2012-2013 Curriculum

We are getting ready to start our 5^th year of homeschooling.  Yikes!  Has it been that long already?  This year we will have a child in 4^th, 2^nd, 1^st, and K-4 with a toddler underfoot.  For the most part our curriculum hasn’t changed from last year; just different levels.  The subjects the older three will be doing together are:

• Bible:  Who Am I? – year two in Apologia’s world view curriculum.  Every time I hear/read the news I am even more convinced of the need to teach this to my kids.

• History:  Mystery of History Vol. 1 – We just finished Vol. 3 and since Vol. 4 is not yet released we decided to just start over again with Vol. 1 rather than try to find a different curriculum with which to fill the next year.  I wish I could afford to get the updated version of Vol. 1, but am excited to use the new supplemental material.

• Science: Apologia’s Human Anatomy and Physiology – The kids have all expressed an interest in learning how our bodies work.  Buddy will be doing the notebooking journal and the girls will be doing some in the junior notebooking journal as well as coloring pages from My First Human Body Book.  I got a lot of neat ideas about using this curriculum with younger students from Spell Outloud.

Individual subjects will include-

For Buddy (4^th grade):

• Math: Math-U-See Delta

• Spelling:  Building Spelling Skills 4

• Language: First Language Lessons Level 4 and Writing With Ease Level 2 – I wish I had discovered Writing With Ease earlier because he really needs work in this area.  When I ordered it I wasn’t sure how he would like it (would this be one of those pulling teeth things), but the other day he told me we needed something to help him learn how to write.

• Phonics: Explode the Code 7 & 8

• Typing: JumpStart Typing

• Handwriting: Getty-Dubay Italic Book E

• Other: Lessons in Responsibility

For Princess (2^nd grade):

• Math: Math-U-See Alpha

• Spelling: Building Spelling Skills 1 – Normally she would have done level 1 last year, but I couldn’t figure out how to do spelling with her when she could not write.  I looked at a lot of different curriculums and there was always some writing involved.  In all that looking though, I gleaned some ideas which we will try this year.  I bought a whole bunch of alphabet stickers for her to use in her workbook and am going to print magnetic letters for her to use to ‘write’ out her words on a magnetic board.

• Language: First Language Lessons 1 & 2 – Her fine motor delay has played a part here too since she could not do the copywork .  Thankfully they do not start doing copywork until halfway through level 1, so we just stretched it out a bit until she was ready.

• Phonics: Happy Phonics –Buddy has been doing Explode the Code which is good, but again Princess’s fine motor delay prevented us from using that curriculum with her.  Happy Phonics has been a good fit (no writing) and she is having so much fun.  An unexpected benefit has been how much it has helped with her speech delay.

• Handwriting: Getty-Dubay Italic Book A

• Other: Building Thinking Skills, Lessons in Responsibility, various workbooks we find at Costco or Sam’s

For Care Bear (1^st grade):

• Math: Math-U-See Alpha – She loves workbooks and will probably zoom through this one like she did the last.  The trick will be making sure she really knows her math facts since she tends to rely on counting in her head instead of memorizing them.

• Spelling: Building Spelling Skills Level 1

• Language:  First Language Lessons Level 1

• Handwriting: Getty-Dubay Italic Book B

• Phonics: Happy Phonics

• Other: Building Thinking Skills, Lessons in Responsibility, piano, various workbooks we find at Costco or Sam’s

For the Little Guy (Pre-K):

• Phonics:  Hooked on Phonics Kindergarten, Happy Phonics, sight word printables

• Math:  He will be using various learning games as he learns to count to 20.

• Handwriting: BFH Beginner’s Handwriting

• Other: various workbooks we find at Costco or Sam’s