Sunflower Faith

Yeah!

My second year homeschooling.

Over the summer, I took a much refreshing break and sabbatical and one of the things that help was just going over what did and didn’t work with homeschooling and always refining it (homeschooling), in a way that works well, for the kids.

For the 2009-2010 school year, we are still using the Charlotte Mason/Ambleside Online curriculum, with changes here and there so it’s not CM/AO in its true form, but a flexible variant that works for our household.

The youngest is still in PrK and we are working on the following:

1. Bible
2. Alphabet
3. Numbers
4. Nature Study
5. Art
6. Art History
7. Music

Talk about easy there,lol.

Alongside with the older sibling,though, the youngest is learning along and absorbing what is taught there, so really, what is listed for PrK isn’t set.

The advantages, I think, of having multiple siblings, is that they do cross-learn together.

For First Grade, we will be doing the following:

1. Bible
2. Reading/Literature
3. Spelling
4. Copywork
5. Math
6. Science
7. Social Studies (I.e. community, etc.) 
8. Geography  (we will be learning about the 50 states)
9. General Art
10. Art History (this is done every Friday and we pick an artist, to study that month)
11. Music Appreciation
12. Nature Study (Going with the AO schedule)
13. Character Education (weekly)
14. Extra-curricular activity of child’s choice

I think breaking up, our schedule with Term 1, Term 2 and Term 3 is more manageable and we can fit in a “month break” easier. In this case, our first month break will be in December, since it’s the busiest time of the year for us and still working with our schedule to see which next two months are more feasible to take off.

If you want an idea of how the AO weekly schedule looks, you can go here: amblesideonline.org/01sch.shtml

Curriculum that will be used :

1. The Golden Children’s Bible
2. Getting personal bibles for the kid(s) to have on their own
3. My own bible
4. Calvary Chapel’s Children’s Ministry: children.calvarychapel.com/site/curriculum.htm
5. Parables from Nature
6. Selections from AO’s book list: amblesideonline.org/01bks.shtml
7. Dick and Jane Books
8. McGuffey Eclectic First Reader ( see examples of the reader here: hstreasures.com/mcg/mcguffey_reader_menu.html or you can download versions via gutenburg books)
9. Copywork for McGuffey from here:http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/reading-and-writing-copybook-pk-1st-zb-style-print-mcguffey-primer/1159762
10. A Child’s Garden of Verses  ***Available Online***by Robert Louis Stevenson (will read 5 poems each week/choose one for memorization)
11. Aesops for Children by Milo Winters  *available online* (with copywork)
12. ***Need to go and look at my stack of books to write down the name of the other book we are using***
13. Library books
14. First Lessons in Arithmatic
15. Math workbooks that we’ve either made or found online for free
16. Our Father’s World-Help lay down basic foundation for beginning use of “Exploring Creation” series
17. The World God Made
    -Help lay down basic foundation for beginning use of “Exploring Creation” series
18.  Going to the library for books about the different states
19. Paddle to the Sea (Geography)-When we are studying the Northwestern states
20. Art is pretty easy. Markers, crayons, color pencils, and tempura paint.
21. Study an artist each month-We use the AO Art History guide and they provide resources to art prints and have corresponding groups for picture/art study-http://www.amblesideonline.org/ArtSch.shtml
22. Study a composer each month-Same thing; We are going with AO schedule-http://www.amblesideonline.org/ComposerSch.shtml
23. Handbook of Nature Study (available for free online)-http://www.archive.org/details/handbookofnature002506mbp
24. Outdoor challenges via Handbook of Nature Study Blog-
25. Fun With Nature (Take-Along Guide)
26. Hoping this year, we can invest in field guides for more, local nature and wildlife
27. Manners Made Easy: A Workbook for Student, Parent, and Teacher
28. Download Character Qualities from the Duggar site (I want to read their book so badly)-So we will be using that as  a perpetual guide of what to study

So that is it as far as our curriculum, but we will be adding and taking away with each term and seeing how things go.

I will probrably post a little bit more on what we will do by Terms, but still debating. I do have a Nature Study-Term 1 to share, in hopes that will be of help to someone.

Meanwhile, putting together the kids binders that they will be using. It’s a semi like the,”Avilian Notebook System” and each of the kids have their own file crate that is in the color, picked by them.

Each file crate has 52 file folders labeled, “Week One, Week Two”, etc. and a hanging file folder in their color, that they pick, for “administrative” files such as medical records, if they sign up for anything, field trips, etc.

For a better look at using a “File Crate system”, I wrote about it in a post here. By Sun and Candlelight, has the best look at using the file crate and you can read about it here.

In the “Weekly folders” I will add as I plan, worksheets that are pertitant to what they will be studying or doing for that week, either for school or outside of school.

For myself, I put together a “Teacher’s Binder” to keep lesson plans, schedules, personal notes and reminders, etc and I created for me and the kids, individual “Nature Study” notebooks to keep information and coloring pages, divided by AO-Nature Study schedule.

In this case, we are using Term 1-Mammals, so we have a “mammals divider” and all coloring pages and related information will be filed behind that.

I’m still debating if I should go with a 5.5 x 8.5 binder or standard letter size.

Anyway..that is about our schedule for now…LOL.