A New School Year.: Part 1 Morning Gathering & Independent Studies

This year we have a few new curriculum that we will be doing & a  new homeschool medium that we will be trying. however, most of things we are doing this year are a continuation of the things we did last year. Last year we began utilizing the Robinson Curriculum methodology in our homeschool and we will continue this into this year and we are influenced by both the Charlotte Mason &  Leadership methodologies which are both very teacher intensive and must be used judiciously so they do not conflict with our homeschool distinctives. We began using ACE with Sweetie last year and will continue using more their curriculum for her because it's a nice fit!

 

Morning Gathering:

 

Our Day begins with the Morning Gathering which  I think is the most important work of the day,  the Bible. We do TAG (Truth & Grace) which has hymns, scripture & Baptist catechism. My husgand handles devotionals and I work with the kids on the knowing what the Bible says  & reading through their Bibles. We also do Proverb Cards at this time and our Wisdom Book Unit Study (which contains history, science, vocabulary, some Greek, Bible)  is completed during this time. After this time in the morning the remainder of their work is independent except for parts of IEW. The Twins sit at the table with us for the Morning Gathering and participate or complete their own silent activities.

Independent Studies:

Math:  Bullet & Sugar Pie will continue with Christian Light Math while Sweetie will be move to ACE Math.   

       Reading:McGuffey Readers these are recommended by the Robinson Curriculum. In RC the students are learning through independent reading (and writing). Accordingly, there is an emphasis on strong reading skills.  So all three children will work on a McGuffey Reader. Pearson, however, will  begin the year in the Phonetic Reader by Deane (a free Google book) and then begin McGuffey's second reader.

Spelling: We are simply continuing our spelling programs from last year. Peyton will continue to work on ACE's Word Building.  Parker will continue working in Simply Charlotte Mason's Spelling Wisdom. It's a pretty simple curriculum which just requires the children to copy quote each week and then on Friday I dictate the quote to them and they write it out. Book 1 covers 6,000 of the most commonly used words in English.
 

Grammar: Peyton will continue with ACE English. Peyton & Parker will both do IEW's Fix-it Grammar. Pearson will work on Primary Language Lessons in workbook format. This format will allow most of the work to be completed independently.

 

 

Handwriting/Cop ywork: We will complete Handwriting using the handwriting I downloaded from Currclick. During a sale I downloaded a package of a couple of thousand handwriting pages (for $3) that include Bible, history and more.  I plan to use this with all of the children.

Greek: We will continue Hey Andrew Teach Me Some Greek. We made it about 1/2 way through the curriculum before we were derailed by Bubba's numerous trips to the hospital.

 

 

Extra Curricular: We will  participate in Bright Lights which meets biweekly in the evenings. Additionally, the girls want to play Softball and maybe even soccer.

You may note our emphasis on independent study & reusable curriculums are two of our homeschool distinctives, I'll have to write a post on our homeschool distinctness and how they influence our curriculum choices for the better!