Oct
13
Posted by Coral on
October 13, 2009
Since we do school year around our new “school year” will begin in January. I am becoming more and more eclectic in my curriculum choices. I am very draw to Charlotte Mason and Classical ideas. Next years plan is like this:
For our family subjects
History & Geography–
The Story of the World Vol. 1 by Susan Wise Bauer w/ some of the activity guide
The books we will use along with this are these from Sonlight’s Core 1 :
The Usborne book of World History
The Usborne Time Traveler
Archaeologist Dig for Clues
The Great Wall of China
(And some library books thrown in.)
Science– All of SL Science 1 ( I might stretch this into 2 years), and Nature Journals
Read-alouds– (from SL Core 1)
Charlotte’s Web
Henry Huggins
The Wheels on the School
The Year of Miss Agnes
Homer Price
Greek Myths for Young Children
Mr. Popper’s Penguins
Mountain Born
Understood Betsy
Detectives in Togas
A Grain of Rice (Core K)
(I might stick to these. I might choose others at times. This is just a rough idea of what we’ll be reading.)
Poetry– (read from once a week & memorize one a month)
When We Were Very Young
Favorite Poems of Childhood
Composers– (listen to in the car at least once a week, and discuss)
Strauss
Vivaldi
Beethoven
Handel
Rossini
Picture Study– (once a week)
Mary Cassatt
Monet
Van Gogh
Homer
Da Vinci
Bible– (during breakfast)
Read one week from the O.T. The next week from the N.T.
The Scripture Memory System from SCM
http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/memorysys/
with their list of Scriptures
http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/memorysys/verseslist/
Singing/Drama-
Choral Group
Spanish– (once or twice a week)
Rosetta Stone & Teach Them Spanish workbooks
Literature– books that they will both read separately (connected to our history study)
Tut’s Mummy Lost & Found
Pompeii : Buried Alive
The Trojan Horse: How the Greeks Won the War
The Librarian Who Measured the Earth
Fa Mulan: the Story of a Woman Warrior
Ms. Frizzle’s Adventures: Ancient Egypt
P’s Core Subjects
Math– Math-u-see (Beta), & math games
English-Rod & Staff English 3
Copywork/Spelling- Simply Spelling
Cursive– A Reason For Handwriting C
Literature– (look above and whatever else they wish to read from the library or home 
.)
Handy Craft– crocheting
R’s Core Subjects
Math– Math-u-see (Alpha), & math games
Copywork/Handwriting– Draw Write Now
Phonics/English– finish Phonics Pathways, then start Language Smarts Level B ( Critical Thinking Co.)
Literature– (look above, and whatever else they wish to read from the library or home )
Handy Craft– loop and loom weaving
I used SCM’s “Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education”
http://simplycharlottemason.com/books/planning-your-charlotte-mason-education/ to plan this all out. I think it is going to be a great “year”.
Oct
06
Posted by Coral on
October 6, 2009
Ok so my idea of using P’s creative writing stories as a place to get her spelling list from, was a flop. Sometimes I would pick words that turned out to be just plain too hard for her. So she still does a cw story ever so often, but I do not use it for spelling purposes. I tried Rod & Staff’s 2nd grade spelling (since we love their English), for a few weeks. P found it to be too easy, and boring. I finally decided that I don’t like spelling LISTS! So after much searching; I found this book that uses the copywork/dictation method for spelling:
http://www.ecrater.com/product.php?pid=1490908
P copies the selection 3–4 days a week (along with the assignments and recommendation in the book for each day),then on the 4th or 5th day I dictate the passage to her. We have used it for 6 weeks now and P hasn’t gotten a single word wrong! Plus she is getting all the capitalization, and punctuation (including commas) correct! She likes doing things this way because it combines her copywork and spelling into one, making less work for her (and me). It is building her confidence in spelling since there are always words that she knows along with the words she doesn’t. Seeing the words in context of writing also helps a lot. Now, I am not going to say we will do things this way forever, but for now it’s working. However, we’ll see what happens over the next few weeks 
.
Oct
04
Posted by Coral on
October 4, 2009
My girls love to throw parties in the evenings for the family. They plan during the day, set their room up, & send out invitations. Then after dinner we have a party! P found this invitation on the Crayola web sight, which gave her the idea for a Christmas party:
( the RSVP is a fake #)
P printed this off the Crayola sight also, and came up with the game “pin the ornaments on the Christmas tree”:
R made a Christmas tree & angel, and they both set this little scene up:
They sang one of the songs that they are learning in Choral group for the Christmas production; including their duet of “Away in a Manger” (there is something about siblings singing together 
). R read the Christmas Story to us. They ended the evening by putting on a Christmas puppet show. We had a jolly good time!
There was a discussion on a homeschool forum this week about Charlotte Mason’s dislike of unit studies. It got me thinking. Unit studies can be great fun for the teacher (finding ways to connect all the subjects into one core topic, yippee!). Children do tend to have fun doing things this way also. However, is fun the objective or is real learning the objective? When I see my girls get their own ideas and implement them, without any interference from me; I can’t help but think that it is better for them to make the connections themselves. They are putting their thoughts, their passion into the topic. They are doing all the work, and planning. They are not simply along for the ride. I’m not taking them step by step, project by project connecting all the dots for them. There is nothing wrong with projects or connecting subjects as long as it’s not forced and makes sense, or is just for fun. I think I’ll be focusing more on stimulating the ideas, and let them grow those ideas in their own play and creativity. No more silly projects that are nothing more than busy work here.
I know that the girls did not get this party idea form something we were studying. However, they often do come up with amazingly creative ideas from things we’ve studied. This party just reminded me of some of them. See how our minds are always making connections .
