Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Its the most wonderful time of the year!

Edited*** I just realized as I was copying my list into my notebook so I'll be all ready to go next weekend, that I never wrote our Bible Curriculum for next year. And that's because I'm not sure if we're going to go with individual studies or a family study. I may have TL do his own and the girls do the same. Not sure yet!

This is the time of year that my obsession with curriculum gets satisfied. I have to remain in check the rest of the year or I'll break the bank. I'm currently looking at getting our curriculum ready for next year.

Science-We'll be doing Christian kids explore Earth and Space as our spine. TL will be expected to read more and do more in depth projects with his grade.

History-I love history, which is why of course, I'm a history major. What I don't like is almost every history program out there. I love the concept of studying history chronologically, however, I don't like either program that's out there. Why? Well, because I think kids get just as confused studying each little event and jumping back and forth from place to place as studying four major events in history out of order (like the public schools do. I never understood what Ancient Egypt, the Civil War, WWII, and Lewis and Clark had to do with each other). What I really wanted was a program to guide us through with a list of good books to read and I could add in projects as I wished. I finally found it-Truthquest! I'm very excited. I love that all of Jamestown will be discussed before moving to the next topic.

Spanish-I'm currently looking for a computer spanish program for TL. I'm looking at Powerglide, I think its called. He needs something more that the girls are not ready for yet. And he needs to move at a faster pace than we've been moving.

Reading
TL-continue through classics, vocab study and roots study
Princess-BJUP grade 3, vocab study
Bug-a-bug-BJUP grade 2, vocab study

Spelling
TL-will continue with AVKO
Princess and Bug-a-bug will continue with the workbooks, Building Spelling SKills

Writing
TL-Using Student Writing intensive
Princess and Bug-a-Bug will be doing little writing projects to build sentence structure and paragraph building skills

Handwriting:
We usually use BJUP, but Princess seems to be struggling with cursive. I may look at Handwriting without tears.

Math-
TL-Grade 7 Teaching Textbooks
I think I may move the girls back to Abeka. I like Abeka through grade four. We'd switched to BJUP, but I'm not too happy with it. More word problems, but very little review. I like a little of review each day, otherwise they forget. To build the word problems, I'll be doing the Daily Word Problems workbook series.

Geography
All will be doing their Trail Guide to WOrld Geography. We'll also continue with our Passport Club program, and the girls will be working on Daily Geography Skills. I love this workbook program.

Grammer-Absolutely no idea!! I want daily teaching of grammer with some review each day. I want punctuation, capitalization, etc taught and reviewd all the time. And I want the kids to know what a a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, pronoun, etc is. I could really care about indefinite or reflexive pronouns. Can't we just label it a pronoun and be done with it already? Any suggestions anyone? I NEED HELP!

Have a great week!

4 comments :

  1. Do you have any experience with Shurley English? I have used that with Dirty Harry for the last two years, and I really like it. Easy Grammar is good too, but if they are weak in that area, then it probably isn't enough.

    I know you said you found a history program, but I just thought I'd throw out there that we use Sonlight, which is pretty much what you describe. I've used it for 7 years now, and we just LOVE it.

    ~Kellie

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  2. Thanks Kellie!! From what I understand of their catalog, they only do either American or World history. I want to incorporate both. Plus, I can't make heads or tails out of their catalog. It drives me crazy!

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  3. Poorly designed and poorly written curriculum catalogues drive me crazy! The Rainbow Resources catalogue is the worst of the lot. It might as well remain a tree. I have a friend who likes Shurly English. I prefer Abeka. We’ve used it with great success for six years.

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  4. You should check into Christian Light Education for English. They have review in each lesson.
    Hope this helps.

    ReplyDelete

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