Our Schedule

In effort to keep me from burning out with my aggressive learner, I have decided to make our school year a little more structured in regards to the days in which we school. We will have school on Mondays and Tuesdays then Wednesday off (nice mid-week break) then school again on Thursdays and Fridays. No school on the weekends either. This will give us a 4 day week of school. I think that is completely appropriate for a 5 year old.

On the non-school days, we still will have snack/story time (read alouds) and whatever crafts the girls feel like doing. Just no lessons!

Summer School ends tomorrow!

Packy looking through R&S Bible Story book:

Squeak working on a project:

Our 1st Grade Curriculum Line up!

I decided to officially post what we plan on using for 1st grade, which begins August 29th. I do have miscellaneous resources that I plan to pull out if need be but this is the listing of our main curricula (and I've predicted which subjects we will continue on to the next level):

Bible - BJU Bible 1 then Bible 2

Math - Singapore Primary Math 2/Horizons Math 2 (book 2) and 3 (Book 1) - supplements "for fun" - Life of Fred Apples and Key to Measurement

Science - Noeo Chemistry 1/My Pals are Here activity books - supplements "for fun" - Basher Books, Magic School Bus books, The Complete Book of Science workbook. After Noeo, I think I'm going to go back to Sonlight Science D.

LA - BJU English 1 then 2, BJU Spelling 1 then 2, lots of read alouds

History - Sonlight Core 3 (we will be using this for a few years, working slowly through it)

We are also going to begin more work on handwriting but aren't using anything formal. I have some "1st grade" lined paper from Walmart. And of course, we'll have crafts and art projects, listen to music and do all sorts of other things. I'm hoping to start Squeak up with flute lessons too.

Gearing up for 1st grade!

August 29th is the beginning of our 1st Grade year! Lately we've just been doing BJU Bible (wrapping up K5), the Solar System book (working on a project to put on our science wall) and read alouds/crafts.

I have just about all of our materials for 1st grade minus a couple of math items. I'm waiting for our Singapore textbook and workbook (back ordered) and Life of Fred Apples (should be here any day).

One thing I decided to change this year was giving Squeak a "break" from curriculum every now and then. I ordered extra resources for math and science to do for fun instead of our regular curriculum.

I will update the curriculum list soon!

MBTP Matter/Movement Completed

Squeak completed the MBTP Matter/Movement Concept. We are not going to continue with the Measurement Concept and I just sold it! The material was just way too easy and Squeak was getting bored. I wasn't looking for anything too challenging since it IS summer but I really need to purchase a much higher level to have MBTP work for Squeak. But then Packy won't be able to participate since the higher levels use harder chapter books. Oh well.

Cute pictures:

Quick Note!

I was without a computer for two weeks...virus-issues! I didn't have time to take it to the computer shop, finally did and now have it back!

Summer school has been plugging along! Squeak also enjoys Recreation every day and soccer twice a week.

We have almost completed one MBTP Concept, BJU Bible Truths K5 and numerous chapter books (Magic School Bus and Ready Freddy).

1st grade begins on August 29th!!

I bought a set where you chisel away looking for gems/stones. Squeak found all five gems and quickly identified which ones she had on the chart (there were 25 different gems/stones - 5 in each set).

Basher Books

I highly recommend these books if you have a science nut! Basher Books are a colorful, fun resource for your home school library! I won a brand new set of eight on ebay and they arrived yesterday. I read almost half of the Human Body book to Squeak that night! She was thrilled! They are meant for older children so some of the content (ie. sperm/egg stuff) was skipped. They also have a little pull out poster in the back of each book. They do contain "old earth" content which we skip as well. It's hard to find secular books without this sort of stuff but it's easy to tweak.

But all in all, I am pleased with these books and Squeak is very excited about them as well! I heard some are on sale at amazon.com.

Here is Squeak enjoying the Astronomy book: