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Ben and I wrapped up kindergarten this week. His dad and I are taking him out tomorrow to celebrate….lunch and a movie. We had a great year. I wish I has started this blog sooner so I could have recorded all the fun things we did. But first grade is just around the corner and I’m making plans!
We’ve decided to school year round, so we’ll be starting back on July 16 and ending May 30. I’ve planned our year in 6 week sessions with breaks of 2-4 weeks in between, for a total of 6 sessions. Here’s what I have planned so far.
History: we’ll be creating a history notebook using Evan Moor History Pockets for Early American History. Our units will include: Native Americans, Explorers, Pilgrims, Colonial America, Declaration of Independence/American Revolution, and Westward Expansion. We’ll be using lots of living books to learn.!
Science and Life Skills: we’ll be making lapbooks for these sessions. The topics we’ve decided on so far include: Animal Lifecycles, Health and Safety, Human Body, Manners for Boys, Fear Factor Cooking, and Astronomy. Should be fun!!
Geography: we’ll be touring the USA, learning about each state using the United States Coloring Book. We’ll also be learning map skills using Evan Moor’s Daily Geography Practice and Beginning Geography Series.
Math/Logic: we’ll be continuing on with Right Start math, level B. We’ll also add in some books from Critical Thinking Co., Visual Perceptual Skill Building, level 2 and Can You Find Me?
Spanish: I found a Charlotte Mason type Spanish curriculum at lulu.com. It’s called The Fun Spanish and we’re very excited about using it. We’ll also play around with Rosetta Stone online since we get it for FREE!!
Language Arts: Ben is a great reader, so we’ll be concentrating on comprehension and grammar rather than phonics this year. We’re using Right Into Reading, level 2 and Evan Moor’s Language Fundamentals.
Art: We’ll be studying some great artists using Discovering Great Artists and also the elements of art, using How to Teach Art to Children.
Music: For music we’ll be working through The Story of the Orchestra, learning about great composers and their music, as well as instruments of the orchestra.
For Bible we’re using The Explorer’s Bible Study: God’s Promises. For copywork, we’ll be using The Happy Scribe-Pslams from History Scribe and we’ll be memorizing several Psalms throughout the year.
We’ll be incorporating the Five in a Row curriculum where we can to enhance our science, history, geography and art studies, mostly because it provides gentle learning and fun activities with great picture books.
Our history, science/life skills, and music classes are going to done in a co-op setting. My friends, Dawn and Miriam along with their boys, Alex, Sam, and Luke will be joining us for co-op. We are very excited!
Should be a fun and busy year. And I know it sounds like way too much for first grade. But we’ll only be doing most subjects one day a week. The 3Rs and Bible will be done 3-5 days a week. Now if I can just get it all organized!!
~coming back to post a picture of Ben receiving his Kindergarten diploma. We ended up taking him to McAlister’s for lunch and presenting him with his certificate. He loved it!!
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