Planning: Late 1st grade/Early 2nd grade

 This is going to be a series of posts about planning, since we are finishing lots of things and starting new things.  I'm going to start with the 6 year-old 1st grader, who is turning 7 in a few weeks and would be a 2nd grader in the fall.

It's important to remember that we school year-round, so we usually start/finish curriculum at odd times.  I also drop/change things if the kids don't like something.

I do not know how long it will take to get through these things, but I plan to take a full calendar year to get through the Sonlight core.

Math

• Mathusee Alpha  
• I am switching him from Miquon.  I love Miquon, but it's not quite right for him.  I need him to slow down a bit.  Mathusee is similar, in that it uses the blocks.  He really needs the blocks/Cuisinaire rods.

Language Arts

• Handwriting
• Just keep chugging along with Handwriting without Tears workbooks.  The workbooks are cheap and get the job done.
• Funschooling's Storytelling Book- this is a book with nothing but cute pictures of different scenes.  The idea is, your child looks at one page per day and tells you a story based off the pictures.  You can then transcribe your child's story onto paper.
• Funschooling Curious Creatures Notebook - this is basically a blank journal full of pictures he can color, lines he can write on, etc.  I'm just going to try this to get him writing/coloring. He can write whatever he wants in it.

Reading/Phonics

• Explode the Code - we're continuing this series.  It's like spelling, phonics and handwriting altogether in a workbook
• Sonlight 2nd Grade Readers

Bible/History/Literature/Geography

• Sonlight Core B (World History 1) - I bought the Instructor's Guide and the Bible, poetry and history spines.  The rest of the books I plan to get at the library, if I don't already own them.  I also bought the Timeline Figures, the Timeline and the Hands-on History box.  I'm going to do the 5-Day a Week + 2nd grade Readers.

Science

• Interest-led - we'll do whatever he wants to do - read library books, do some Magic School Bus kits, whatever he thinks looks like fun

Links:

Mathusee Alpha

Handwriting without Tears

Funschooling

Explode the Code

Sonlight Core B

Curriculum Shopping 2022

 Around February/March, I usually buy most of our school books and curriculum for the year.  Here's what I bought today.  This is good timing, since we keep finishing everything and I'm running out of things to do.  This stuff should take them through late 1st and 9th grades into 2nd and 10th grades.

Mathusee Alpha.  (for late 1st/2nd grade) - I'm switching him from Miquon to Mathusee.

Mathusee Geometry  (for late 9th/10th grade)

Easy Grammar 180 Days Teaching Lessons 10th Grade

WordTeasers - SAT Vocabulary Edition (9th/10th grader)

Sonlight B - World History 1 (for the late 1st/2nd grader)

    I bought the Instructor's Guide, the Timeline Book, the Timeline Figures, the binder for the IG and several of the books that I know won't be available at the library.  I also bought the Hands on History box.   I'm going to do the 5-day schedule with Grade 2 readers.  I didn't buy the LA, because I looked a the samples and I don't think he is at that level.  However, I am going to have him slowly read through the Grade 2 Readers throughout the next year.

Hands-on History Box for Level B (Sonlight)

Ellen McHenry's Protozoa - (9th/10th grade)

I am planning to put together Robotics resources for the rising 10th grader - I'm just not sure what to buy yet.

TSI - English & Essay

 The 16 year-old took the TSI English and Essay sections today.  She is at college level in everything.  No remedial classes.  Out of a possible score of 990 points, she scored 971.  So, she did very well.  Last week, she passed the math section - tested into the highest math level.  She saw the advisor afterwards and they worked out her classes for her first semester of college.

My 16 year-old is going to college.  😢

Adding: we are taking school off next week, because I am mentally drained.

Homeschool Day 2/22

 1st Grader

• Miquon Math Orange
• Language Arts
• The Storytelling Book (Funschooling with Imagination) - I just bought this
• He told me a story from the first two pictures and I transcribed his story into a special notebook.
• Nocturnal Animals Unit Study
• Nocturne: Creatures of the Night (we looked at the pictures together)
• In the Dark: The Science of What Happens at Night
• Ancient Greeks and Romans Unit Study
• The Trojan Horse
• Sled Dog School (read-aloud at bedtime)
• Gymnastics (outsourced)

9th and 11th Graders

• More TSI English prep (11th grader)
• English
• Windows to the World - literary analysis
• We had a group discussion.  I'm going to move to just teaching the rest of this curriculum as a group using the dry erase board.  It's becoming tedious for them to read and answer the questions and then we do a group discussion.  They would get more out of it if we went through the book all together at the same time.
• The Outsiders (T.S. Hinton) - read-aloud
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
• German together
• German Demystified - they are making great strides with this book
• Gymnastics (outsourced)

Planning

• We had some discussions on what we want to do next, since we have finished a lot of our curriculum and the 16 year-old is possibly graduating.  The 14 year-old is interested in learning about microscopic life and British history.  The 16 year-old mentioned wanting to read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Homeschool Day 2/21

 1st Grader

• Nature walk at the park
• Miquon Math Orange
• Explode the Code
• Ancient Greeks and Romans Unit Study
• Usborne Greek Myths
• Peracles and Medusa
• You Wouldn't Want to Be a Roman Gladiator
• The Trojan Horse
• Nocturnal Animals Unit Study
• In the Dark: The Science of What Happens at Night 
• He LOVED this book.  It will take a week or two to read it and it's a bit over his head, but it was very interesting

9th and 11th Graders

• More TSI English/writing prep 
• Stewardship (11th grader)
• English
• Windows to the World
• The Outsiders (read-aloud)
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
• German 
• German Demystified
• Private voice lessons (11th grader)

We started registering for homeschool classes at our enrichment center for the next school year.  The 1st grader picked "Learning with Legos" and the 9th grader picked "Beginning Ukulele".

TSI - Math Section

 On Thursday, the 11th grader took the math section of the TSI at the college.  She scored into the top math tier.  So, she is officially at a college level for math.  Her English/essay tests are on Wednesday.  If she tests into college level on those, then she is finished!  *crossing my fingers*

Homeschool Day 2/16

 We did not get a full school day in, because we had to go to the dance shop and buy new Pointe shoes.  Also, we had a doctor's appointment, the teens went rollerskating with church and the 6 year-old went to Wednesday night church activities.

1st Grader

• Random House Book of Bible Stories

9th and 11th Graders

• Stewardship (11th grader)
• SAT Prep (11th grader)
• English
• Window to the World -literary analysis
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Solzhenitsyn)
• Shakespearean Theater (outsourced class - 11th grader)

Homeschool Day 2/15

 1st Grader

• Explode the Code
• Miquon Math Orange
• Random House Book of Bible Stories
• Ancient Greeks and Romans Unit Study
• Usborne Book of Greek Myths
• You Wouldn't Want to Be a Roman Gladiator
• The Trojan horse
• Gymnastics (outsourced)
• He had a huge play date with a friend - they played for hours and hours

9th and 11th Graders

• Stewardship (11th grader)
• The 9th grader finished Mathusee Algebra 1
• SAT Prep (11th grader) and we registered for the TSI
• English
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Solzhenitsyn) - this is not a book for anyone younger than high school.  They started reading this today.
• The Outsiders (T.S. Hinton) - read-aloud - wow, this book is getting really good, but definitely for older teens only.  We're about a third of the way through it.
• Windows to the World - literary analysis
• Gymnastics (outsourced)

Homeschool Day 2/10

 1st Grader

• Miquon Orange Math
• Bananagrams - we made words for animals with the letter tiles
• Ancient Greeks and Romans Unit Study
• Usborne Greek Myths
• Jason and the Argonauts
• The Trojan horse (Step into Reading series)
• Random House Book of Bible Stories
• The Dragons of Blueland

9th and 11th Graders

• Algebra 1 (9th) and Stewardship (11th)
• English
• Windows to the World
• They finished their characterization essays
• The Outsiders (T.S. Hinton) - read-aloud
• Bible readings
• German
• German Demystified
• Chemistry/Physics - Subatomic Particle Study
• Video: "Exploring Other Dimensions - TED Talk"
• Video: "How We Might Be Living in Other Dimensions without Knowing - Neil DeGrasse Tyson"
• Theater class - 9th grader - outsourced

Homeschool Day 2/9

 1st Grader

• Miquon Math Orange
• He read a BOB Book to me - he is doing GREAT with reading lately
• Handwriting on the dry erase board - we practiced writing numbers correctly
• Ancient Greeks and Romans Unit Study
• Usborne Greek Myths
• Jason and the Argonauts
• The Trojan horse (from the Step into Reading series)
• He played outside
• Wednesday night church activities

9th and 11th Graders

• Stewardship (11th) and Algebra 1 (9th) - this is the last lesson for Algebra 1
• English
• Windows to the World
• The worked on their characterization essays
• The Outsiders (T.S. Hinton) - read-aloud
• Bible reading
• Chemistry/Physics Subatomic Particle Study
• Video: "The Basics of the Higgs-Boson (TED Talk)"
• Video: "The Higgs Field, explained- Don Lincoln"
• News article: "X particle from the dawn of time detected inside the Large Hadron Collider" - from the Live Science website
• Shakespearean Theater - outsourced class (11th grader)
• Wednesday night church activities
• College Prep - the 11th grader took the TSI pre-assessment through the college.  She didn't miss any questions on the English.  Missed 3 math questions.  She got approval to take the TSI.  We printed out all the paperwork and started a folder for her to keep her stuff in.

Homeschool Day 2/8

 1st Grader

• Ok, this was not a very productive day.  All he wanted to do was pretend to be an alien.
• We threw the math dice in the yard and added them up.
• We read:
• Usborne Greek Myths
• The Dragons of Blueland
• Gymnastics - outsourced 

9th and 11th Graders

• Algebra 1 (9th) and Stewardship (11th)
• English
• The Outsiders (T.S. Hinton) - read-aloud
• Windows to the World 
• They started writing the characterization essay
• Chemistry/Physics
• Subatomic Particles Study
• Compared sizes of subatomic particles using the site Scale of the Universe
• Scale of the Universe
• Read about each subatomic particle that is known/theorized to exist
• Gymnastics - outsourced
• They did some cooking together
• Trip to the college to turn in the 11th grader's transcripts and see the advisor

Homeschool Day 2/7

 1st Grader

• Miquon Orange Math
• Reading
• Explode the Code
• He read two BOB books to me
• Ancient Greeks and Romans Unit Study
• Usborne Greek Myths
• Romulus and Remus (Rockwell)
• He made a book of the planets using construction paper and markers.  On each page, he drew a picture of a planet from our solar system and then wrote its name.  
• The Dragons of Blueland
• Random House Book of Bible Stories

9th and 11th Graders

• Algebra 1 (9th) and Stewardship (11th)
• English
• Windows to the World - literary analysis curriculum
• The Outsiders (T.S. Hinton) - read-aloud
• Bible readings
• German
• German Demystified
• We listened to Matthew Chapter 3 in German
• Subatomic Particles Study (for Chem/Physics)
• Video: "What's the Smallest Thing in the Universe - TED Talk"
• Video: "Step Inside the Hadron Collider - BBC" - this video has a 360 degree feature, where you can move the camera around and see the tunnels of the Hadron Collider, etc.
• We had a loooong discussion on everything Particle Physics - the safety of experimenting with these particles, what kinds of things could go wrong with the Hadron Collider, recreating the conditions for the "beginning of the universe", ethics when experimenting, etc.  The teens were fascinated by these videos and kept pausing them to talk about it.

Homeschool Day 2/3

 1st Grader

• Miquon Math Orange
• Reading
• He read a BOB Book to me
• Explode the Code
• Handwriting
• We practiced the lowercase letters on the Whiteboard app on the iPad
• Ancient Greek and Roman Unit Study
• Using Smithsonian: The Planets, we looked at pictures of each planet in the solar system
• We looked at comets, the asteroid belt and the dwarf planets
• We simulated earth rotating and orbiting the sun, simultaneously - me being the sun and him being the Earth
• The Dragons of Blueland (read-aloud)
• He played out in the snow twice (it actually snowed here in Texas)

9th and 11th Graders

• Mathusee Stewardship (11th) and Algebra 1 (9th) 
• 9th grader is one lesson away from being finished, so we looked at a couple of other math programs and she decided that she wants to continue Mathusee, because of the videos where Steve Demme is teaching - she says those are helpful
• English
• The Outsiders (T.S. Hinton) - read-aloud
• Windows to the World - literary analysis
• Bible reading
• German
• German Demystified
• They took a quiz
• Chemistry
• 9th grader finished Mystery of the Periodic Table
• Clock Reaction Experiment Kit (from Home Science Tools)
• We did almost all of the labs in one session
• They were fun!  I was worried this kit would be a dud, but we had a great time doing the experiments
• They also played out in the snow

Homeschool Day 2/2

 1st Grader

• Miquon Math Orange
• Reading
• Explode the Code
• He read a BOB Book to me
• Random House Book of Bible Stories
• The Dragons of Blueland (bedtime read-aloud)
• Ancient Greeks and Romans Unit Study
• Usborne Greek Myths 
• More Heracles tasks
• Pompeii, Buried Alive (we finished this and he loved the book)
• Nat Geo Kids, Planets
• We looked at pictures of the Parthenon
• He played Playdough

9th and 11th Graders

• Mathusee Stewardship (11th grader) and Algebra 1 (9th grader) - Equation of a circle and I had to do some of the problems with her on the dry erase board
• English
• Group discussion The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• They wrote a narration (1 page) about the book - I picked through their writing with them
• Windows to the World - literary analysis
• The Outsiders (T.S. Hinton) - read-aloud together
• Bible reading
• Mystery of the Periodic Table (9th grader)
• German (together)
• German Demystified
• Shakespearean Theater - outsourced class (11th grader)

Homeschool Day 2/1

 Today was not very productive, because there is a snowstorm coming and I wanted them to play outside as much as possible today.

1st Grader

• Dragonbox Numbers (math app)
• BOB Book - he read this aloud to me
• Handwriting without Tears
• Ancient Greeks and Romans Unit Study
• Pompeii - Buried Alive (oh, my, he really loves this book - he was drawing volcanoes while I read it to him)
• Nat Geo Kids: Planets
• Usborne Greek Myths
• Heracles' Tasks
• Gymnastics - outsourced
• He played outside for hours

9th and 11th Graders

• Stewardship (11th), 9th grader had a headache and did not do math
• English
• They both finished The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• Windows to the World - literary analysis
• Gymnastics - outsourced
• They also played outside and walked to the cookie store together

Like I said, we were not very productive today, between the headache and snowstorm.  There's always tomorrow!