First Grade List for Next Year

In order to not think about the subjects I don’t have decided for 2011-2012, all of which fall under the category of “EG’s Sixth Grade Plans,” I’m going to write down all of my plans for FB, which are complete and therefore not a source of anxiety at the present moment.

Language Arts
     Spelling: Continue with Spelling Workout B and begin Spelling Workout C; this includes beginning to copy the “Pep Talk” rules onto paper, and keeping a running list of “Trouble Words.”
     Grammar: First Language Lessons, Level 2 (the older, combo version of Levels 1 & 2)
     Penmanship: Printing Power, and daily copywork sheets made via HWT’s worksheet generator.
     Composition: Writing With Ease, Level 2, along with writing a letter once a month.
     Oral Reading: Weekly reading aloud from the appropriate Reader of McGuffey’s.
     Poetry: Memorization of level two poems in IEW’s Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization; appreciation of poetry through the use of the Poetry for Young People series.
     Literature & Reading: In addition to thirty minutes of free, fun reading daily, FB will have assigned literature. Some will be related to his history studies (some of this may be read to him), some will be from a list I’ve compiled of “good books,” and the remainder will be books specifically assigned just at his reading level to continue to improve his reading. I anticipate he will finish Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading prior to the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year.

Mathematics
     Right Start B, moving into Right Start C; Calculadder drills; The Red Book & The Blue Book from Miquon; Kitchen Table Math and Primary Challenge Math.

History
     The Story of the World: Volume Two: The Middle Ages and the accompanying Activity Guide; supplemental biographies and other history books, drawn primarily from the You Wouldn’t Want to Be... series and Who in the World Was...? series.

Geography
     Rand-McNally Schoolhouse Beginner Map & Geography Activities, if I can find a new copy; The Geography Book.

Science
     Life science, using DK’s First Animal Encyclopedia, The Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia, and Incredible Plants as spines, with supplemental books drawn primarily from the Rookie Read-About and Let’s Read and Find Out series, as well as titles by Seymour Simon and National Geographic.

German
     Saturday School and/or tutoring/class.

The Arts
     Art Skills: Projects at Master’s Academy; also projects at home using How To Teach Art to Children.
     Art Appreciation: Visits to the High Museum; use of Mike Venezia artist biographies and books like A Child’s Book of Art for informal study; history-related art appreciation using Art in Story periodically.
     Music Skills: Recorder instruction and singing at Master’s Academy; basic piano instruction at home using Music for Little Mozarts.
     Music Appreciation: Focus on each month’s composer on Classics for Kids podcast; Beethoven’s Wig series, Classical Kids series, Mike Venezia biographies, and Opal Wheeler biographies with accompanying CDs.
     Performing Arts: Participation in end of the year play at Master’s Academy; attendance at one ballet performance, one theatre performance, and one musical theatre performance throughout the year.

Physical Education and Health
     Health: informal coverage of nutrition, personal hygeiene, disease prevention (through rest, clean hands, good nutrition), and the importance of exercise.
     Physical Activity: Eight weeks of homeschool soccer; ice skating; gymnastics; possibly team sports (baseball or basketball).


The important question, of course, is what do I need to buy at the convention next month?
• Writing With Ease, Level Two Workbook
• Spelling Workout B
• Spelling Workout C
• Printing Power
• Right Start C
• The Red Book
• The Blue Book
• Primary Challenge Math
• The Story of the World: Volume Two


What else do I need to purchase? Some of these may be a better deal at the convention, but I’m not yet sure.
• Supplemental history books
• Supplemental science books
• Mike Venezia artist & composer biographies
• Kitchen Table Math
• Poetry for Young People series
• Literature books
• The Geography Book
• Rand-McNally Schoolhouse Beginner Map and Geography Activities
• Music for Little Mozarts Deluxe Starter Kit

The Other Planning

Okay, the easy planning.

For language arts next year, FB will continue in his curriculum from this year, for the most part. He'll use Printing Power for penmanship, and Spelling Workout for spelling – probably Level B, but he could get into Level C before the end of 2011-2012. He'll also keep using First Language Lessons, and we'll continue his writing with Writing With Ease Level 2. Literature will continue to be a mix of him listening to great picture books and history-related fiction and reading books on his level.

Mathematics will be what he has left of Right Start B after this year, followed by Right Start C. He'll also keep working in Miquon – I anticipate him working in the Red book and possibly the Blue. Drill will continue, using Calculadders, and we'll throw in some other resources as well: MathStart picture books, the Kitchen Table Math books, and possibly Primary Challenge Math.

For history, FB will be continuing with The Story of the World, moving into Volume Two, which covers the time period from 400 CE through 1600 CE. We'll use the Activity Guide again, and add supplemental non-fiction, which I anticipate pulling primarily from the You Wouldn't Want To Be… series.

Science next year will be biology. We'll probably start that a little early, doing some botany in late spring and throughout the summer, using Incredible Plants and perhaps Green Thumbs. I'm going to use The Natural World as a primary spine, alongside the Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia and the DK First Animal Encyclopedia. The Natural World does touch on cells and evolution, which otherwise would go neglected. Supplemental books will be pulled heavily from National Geographic, Let's Read and Find Out, and Rookie Read-About Science.

German… I want to start all the kids on German. As with EG, this may involve tutoring, or Saturday school, or who knows.

FB will continue attending Master's Academy, which does a good deal of art and music appreciation. We're doing those very informally at home this year, which I'll probably continue next year. We have the Classical Kids series, The Story of Classical Music, and we do listen to Classics for Kids as well. I'd like to get more of the Venezia books on composers. I'd also like to get the Venezia books on artists. We have a few books on art and artists. Again, we'll keep this informal for the most part, though I do have Art in Story that we'll use periodically, correlated to history. I'd like FB to attend a ballet performance, a theatre performance, and a musical performance next year.

In terms of skills in fine arts, FB has expressed interest in starting piano next year. I think we'll use something like Music for Little Mozarts at home. They use the classroom program at Master's Academy and he's always talking about it. We may even start this by mid-spring of this year. He also is learning recorder at Master's Academy, and they do art projects there as well. In either first or second grade, I'll have him work through Drawing With Children.

This is really all even easier than it looks. I'm fine with music appreciation being decided as we go, as well as most art. Art in Story takes a little bit of prep, but no more than an hour or two total. I do have to finalize supplemental books for history and science, as well as create a schedule, and make literature selections. That's it, though, for FB. Easy peasy! All the major decisions are already made.

Ack.

I was conflicted over how much work we’d do for school this week. On the one hand, no matter how many days we do, we wouldn’t get a full five days completed, so we’d be uneven (I like my number of days at the end of each week to be divisible by five). On the other hand, I was planning to complete five days between this week & the week of December 20, so the more days we finish now, the fewer we do that week.

While I was dithering over this issue, I also realized that we’re going to finish 105 days by the end of 2010! That’s well over halfway, and we’ll hit the two-thirds mark before the end of January. This in turn inspired a moment of panic about planning for next year.

I started planning this year very early last year. Most of this was because I thought we’d be moving in the late spring or early summer, and I wanted to have things planned and purchased before that time. Well, we didn’t move yet, so in theory I should be concerned about the same scenario. Add to that attending the Southeast Homeschool Convention in March, where in theory I could purchase a good amount of next year’s materials, and I realized that at the very least, I should have some things decided, if not planned.

Eeek.

I don’t. Not really. I can rattle off a list of things that are decided, but they’re decided because they are the next book(s) or item(s) in a series or curriculum that is already working for us. There’s no actual decision to be made. Don’t get me wrong, I’m extraordinarily thankful that I know those, at least, and that the majority of those require no advance planning (the best, shining example? Writing With Ease. “Oh look, it’s the first week and the third day. Here, the paper is labeled for us!”). However, that means that while on paper it may look like I’m a good way towards complete, almost all of the real work is still ahead of me.

Sigh.

I have mid-year course corrections to puzzle out, as well – I’m reworking EG’s history, and plan to add a course or two from Duke’s TIP Independent Learning offerings. We’ve shelved Latin for now, have added some computer skills, and may be adding a modern foreign language as early as January.

Help.

It’s time, then, for this year’s iteration of the by 1 July list. Call it v2.0. Subject to editing as I remember more things.

By 1 July 2011
01. Decide on supplemental titles for Story of the World Volume Two. (FB)
02. Plan out life science/biology with spines, supplemental books, and projects and activities. (FB)
03. Work through the next sections of Art in Story for art appreciation. (FB)
04. Make a better plan for grammar stage art projects. (FB)
05. Make a tentative literature list. (FB)
06. Decide whether or not to enroll the kids in a Saturday language school. (FB & EG)
07. Decide what to do about literature for EG for next year. (EG)
08. Work on Hogwarts-ian plans. (EG)
09. Decide on online classes. (EG)
10. Figure out social sciences/history. (EG)
11. Plan social sciences/history once decided. (EG)
12. Make a final decision on science and plan out if necessary. (EG)
13. Decide on what technology/computer skills to emphasize. (EG)
14. Plan art history for the year. (EG)
15. Plan music history/appreciation for the year. (EG)
16. Make a list of various math resources, since she’ll probably tear through them. (EG)
17. Make a shopping list of everything, to take to Greenville.

I Can't Help It, It's a Disease

With the year happily underway, I know what it means.

It's time to start thinking ahead. Time to start thinking about... 2011-2012.

Yes, I just created the "Homeschool 1112" folder on my computer.

I know, I know. Some haven't even started the 2010-2011 school year! I spread out our buying throughout the year, though, which means that very soon, I'll need to have a plan in order to purchase.

There's some good news. I know what I plan to use for FB for language arts and mathematics. The only real prep work that will need to be done for him is with regards to science and history. I know we'll continue with SOTW, so that is simply a matter of getting the activity guide and beginning to select books. For science, we'll do life science/biology, as suggested in WTM, but I need to select our spines, any experiments or experiment kits, and supplemental books. For EG, I know what I plan to use for language arts, including about half of the literature list. I plan to have her tackle geometry next year, and I have two of the three resources I plan to use. I do need to choose her history supplements. We'll continue with Latin Prep, and the art & music appreciation plans that we began this year. I think we'll use The Snake and the Fox for logic. So far, so good, right?

There's a little matter of a class called biology. O, hai there, bane of my existence. She wants to do high school biology next year. She's capable of this. That's not at issue. It's just... well, advanced math is pretty easy. We just keep doing the next thing, whether it's the next thing from Art of Problem Solving or the next thing from Life of Fred, or both. The sciences have more leeway. There's the molecular focus, or the zoological focus, or the ecological focus, or... well, you get the idea. To make matters worse, I was a biology major. Why does that make it worse? Because, as a result, I think every single part of biology is Of The Utmost Importance.

You would think that the lack of secular science material would mean I have few options. In a sense, this is true. All of the options I have identified were originally designed for classroom use, not homeschool use. It will also be necessary to add a laboratory component to the course, whatever I choose. The LabPaqs look like a possibility. If I seem to be rambling, that's because I essentially am. This has me far more flummoxed than I would like!

There was a thread on out of the box chemistry on WTM the other day, and I have half a mind to post a thread about out of the box biology. Surely there's some resource out there for biology that's vaguely reminiscent of Fred or MCT or...

In sum, though, my major decisions for next year are few. Decide on first grade life science spines, experiments, and supplemental books; choose books to accompany SOTW 2; finish EG's literature list; choose remaining history supplements for EG; and pick a biology curriculum for EG.

Sure. No sweat.