In case you are wondering what our curriculum is for the year you can find that here. I posted what we are doing for our all together subjects, 5th grade, 2nd grade and Pre-K 4.
Our first two weeks have run fairly smoothly, its a big transition for me to be teaching all three of them this year. Last year I just did the two older ones, and Zach just tagged along and towards the end of the year I included him more. One change that I made, was beginning our day with some exercise and movement. I can really see the benefit of doing this, especially for my 7 year old son, who is a very active child. I can tell that this little bit of 15 minutes of dancing, jumping, and moving benefits him greatly.
All Together Subjects:
History: The Mystery of History Volume 1
We have completed 6 lessons so far and I am in LOVE with this curriculum! Its so engaging and written in a conversational kind of way that reading it to my kids is so fun! We have enjoyed doing the activities that go along with each lesson and making our timeline. |
| Creating and naming our own animals. His was some sort of turtle creature. |
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| Noah created a crab type of animal. |
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| Experiencing what it would have felt like in the Ice Age. |
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| Looking at different types of dinosaurs and finding one to draw. |
Bible: Apologia Who Is God?
We just began this one this week, and again I am in LOVE! I have never used any Apologia before but have wanted to try it for a few years. I am so sad that I didn't get it sooner! The text is so rich and wonderful, my boys have had fun working in their notebooks and even Zach has been sitting and listening in on the lessons.Zach: Pre-K 4
For Zach's first two weeks we have been doing little units to get him used to the schedule and his new workboxes. His first unit was on Dogs, and this week we did The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Both of these have gone well, and I am pleased with how quickly he has caught onto the rhythm of school. He know which box to go to first and how to work in order from number 1 to 9. I have such great hopes for this school year with him. Next week we will begin the Letter of the Week curriculum.
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| His first day of workboxes, during our Dog unit. |
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| We started out with only 5 boxes. |
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| Doing some Caterpillar Graphing |
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| Making his own caterpillar |
Noah: 2nd Grade
Reading- Noah began All About Reading Level 2, we have completed lesson one and are almost finished with lesson two. He is doing well and grasping so much more that I thought he would just starting out again. Over the summer he read to us a little bit but not as much as I would have hoped.Math- Noah is using Math U See Beta this year, he has completed 2 lessons. I believe that his little brain is wired for numbers! I think he will zoom through this book with no problems. His only hindrance is that he can't read well enough to complete the lessons all on his own. I still need to read him the word problems and the directions.
Handwriting- We began this last week and its another area that is a struggle for him. Although he does well on his handwriting pages, when asked to write on other paper or form his own sentences he really struggles. I am planning on throwing in a lot more copy work for him this year. He is currently using A Reason for Handwriting book B and I love it! I just think that he will need more practice.
Elijah: 5th Grade
Reading- This year Elijah will be given 3 assigned books to read and then he will have free reading of approved books. He is an excellent reader and last year read two of the Lord of the Rings books along with the Hobbit. This year he will continue with those and also with the ones that are required. His first book is Farmer Boy, we read it as a read aloud book 2 years ago, and he is not happy that I am making him read it again. I think he is enjoying it though, but not the fact that he is required to read 2 chapters a day.Math- He began Teaching Textbooks 5 this year and is doing well. He loves having it on the computer and the ability to just do his work and not have to wait on me to teach it to him or to grade his papers. One mistake I made is that in planning I wrote in his assignment book to do lessons 1-3 last week, not really sure on what his pace would be. Since the first few lessons were really easy I just thought he would zoom through them and move on. Well not my "letter of the law" child. He said that he would just do his assigned lessons and wait to move on. Since then I went ahead and just told him to do a lesson a day. HA! Caught cha kid!
Language Arts- We are using Learning Language Arts through Literature the Purple book this year. I had intended to begin it last week, but totally forgot! So we finished up lesson one this week. I was hoping it would be an independent subject for him, but I can see that I will need to be more hands on. English/Grammar are very weak points for him so he will need a lot of teaching. Hopefully by the middle to end of the year he will be working more independently.
Vocabulary- Elijah also began Wordly Wise 3000. Vocabulary is another weak point with him. He completed one lesson this week, and I can see that I made the right decision to add in a separate vocabulary book. This week was pretty challenging for this one, there were some struggles and some tears, but we made it through.
We also had some fun with duct tape! I bought the Beginner Book by Warfare by Duct Tape, and over the weekend we had picked up the supplies. My boys had a blast making their swords, shields and daggers.
Also during our first week of school little Zach turned 4!! We had a super fun time celebrating him. He is also very excited that he is now big enough to attend AWANA at our church this coming fall.
Next week we will continue on with the same subjects and then in two more weeks we will begin our co-op and add in Science and Spanish.
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