other things to supplement or replace what didn't work for us. That led me to begin using some materials from Susan Wise Bauer such as The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, First Language Lessons, The Complete Writer: Writing With Ease and The Story of the World. Most of these things we borrowed from the library or from friends, and we liked them so much we bought them for ourselves just to have in our hot little hands. :)

So now as we approach the second grade year, I find myself once again tweaking the system, which kind of puts me into strange territory. For the first year ever I am starting out on my own, without someone having done the lesson planning for me. It's tempting to go out and purchase a Sonlight Instructor's Guide, but I already know what I want to do. I just need to organize the HOW of it.

So here's the process I've been going through for the last few weeks, in case you're interested.

1. Since I really love Sonlight's selection of books. I go to their website, and see what books they are using for their 2nd graders (Level C). Once you are on the core curriculum page, you can click on the "Included Items" tab and see all the books you get if you purchase the core package. I copy the list and create a Word document listing of the books for my reference. I can get most of these books from the local library or request an inter-library loan if I decide to use them. The exception to this is usually the "Christian" books like "Missionary Stories with the Millers". These are books that I am willing to order either from Sonlight, Amazon or Christianbook.com if the library doesn't have them.
   
2. I also like My Father's World's selection of books, so I add some of their book recommendations to my book list. This year, I discovered the art program "I Can Do All Things" by Barry Stebbing. I want it so bad, and I want the DVD that I found out about too, but I'm trying to find it on eBay, because it's a bit pricey at this point.
3. Finally, I check out the core curriculum at Timberdoodle, which I just discovered this year. I like their website, but I LOVVVVE their catalog!! They have some great resources, from toys to manipulatives to books. I pretty much want everything they have. :)

Now, of course, this is just the jumping off point for me, as I begin to weed through what I think we can reasonably accomplish in a year.

Art, Not Just For Art's Sake, Follow Up

I've been meaning to follow up on my previous post about teaching through Art. I was delighted when shortly after my post, I received an email from Sharon Jeffus of Visual Manna asking me what it was I was interested in. She was so nice to give me more information, so I thought I'd pass it on in case you have been looking into her books as well. Here was our exchange:

Hi Sharon, Thank you for emailing me! All of your Teaching Through Art books look interesting to me, but I was specifically drawn to your site by the book Teaching History Through Art. My son is 7 and he LOVES Art. I think he'd enjoy this curriculum, but I was unsure about what the level and skills were that would be required. Thanks for any input you can provide!

Sharon's response:

If he is a mature 7, he would be able to use most of the lessons. In
the math and art, he would learn how to tell digital and analog time
and counting money, face proportions...might have trouble with
fractals....each book would have some things it might take till next
year for him to get....or longer....

Art, Not Just For Art's Sake

Well, this was a digression from my earlier post about Science, but I decided to spare you the rabbit trail and let it be its own little post. So here you have it... Remember when I said my Fantasy School would revolve around Science? Well, someone else, who apparently thinks like me, thought the same thing about Art. And actually, this comes in as a close second to my Fantasy School, because I love Art with the same geeky passion as I love Science. :)

So, I recently came across a bunch of books that teach other subjects through the subject of Art, and it so intrigues me, except that I haven't been able to actually SEE any of the pages of these books. (Sharon Jeffus, are you listening? People like to see previews of a page or two on websites.) If this concept intrigues you too, you might want to check out VisualManna.com. They have much more than just books. They have lessons online, art camps and But if you buy a book, can I take a look at it? )

Back to School

So this week we were back to school. Mostly this was a week for review and getting back into the school routine. The boys did well, I'm glad to say! :) Aaaahhhh, such a relief! :)

Since it was a review week, I decided just to stick with what we knew. So we went back to the Horizons Math, Handwriting Without Tears, An Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, and Sonlight's Read Alouds. Next week we'll be adding some new material into the mix, and I'm so excited!! Truth be told, I really can't wait!

This year's new stuff includes:

• All About Spelling and readers
  
• Math-U-See Primary
  
• The Story of the World, vol. 1
  
• The Story of the World Activity Book
  
• Sonlight Science 1

Plus, we are using all sorts of art books that we are taking out of the library. My little guy love to draw, and we discovered the 1-2-3 Draw books, so he has been trying his hand at learning to draw all sorts of things. Also, last year, I discovered this great website called Art Projects for Kids. It's probably my favorite site for art projects, although this year we'll actually TRY the projects instead just READ about them. :)