Curriculum Spring 2013

After lots of planning and thinking and tweaking, here is our curriculum schedule for the next semester.  Much of it continues on from the fall, with a few changes:

Lucy (age 7)

My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures - I will be adding in quite a bit from Expedition Earth.  We've been enjoying parts of ECC, but it is mostly over Lucy's head.  Expedition Earth will add in more projects and fun on her level and allow us to continue our journey around the world.

Rod and Staff English 2 - Lucy hates this!  We're continuing through the book, but have switched to doing the majority of it orally.

Rod and Staff Spelling - same as fall.  Lucy does well with spelling.

Lucy finished her Explode the Code (phonics) book.  We will be using a Wordly Wise (vocabulary) workbook next.

Reading - Lucy is eating up books as fast as I can throw them at her.  We do a combination of reading out loud (Josefina American Girl books, CLP Nature Readers), silent reading (anything she can get her hands on), and reading comprehension projects.  I purchased Sonlight's reading comprehension questions for grade 3 for this semester.  We'll borrow those books from the library and work through the questions, just to be sure she is understanding what she is reading.

Math Mammoth - same as fall.  I love Math Mammoth, it continues to be a great program.  I like that it approaches math from all angles and teaches concepts very thoroughly.  Lucy still struggles with concepts from time to time so we are trying to include more math computer game time, Flashmaster practice, and the Mathtacular DVDs from Sonlight.

REAL Science Odyssey - We started this in the spring last year and loved it.  In the fall we dropped it in order to use the science from ECC.  That is definitely not working for us, so I'm excited to pick this back up again.

A Reason for Handwriting T (transition to cursive) - Lucy has been asking to learn cursive.  I had held off in the fall, just giving her various things for handwriting practice.  She will enjoy working through this book.

Rosetta Stone - We are easing into this.  Lucy struggled with getting the computer to recognize her pronunciation of the words when we tried it.  (Julia couldn't do it at all.)  I have various Spanish learning CDs and things that I need to pull out and let the girls listen to.

I Can Do All Things - Lucy has picked this art book up again recently and likes to work in it from time to time.


Julia (age 5)

Julia listens to any reading we do for ECC, and usually joins art projects.

The Reading Lesson, Bob books - We read a few pages from one of these books several times a week. Julia is excited that she can read and enjoys practicing.  She got a beginning readers book for Christmas and wanted to read it with me right away.  :)

A Reason for Handwriting K - same as fall.

DK Math workbook - Julia is excellent at math and almost done with this book.  I ordered The Complete Book of Math for her to use next.

Explode the Code - same as fall.  She is working through Get Ready For the Code, Get Set For the Code, and Go For the Code.

Sonlight Core P4/5 - This is new!  I decided that too much of ECC was over Julia's head, so we are going to begin working through Sonlight's Core P 4/5.   It looks like some of the stories will go along with our world studies nicely.  I think Julia will also really enjoy the science books.

Esther (turning 3!) and Baby Isaac interrupt listen in on many of our lessons as well.  :)

Sneak peek: Where are we headed?
In the fall of 2013 I'm thinking of using Sonlight Core B for history, Bible, and read aloud stories.  We'll move to Abeka for English and Spelling.  I just ordered BraveWriter's The Writer's Jungle and Jot It Down.  I'm excited to learn more about her writing approach and implement it over time.

Overall, I think I have a good plan in place and like how things are working together.  It has taken some time to feel settled in various curriculums that we enjoy, but I think we're getting there.  Every now and then I panic and research curriculum like crazy, trying to be sure we are on the right track.  Tell me I'm not the only one?!