First Grade Curriculum

We will be on Christmas break for the next two weeks, plus a week of "fun school" to start off the new semester. During our time off, I will be researching and ordering D's first grade curriculum. Here is what I am currently planning to use, keeping in mind that I am continuing to discover more about D's learning style, which may affect some of my decisions prior to starting school next fall.

MATH~ Singapore Primary Math 1A and 1B (Standards Edition)
PHONICS~ Continue with OPG; Explode the Code (online)
GRAMMAR~ First Language Lessons
HANDWRITING~ Getty-Dubay Italics Book B; begin Book 1; Getty-Dubay Copywork Book 1
HISTORY~ Story of the World: Ancients; SOTW Activity Book; NH History Unit Study
GEOGRAPHY~ Rand McNally Map Activity Book;
LeapFrog SmartGlobe
SCIENCE~ R.E.A.L. Science: Life Science; Nature Study
POETRY~ The Harp and Laurel Wreath for memorization;
A Child's Introduction to Poetry
MUSIC~ Piano lessons; Story of the Orchestra; Classical Kids
ART~ Child Size Masterpieces; Draw Squad
P.E.~ Hockey, Karate, Gymnastics, Swimming

At first glance it looks like a lot, but many of the subjects will only be studied once or twice a week. Math, reading and writing will continue to be the focus of our daily lessons.

A 10-Minute Window Into Our Day

Welcome to Monday morning at the Tin Roof Schoolhouse. Picture this, if you will~ D is asked to work on two pages in his math workbook, consisting of 6 subtraction problems in total. The problems are set up so that D counts the number of objects pictured, and then crosses off however many the problem specifies (i.e. How many shovels are there? ____ Cross off 5. So, 8-5=___.) He insists on working alone, but after a few minutes of fooling around on the very first problem, I tell him I'll have to sit with him and help him. We make it to problem #4, where he is asked to count how many chickens there are:

"Chickens? Chickens!!!!! Who's calling ME a CHICKEN?? Bawk bawk bawk bawk bawk bawk bawk" D says while kneeling on his chair, spinning around in circles and using his arms to 'bawk' like a chicken.

"D, how many chickens are there?" (me)

"Um... a one-and-a two and-a three and-a four and-a five and-a six and-a seven. Hmmmm .... (starts over) a one and-a two and-a three and-a four and-a five and-a six and-a seven. Seven!" spins around in his chair. "Is it time for my break now?" (keep in mind this is the first subject of the day, about 7 minutes into it).

"No, not even close. Could you focus please?"

D writes a seven but extends the top of it too far to the right "Ha ha ha ha. That's a funny 7. It looks like it's wearing a hair-do. Hahahahahahaha!!!!".

"Yes, that is a funny 7," I answer as I am in the process of erasing it, "try it again so it looks nice".

Writes the 7 again. "My favorite number!! I'm done now. Hooray, hooray, I'm done hooray. Hooray, hooray, I'm done for today!!"

"No, not quite. We still have 2 more problems in math and we need to do phonics before you take a break"..... I take a deep breath and head towards the kitchen to sneak some Halloween candy while he finishes the rest. Ten minutes into the school day and mommy already needs to refuel.

A Few Changes

We are on Week 11 of our school year and it's time to fix a few things that just aren't working. I originally planned our days rather loosely, fitting in all of our core subjects early on and leaving the afternoons open for history, science, art, and play. I still intend to do this, but instead of switching the subjects around every day (i.e. math first on Monday, phonics first on Tuesday) I am going to try to stick with a repetitive schedule for the cores. Math first, then phonics, writing, and reading. We will continue to do history (social studies) twice a week and science twice a week. A huge difference is my decision to only do religion twice a week during the school week, with D attending Sunday School on a weekly basis. More on this to come.

This morning D attended his first art class at a gallery nearby. It is a one-hour class for homeschooled children ages 5-10, and with D's love for everything artsy and crafty, I know this class will be able to give him so much more than I can offer. After speaking with his teacher, I am going to try him in the younger class that meets later in the day. Today's class had four kids a bit older than D, probably between 7 and 9, and they all sat quietly at the table, intent on aborbing themselves in their artwork. Apparently D has a lot more "energy" (no, really?? Tell me more....) and he may feel more at home with kids closer to his own age. Either way, I'm thrilled that he is (slowly) becoming socially appropriate enough where I can now leave him (somewhat) comfortably to participate in a group setting like this. He's going to love it; he already does.

Wave to the School Bus!

Today was the first day of school for our public school district, and we watched the bus drive by in the morning to pick up the neighborhood kids and again this afternoon to drop them off. If D were attending school this year, he'd only be in Kindergarten and wouldn't be taking the bus. Even so, I felt a bit of a disconnect as I watched the big yellow bus noisily chug by. Homeschooling the boys is exactly what I want to be doing right now, but that doesn't erase the twelve years of memories of my own education, especially those of my early elementary years which I remember fondly. It's easy to let doubt creep in as the questions start invading my mind... Will the boys be happy? Will they make friends? Will they feel like they missed out on things? Will I be able to teach them? Will... What if.... What about... ???

After taking a (very large) breath, I was able to reflect on our day and how we did an entire days worth of lessons, AND made a trip to a playground (filled with kids to play with), came home and rested, read a few stories together, played outside and cleaned D's bedroom. All before the big yellow bus noisily chugged by this afternoon.

First Day of Homeschooling

D had his first day of school yesterday, and was beside himself with excitement. I put together a bag of supplies for both the boys, filled with brand new crayons, markers, watercolor paint, notebooks, folders, glue, scissors, a ruler and a stash of new pencils (one which says "Homeschoolers Are Cool"). The highlight of the morning was seeing how thrilled D was that his new "school shirt" had arrived. Over the summer I ordered a set of t-shirts for the family with this year's logo printed on it with the intention of wearing them to field trips and other homeschooling-type outings. D saw me designing them on the computer and immediately said "Can we get those for my school?" and requested they come in dark green. How could I resist? Obviously I couldn't, and they arrived just in time for the first day of school.

I wasn't quite as "with it", due to B's sleep issues we've been having this past week. I wake up in the morning feeling like I have a newborn in the house, getting about six hours of very broken sleep at night and trudging through the days in survival mode. Luckily, I had the week planned out and all I have to do is follow my schedule instead of trying to wing it.

B didn't know what to make of our focused attention during D's lessons, and proceeded to climb all over me like the monkey that he is. Luckily I found a chunk of free time in the afternoon to devote to B, who wanted to sit in the new chair and work at the big desk in one of his new sticker workbooks. It's going to be tough to juggle the attention B needs from me with the time I need to give to D. I'm sure it'll all smooth out over the next few weeks.

JULY is Already Upon Us

In our household, the month of July is comparable to the month of December in both festivity and overwhelming craziness. December brings D's birthday and all the endless Christmas preparations and celebrations. July brings a trail of birthday celebrations to plan for (B's, DH's, my mom/dad/brother's), DH's annual family reunion for the 4th of July weekend, and our yearly trip down to Martha's Vineyard with my FIL. Not to mention trying to cram every possible moment outdoors while the weather is nice. But this year is different. This summer brings the added challenge of preparing for our homeschool year, which is scheduled to begin early August. At times I feel as prepared as I'll ever be, while on days like today I feel like I'm in over my head. I still have to:

* Organize, decorate and clean the living room, which we'll be using as our "schoolroom".
* Put together a handful of "activity bags" and finish making file folder games/ felt board pieces which will mainly be used for B's preschooling and to keep him busy while I'm working with D.
* Put the finishing toches on my Teacher's Notebook in order to have it workable and functioning in time for school. I'm ALMOST there :)
* Place my final order from Rainbow Resources and shop the back-to-school bargains when they start to stock up on supplies.
* Work on my menu plans to try to figure out a way to reduce our astronomical weekly grocery bill.
* Wrap B's gifts, figure out what type of cake to make him for his "robot" birthday party, make lists of what to bring to MV, call friends to see if they'll come over while we're gone to feed our cats.
*Get off the computer and stop making lists when I could be downstairs accomplishing something!!

I have to remind myself that this is *only* Kindergarten and that everything that is really important has already been planned and is set to go. The rest is just finding the time to create all the supplemental activities I have in mind, decorate my bulletin board and walls with all the fun educational stuff I've collected over the months, and to relax so I can enjoy the summer while it's here.

POETRY (Kindergarten)

The goal of D's poetry lessons will be to learn/memorize six new poems every quarter (9 weeks), copying the poems into a Poetry Journal as part of his copywork for the year, illustrating his work, and reciting each memorized poem either to me or to our family/friends. Knowing D and his refusal to 'perform' for people on demand, I have a feeling it'll consist mainly of him and I reciting the poems together, alone. With any luck, I'll be able to at least use my digital camera to record his recitations. He gets a kick out of watching himself on video, so that *may* work.

I selected poems that I felt he'd connect with, were short in length (most no longer than one stanza), and loosely based on the science topic(s) we'll be studying for that particular week.

Quarter One (Weeks 1-9):
Rain (Robert Louis Stevenson)~Seasons/Weather
March Winds (Mother Goose)~ Seasons/Weather
Time To Rise (Robert Louis Stevenson)~Animals
Little Bo Peep (Mother Goose)~Animals
Forehead, Eyes, Cheeks, Nose, Mouth and Chin
(Mother Goose)~My Body
Wavy Hair (Shel Silverstein)~My Body

Quarter Two (Weeks 10-18):
Singing Time (Rose Fyleman)~Five Senses
My Nose (Dorothy Aldis)~Five Senses
Whole Duty of Children (Robert Louis Stenvenson)~Health/Wellness
Early to Bed (Mother Goose)~Health/Wellness
First Fig (Edna St. Vincent Millay)~Matter
An Icycle (Mother Goose)~Matter

Quarter Three (Weeks 19-27):
I'm Glad (Robert Louis Stevenson)~The Universe
Star Light, Star Bright (Anonymous)~The Universe
Second Fig (Edna St. Vincent Millay)~Rocks, Soil, Water
If I Had a Brontosaurus (Shel Silverstein)~Rocks, Soil, Water
Tree House (Shel Silverstein)~Plants
Roses Are Red (Mother Goose)~Plants

Quarter Four (Weeks 28-36):
Bees (Mother Goose)~Bugs
Ladybug, Ladybug (Mother Goose)~Bugs
At the Seaside (Robert Louis Stevenson)~Habitats
An Old Silent Pond (Basho)~Habitats
The Little Turtle (Vachel Lindsay)~Nature Study
The Little Turtle (Vachel Lindsay)~Nature Study

One World, One Family

The theme for D's Kindergarten year will be "One World, One Family". After weeks of preparation I have finally completed the 'spine' for his curriculum which we will focus everything around. Using the book Discovering World Geography with Books Kids Love (Nancy A. Chicola and Eleanor B. English), I created 3-week mini units for each of the countries/realms we will be studying:

Week 1-3: East Asian Realm (China, Japan, Korea)
Week 4-6: Australian Realm (Australia)
Week 7-9: South Asian Realm (India, Pakistan, Nepal)
Week 10-12: Southeast Asian Realm (Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines)
Week 13-15: European Realm (France, Italy, England)
Week 16-18: Subsaharan African Realm (Nigeria, Tanzania, Namibia)
Week 19-21: Middle American Realm (Mexico, Puerto Rico)
Week 22-24: Pacific Realm (Hawaii)
Week 25-27: South American Realm (Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Peru)
Week 28-30: Russian Realm (Russian Core)
Week 31-33: North African/Southwest Asian Realm (Egypt, Turkey, Israel, Morocco, Mali)
Week 34-36: North American Realm (Canada, Alaska, America)
Summer Study: New Hampshire

Each week we'll have one book that we'll read, map, and do a craft or activity. In addition to this reading, I'll have a collection of related books to read aloud throughout the week to supplement the ideas, themes and geography of the main reading:

Week 1 (China):
Huan Ching and the Golden Fish (Michael Reeser)

Read story. Find China on the globe. Using a wall map, trace China onto a sheet of paper. Color it in and print the name of the country. Activity: Using poster board, colorful tissue paper and ribbons, make a 'Flying Fish' as shown in Discovering World Geography with Books Kids Love.

Supplemental Readings :
Ming Lo Moves the Mountain (Arnold Lobel); Count Your Way Through China (James Haskins and Dennis Hockerman); The Five Chinese Brothers (Claire Huchet Bishop and Kurt Wiese); Tikki Tikki Tembo (Arlene Mosel and Blair Lent); Lon Po Po (Ed Young); The Story About Ping (Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese); Liang and His Magic Brush (Xing Han)

In addition, I aligned our science studies (which also have units scheduled in 3-week blocks) with the geography blocks to the best of my ability so that our science readings and experiments will fit into the social studies themes we are working on at any given time. It's not a perfect combination, but in general it does match up and it'll give us a focus as opposed to feeling scattered. I'm trying to avoid the "Let's do reading, ok now let's do science, ok now social studies" and am striving to make it as cohesive as possible.

Plans For Social Studies Decided

Originally I planned to begin Story of the World 1 this fall, but decided to wait until first grade as intended. Before diving head-first into something as complex as ancient history, I'd like to give D a more "gentle" introduction to the world. An introduction to the globe, to maps, to the continents, to the many different cultures and customs around the world. And I want to accomplish this through children's literature, which I feel is the best way for D to personalize, understand, and absorb what he's learning. I found the following book on Amazon, and am hoping it will guide me towards a decent selection of book ideas as well as other resources:

Discovering World Geography With Books Kids Love (Eleanor B. English) http://www.amazon.com/DISCOVERING-WORLD-GEOGRAPHY-BOOKS-KIDS/dp/1555919650/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203443559&sr=1-1

Now if only Mr. UPS Man would be so kind as to deliver a package to me today!Once it arrives, I'll be able to get a better feel as to whether or not this will fulfill the geography/history needs for D's Kindergarten year.

Weekly Update

Since this blog was created with the intention of tracking, organizing, and reporting about our homeschooling progress, I will need to post updates every week or so. I'll title it "Weekly Update" so that you can decide either to read about what we've been up to or to skip right over it so as not to be bored to tears!! Reading about other people's schoolwork is like looking through other people's travel photos.... you either like to or, well, not so much. I have been spending a lot of time developing a schedule that I think will work for us. I won't know for sure how our days will flow until we officially "start school" this fall, but I wanted to have something in place to give us some structure while trying to figure it all out. I've also been reading up on all the various methods of homeschooling, and really admire Charlotte Mason's educational philosophies. I also appreciate the Montessori approach, and plan to use many of the Montessori activities for B's preschooling. As for the actual "bones" of my curriculum--structure I'd like to follow-- I keep coming back to the classical approach as defined in The Well Trained Mind. It just seems to have the best "fit" for us overall. Here's a peek at D's curriculum for the 2008-09 year, based on a CM "living books" philosophy interwoven with the structure of TWTM:

Math:

Singapore Earlybird Math 2A and 2B

PowerMath to supplement

Phonics:

The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading

Little Stories for Little Folks

Grammar:

First Language Lessons

Spelling:

My First Catholic Speller

History:

Story of the World Volume 1: Ancient Times

Story of the World Activity Book

Science:

Easy as 1,2,3: A Catholic Overview of Science

Religion:

Catholic Heritage Kindergarten Curriculum

Fine Arts:

The Harp and the Laurel Wreath~ Poetry

Child-Sized Masterpieces~ Art History

Guitar Lessons~ Instrument Study

It looks like a lot when it's all down on paper, but not everything is studied every day of the week (other than math and language arts) or for long periods of time.

Handwriting is incorporated into the grammar lessons, geography with history, and reading/read-alouds will be a part of every subject, especially history and science. Most of what they learn will be learned from reading literature instead of textbooks. That's what appeals to me the most.

"A" is for Apple

These past few weeks have been so productive setting up our "schoolroom", thrifting for used books, and creating organizational spreadsheets (for lesson planning, yearly goals, and weekly/daily schedules). The most exciting "find" was a computer desk someone set out on the side of the road for the taking. After getting it inside the house (yeah, don't ask me how I managed that feat) and giving it a good cleaning, I realized how new it actually looks. You just can't beat FREE when it comes to school supplies! Throughout my recent thrifting adventures I've found quite a few books that will be perfect supplements to D's Kindergarten curriculum, as well as for future use. I think in total I spent $20 for well over 50 books. These are a few of my favorite finds:

The Aesop for Children (Aesop and Milo Winter)

Folk Tales and Fables of the World (Barbara Hayes and Robert Ingpen)

The Usborne Book of Knowledge New Expanded Edition (Tony Bremner)

Learn to Draw Now (Doug DuBosque)

Make Way For Ducklings (Robert McCloskey)

One Morning in Maine (Robert McCloskey)

The Children's Book of America (William J. Bennett)

Reader's Digest How Science Works (Judith Hann)

How We Use Plastic (Chris Oxlade)

My First Science Book (Dorling Kindersley) (Angela Wilkes)

Make Your Own Costumes and Disguises (Judith Conaway)

What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know (E.D. Hirsch, JR.)

The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling (Debra Bell)

Best-Loved Children's Stories (Publications Int'l Ltd)

D has become interested in reading books about dragons and other mythological creatures lately. After lunch at the camp, we headed out on an expedition to find dragon bones. As described in one of his books, we began our hunt by searching for the "swish marks" of dragon tails on nearby rocks and trees. D found an abundance of swish marks, while B and Uncle K did the digging in hopes of finding some buried treasures. We followed the clues all the way to the river, where everyone focused on finding handfuls of "dragon teeth" and "dragon claws" amongst the rocks and boulders. At first we thought we'd donate them to the Museum of Science, but in the end the boys decided it would be more fun to paint their discoveries and keep them forever.

A LEAP OF FAITH

Homeschooling my children has been something I've always wanted to do, even years prior to becoming pregnant with my first son. Once I had kids, reality took over and the idea of homeschooling seemed to be completely erased from my mind. The years following the birth of D proved to be the hardest of my life, not only adjusting to caring for a high-needs baby after thirty-some years of independence, but also dealing with post-partum depression and the many marriage and health problems that developed within my extended family during this time. Luckily I had my husband to keep me strong enough to muddle through it all. In the end, everything started to fall into place, leaving me with two beautifully strong-willed boys, a devoted hubby, and a rediscovered faith in God after years of feeling lost and abandoned. Now D (my oldest) is nearing the age where he'll be starting Kindergarten, and the desire to homeschool has resurfaced. I'm taking a leap of faith, knowing that I've been called to do this but not feeling confident that I can actually DO it. What a tremendous, frightening, exciting opportunity it is taking on the responsibility of educating my children!! I'll be starting late next summer, but have already immersed myself in researching curriculum and extracurricular activities. It's all-consuming, but worth every minute.