Our Reading Routine

Our reading program has undergone quite a transformation since we first began teaching Syd to read back when she was three.  (Hey, she asked, I provided.  Don't judge.)  We have a system now that, I think, works pretty well, so I thought I'd share with you how we spend the first part of each day.

The spine of our program is Jolly Phonics.  From what I've seen, it's somewhat similar to AAR, but I think it's more fun for younger children.  We have the complete JP curriculum, and most days go something like this:

Looking for an Art Program?

I just wanted to share this great deal the Homeschool Buyers Co-op has going right now.  They're offering the Home Art Studio DVDs for up to half off, and given that they're only around thirty bucks to start with, that's really cheap.

A Week of Five in a Row: Day Four

Alas, today's FIAR has no pictures.  I briefly contemplated taking a picture of myself cutting a banana in half, but it seemed like it would be overkill.

A Week of Five in a Row: Day Three

Sorry for the delay in our continuing coverage of our week with Lentil and Five in a Row.  Lyme Disease strikes again.  I woke up the last couple of days feeling like I'd been hit by a truck, despite the bucketload of antibiotics in my system, and so while we finished up day three on time, I didn't get around to posting it until, well, now.

On day three we covered one of my favorite subjects- art!  I love art.  I could study art exclusively all year long and be happy as a clam.  Syd likes it too, but more the creating of it, less so the admiring of other people's pieces.  Luckily, she got to make plenty of her own for this project.

A Week of Five in a Row: Day Two

As I said yesterday, for this week we're doing Five in a Row's Lentil unit.  If you've ever read the book, you know that one thing you have to include in any unit about it is... lemons!

We started out by reading Lentil once again.  We don't always read every book each of the five days, but we usually do at least three or four.  Sydney really gets a kick out of Old Sneep's slurping noises in this one.  To cover the Literature component, we discussed setting, talking about how Lentil is set in Ohio, and if a book was written abou Syd, it would be set in Minnesota.

Then... on to the lemons!

A Week of Five in a Row: Day One

When you hang around homeschooling forums, one curriculum you tend to see a lot of questions about is Five in a Row.  A literature-based curriculum used primarily for Kindergarteners, FIAR is extremely popular among newer homeschoolers because it's flexible, easy to implement, and with four volumes to draw from, gives you a lot of options if you don't have the most well-stocked library around. 

To give a little more guidance to homeschoolers who haven't been reading up on the whole institution since their child was in utero (What can I say?  I'm a planner)  I thought I'd show you guys what a week of FIAR looks like at our house.  Yes, I know it's Wednesday, but we don't follow any kind of strict M-F schedule, and this week we happen to be starting on a Wednesday.  We're going back and starting at the beginning for Syd's K4 year, and our current selection is Lentil, by Robert McCloskey.

Our 2012-13 Curriculum

Well, I think I finally nailed down what we're going to use this year.  It's Syd's K4 year, her first official homeschooling, and we're going to have so much fun that I can't wait for September to finally roll around!  I've already posted our reading list for the year (subject to additions at any time) and now I'll share our actual curriculum choices.

Our (Tentative) Plan for the Coming School Year

Now that Syd is four years old, it feels like the coming year, her K4 year, will be our first "official" year of homeschooling.  And believe me, when you've been planning to homeschool since your firstborn was in utero, that's a big, big deal.

We have pretty much everything we're going to use, though I'm still nailing down the logistics of the scheduling.  Just doing the work when Syd requests it is a bit too loose for me, but I don't want to be standing on the table cracking a whip while she frantically tries to wipe the tears from her handwriting assignment, if you know what I mean.

Here are our plans:

In case you haven't seen this yet, here's an entire free curriculum..

If you have a child in K-5 and money is tight, you might want to check out the free lesson plans over at the Baltimore Curriculum Project.  They have free lesson plans for a variety of subjects including Art, History, Geography, Literature, Music, and more, and everything follows the topics in the Core Knowledge Sequence.  I haven't looked through every month for every grade, but I have browsed through a few months of the Kindergarten lesson plans and it seems to be quite solid, with a lot of good ideas. 

I won't be using the entire curriculum because we're planning on using a more classical framework and want to cover geography and pre-history in K, not American history, but we might just end up following the Art and Music lesson plans.

Review: Kaplan Anatomy Coloring Book

As I noted in my last post, one of Sydney's goals for our summer quarter is to study human anatomy.  Not because I'm a sadist and want to force high school level work on my preschooler, but because she's obsessed with it.  I blame the hubby.

One of the resources I acquired to help her is Kaplan's Anatomy Coloring Book.




I thought it was going to be very basic, but wow, was I surprised when it turned out to be extremely detailed and very accurate.  I later learned that med students sometimes use it to help them learn anatomy, so believe me when I say it definitely shows everything in plenty of detail for the average preschooler.

And it isn't just pictures- it has blanks to fill in labeling the various body parts, systems, organs, and everything else that lurks within our bodies.  There are pictures of everything from cells and synapses to full-body diagrams, and the illustrations are extremely well done.

This would be a great resource for an older student studying anatomy and physiology.  When Sydney hits that age, we'll be getting another copy of this to use.

THINK Global School- I'd Better Start Saving

I just saw a link to this while I was chatting up the regulars at the WTM Forums this morning, and wow, I think I'm in love:

THINK Global School

According to the website:

THINK Global is an innovative high school that offers teenagers a once-in-a-lifetime international experience. THINK Global students don’t simply “study abroad.” They immerse themselves in 12 world cities over 12 trimesters, undertaking a rigorous curriculum delivered by top-notch teachers, experts, and guides. They visit significant historical, cultural, and scientific sites, soaking up the colors, sounds, and flavors of their surroundings.

Of course, as you can probably imagine, the tuition is daunting.  Looks like we're going to have to start saving if we want to have any chance of sending Sydney a decade from now.  Hopefully they're still around by then.

Anyone know of something like this for adults?  I want to do it too!

This is a great deal.

For those of you homeschooling preschoolers, have you seen this?

Creating Curriculum Using Children's Picture Books

It's a lot like Five in a Row, but with books that are much easier to get hold of, and without the religious content.  And the best part is that it's only $3.50, and they have an ebook version.  I'm going to pick up a copy as soon as the hubby gets home from work and returns my credit card to me.

The book is originally fifteen bucks, so this is a great deal.  And yes, I am posting this to keep track of the link as much as to share this great deal.

ETA: The hubby got home early!  Yay!  I got my copy, and from a quick flip-through, it looks great.  Lots of ideas and crafts.  I can't wait to get started with Syd on it.

What we use.

Given that Sydney is just pushing the upper side of three, our curriculum experiments have been rather meager.  We have found a few things that work for us, though.

Funnix  This is the phonics program we've settled on for the moment.  It's all on the computer, but there's no real animation, only pictures and a voice-over.  We had tried 100 EZ Lessons, also known as the-book-that-will-surely-drive-any-child-under-five-to-flee-the-country, and Sydney hated it.  With a passion.  After two lessons.  I then tried Phonics Pathways, but since Syd was fresh off her 100 EZ Lessons trauma, that one didn't take either.  However, the child had known her letters and sounds for longer than she'd been walking competently, so we tried one more program.  Funnix was free and, well, that was pretty much the deciding factor.  Luckily, she loves it.  LOVES it.  She begs for more lessons until I have to put my foot down and tell her, "No, no more phonics today."  (Which makes any parent feel like they should receive a fricking reward.  Don't deny it.) 

Elemental Science: Exploring Science  This one is a nice science program for the preschool set.  We aren't too far into it yet, thanks to a freakish mish-mash of seasons crammed into one month that continually interrupt our plans to go outside and stare at the grass, but I'll add more once we're past week one.

Five in a Row  Meh.  Like many other parents of preschoolers, I use it because it's there and, well, that's about it.  The books are hard to find and the topics are sort of random, but at least you feel like you are doing something beyond sitting on homeschooling forums all day doing "research."

That's about all for now, besides reading more books than I knew existed and skipping off to library storytime once a week.  Plus, if I admit to doing anything more than this, the Waldorf mommies will find out where I live and send me threatening letters and strange child-hats.