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Showing posts with label handwriting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label handwriting. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Our Curriculum

Since I was on a search today for some of our curriculum for next year, I thought I would share what we are using.

Math:  We use Abeka Arithmetic.  We do math just about everyday.  We might miss a day here and there due to field trips or incidentals like that but we try to get some math in everyday.  During the summer, we have managed to do some math about once or twice a week since the beginning of June.  I had intended to do a little more, maybe two to three times a week but once or twice has worked out ok so far.

Language:  We use Abeka for this as well.  As with math we try to do Language everyday. We have not done any language during the month of June.  We will start back up in August.  We also use Abeka for reading, spelling and handwriting.

History:  We have really enjoyed The Mystery of History volume 1.  the nice aspect to me of this curriculum is that it starts with Creation and moves chronologically through both Biblical and world history.  Tying them together and showing the student (and teacher! :-)) what was going in Bible History and in the world at the same time!  The activities that go with the lesson can be geared toward appropriate ages and making the time line is fun, that is one of Riley's favorite parts.

Science:  We are using the Apologia Exploring Creation series.  Right now we are in Exploring Creation with Zoology, Fifth Day the Flying Creatures.   We have also done some of Botany and Astronomy.  What can I say about this curriculum?  Well, the things I have learned about God's creation is amazing!  Jeannie Fulbright has covered several aspects of all of the elements of Creation and has done a great job at showing the student why God created somethings the way He did.  There is a reason for everything.  The text is very informative and easy to read.  The experiments can be done on many levels of age groups and are easy to do with easy to acquire materials. 

Music:  Is done through piano lessons which I am teaching Riley right now.  Later on he will take from someone else.  I don't play well enough to continue on past a certain level.

Art:  He is getting through our COOP classes right now.

We will also occasionally do a unit study depending on what is going on.  We might do one on a holiday or a person (that is all we've done so far).  We recently completed a unit study/lapbook on Dr. Martin Luther King.  We also found a free Knights and Castles lapbook at homeschoolshare.com which I hope to complete this summer.

That is our curriculum for Third grade.  We have not made a lot of changes over the past three years or so.  We used the Weaver Interlock curriculum at age 4 and had a lot of fun with that.  We started out in Math U See in Kindergarten and Riley really did not like it.  We changed to Abeka and that worked for us, Riley still doesn't like math but it isn't as much of a battle as it was then.    Other than those two changes we have stuck with what you see above.  Time will tell if we need to make other changes later on down the road.

What are you using?  Have you stuck with the same things each year or have you changed up your curriculum choices?  Was it easy for you to decide?  Let me know, I would love to hear from you!

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Productive School Day

We got a late start to school today but that is ok, things have gone well. Riley started out by reading in his library book "Daniel Boone", in his favorite spot. Right in front of the space heater! I constantly have to remind him to scoot back so he is not so close.

 

 Aaawww Mom!  Your flash is too bright!


We were able to finish labeling the last 5 states on our Map of the USA today!  We are making progress!  We have a big floor puzzle of the USA so I put it together and traced the outline of the continent, then traced each of the 50 states.  It wasn't perfect but it worked great for us!  Then as we were labeling each state we used small post it notes so they can later be removed as he learns where each state is.




He has really enjoyed learning where each state is, making comments such as:  "One day I want to go to California."  Or, "Someday can we got to Colorado?"   Dreaming up future vacations!


We are close to being done with American History for this year.  As soon as we finish we will start back up with Mystery of History which is a Biblical and World view of History.  We will pick up with King Saul, David and Solomon, then move on to the Phoenicians.  With the Mystery of History we will also do a time line, mapping and projects.



Riley had a new writing assignment today.  I read in the Heart of the Matter newsletter for today an idea on "Would You Rather...".  He takes a scenario, "Would You Rather... live in a house made of candy or a house made of money?"  He then wrote his answer in 5 sentences and really had fun with it!  He asked me when he was done, "O.K. Mom, what is my next question?"  Woohoo!!  He actually enjoyed handwriting for today!  It was also interesting as well as fun to read his answer.

We finished up Phonics and did a Math Test and we are done.  Busy day but good and well productive!  It was so nice to have a victory in handwriting today!  Thanks to Angela at Heart of the Matter, what a wonderful idea!