curriculum

What are we learning?

One thing that I felt very overwhelmed about was figuring out what I want to do about curriculum. The Charter School allows us to pick our own or use what they have available based on what our child's learning strengths are. I looked online to perhaps find something and when I saw the large array of what they had, I felt overwhelmed(yet again!) So with that, I went ahead and let them see how Jacob learned best, and used what they provided us. 

Language Arts: We are using Sing Spell Read and Write.....Benji is doing the All Aboard book(Alphabet basics) and Jacob is doing the Raceway Book(more advanced phonics)

Math: We are doing the Saxon Math......it's OK....so far it gets the job done, and then we spend a lot of time doing math fact games and activities. I would say easily what ever grade you think your child is, you could go a year ahead or do a year's worth each semester. Jacob could easily finish Math 1 by winter time. Why not skip? Because I don't want to risk missing something critical to the next step because everything else was "easy"

Health, Safety and Manners: You won't see this at the public school! I purchased separately (thank you Amazon!) books about health safety and manners. Why you might ask? Because I think it is important to know how to act appropriately whether it be at home, school, church or anywhere else....stuff like setting the table, proper bathing habits and knowing not to play in the street is part of being educated, and it is sad that it is being kicked out of schools to make way for kinder kids knowing algebra. 

See how happy he is already!

Foreign Language: As part of Jacob's classroom time at school he is learning Spanish, but at home we are learning as a family how to speak German. It really appealed to me because of some great friends I had as a child and now because my brother(air force) is stationed there. We use this book and then a set of printable books form WWW.EnchantedLearning.com

For Science History and Literature, we are doing unit studies and are currently as follows....

Science: Earth: How it is formed and rocks and minerals

History: Early America: Westward expansion

Literature: We are reading and writing about the book Chrysanthemum

* For read aloud time, we are reading Dr Doolittle.

We also use a large amount of supplement materials for helping with the learning process....games and manipulatives and other fun activities are used. I will feature them as I go along this year.