My Own Curriculum!

Posted by Coral on February 5, 2009

I am stepping out on a limb this next school term ! When we finish Sonlight Core K/Science K, we will take a brake from it. We will continue with Sonlight, after R turns 6 yrs.old. I really do LOVE Sonlight. However, I believe that I goofed when I started with Core K/Sci. K instead of Core P4/5 -Sc. P4/5, (it would still have been plenty challenging for P). R has done fine with listening in on Core K/Sci. K; but after looking at Core 1/Sci. 1, I think it will be too much for her right now. I really want to try and keep the girls together in History and Science.

So here is where the limb comes in.  For the time being; I am piecing together my own His./Sci. curriculum for this next term (I say term because we do year-around-school).  Mainly it’s just my own History curr.

Here’s the plan:

I will be using these Value Tales books for History

These were mine when I was a child. Each book covers one very important person in history (Abraham Lincoln, Christopher Columbus, Harriet Tubman etc..) I have 30 of these. We will read about, and do activities on one person a week (two weeks for some of them).

For each person I made a folder like this (this one is Christopher Columbus):

The “supplies needed” list is the supplies that I don’t have (or need to check and see if I have enough of ) for crafts. For Christopher Columbus(CC) we will be making an egg carton boat http://crafts.kaboose.com/egg-cup-ships.html ,and a map of his journey to the New World http://crafts.kaboose.com/new-world-map.html. Inside the folder are all the craft instructions and coloring pages, that I printed out.

The pink Post-it notes are the call #’s of books and videos at the library that are about CC. Our libraries online look-up system makes this very easy.

I look at each Value Tales book, then decide how I will break it up into 3 Days of reading. I write the page #’s under the Days. The 4^th Day we will do a craft and/or some other activity, to bring it all together. For CC we will make the Map and watch a Nest family video. We only do school four days a week, so this works out well. Here is what it looks like:

The “go exploring” on Day 3 will probably be moved to Day 4 also. I plan on  taking them on an expedition in the back yard. I don’t know what this will  look like exactly, but it seems like a fun idea .

With some of the people in the Value Tales, I will have a Bible lesson to coincide with it that week. For CC’s week we will do Noah’s Ark, using the common theme of “Boats”. I am not quite sure what all we will do for this. However, I did find the whole story of Noah, in coloring pages http://www.coloring.ws/noah.htm.

I’ll read the library books here and there when time allows, or just let P read them in her free time.

For Science:

I bought this Christian Liberty Nature Reader: Book 1.

I also purchased Grade 2 Science “Patterns of Nature” Set from Rod & Staff.

Along with a butterfly habitat

and maybe a few other projects this will be our Science.

I am definitely not brave enough to do this again, and again (for now, at least). I already went ahead and purchased (used) all of Sonlight Core 1/ Science 1,  it is just waiting for us to be ready, for it. The only reason I am doing this is because- I already had the Value Tales books (saves money), and I don’t want to overwhelm my R; she so wants to be a part of our school experience.

Anyone out there wanting to take a break for a year (from their curr.), might want to use this Value Tales idea also . Leave me comments if you are interested in seeing the rest of my lesson plans for these.

Attack of the Squirrels

Posted by Coral on February 5, 2009

Yikes! The squirrels at the Grand Canyon are fearless. The Rangers warn people about these dangerous creatures. I sat there in disbelief that this little guy was soooo close to us. I now realize that I should have been quicker in moving my son. However, I am grateful he did not bite S.

Turns out this is what the rascal was after:

(Ice cream )