This year we will be starting our new homeschool year the week after Labor Day. We will continue to do a 4 day school week as we did last year. The kids are excited to get back at it, and I must admit...so am I!There is something so wonderful and HOPEFUL about a new school year starting...what progress will be made, what changes will occur, what new things are waiting to be learned....the possibility of it all alone provides monumental encouragement!
I get asked alot of questions about curriculums and this is what my kiddos will be doing this year:
the (typical) 3yr old: will be doing preschool 3 days a week with me. Structurely, she has two workbooks...one with numbers and one with letters and Iwill be doing speech therapy with her also (I am a licensed speech language pathologist so that comes in handy for me). Her program will also include time on the http://www.starfall.com/ phonics website weekly and daily read alouds. She will do the same arts and crafts as her older siblings. She accompanies us to girl scouts weekly and plays with another 3 yr old younger sister there so she gets a fun playdate weekly.
the (typical) 6 yr old/my FIRST GRADER: She does a 4 day/wk curriculum. She will be doing core work from the Catholic Heritage Curriculum which includes math, reading, handwriting, science and religion as its core subjects (some are taught daily but not all--we follow the lesson plan). She will also have Soc sudies as per the AZ state requirement. I cross reference the subjects taught in the Catholic Heritage curriculum with the CORE KNOWLEDGE sequence, which I love and is a great guide for typical homeschoolers. She also has French this year (textbook, workbook, and audio program), and per her request...sewing. This year her sewing projects include stamped cross stitch, the beginning projects from the Sewing with St. Ann Catholic Heritage book, and basic hand stitching. She gets speech therapy weekly to work on her /r/ and /th/ sounds. Her extra curricular activities keep up hopping but as we home school in the morning, her afternoon activities are manageable with our household schedule. She does ballet twice a week, horseback once a week, Daisy girl scouts once a week, and starting in September will be in Catholic CCD classes once a week. This is supplemented with math and reading practice on computer and arts and crafts.
the (special) 10 yr olds: The boys will technically be in fifth grade this year, though their academic work is at the K-1st grade levels with reading being at about a 1st-2nd grade level. Per AZ requirement we teach Reading (we use Edmark reading program with them), math (kumon books at their level plus http://www.ixl.com/ computer math program), science and social studies. They receive the same science and social studies lesson as their 1st grade sister since that is their level of understanding that works nicely with lesson planning. Since the boys are special they require extra help with learning daily living skills and I am continuing the daily living skills portfolio program I started with them last year. The boys love arts and crafts and their program also contains daily read alouds. The boys will do a modified scouts program with their dad this year. They receive speech therapy once a week (from someone who is not me) and physical therapy once a week to help them with core strength and balance.
TIP: I like to pick 2-4 themes for each month and the read alouds I read to all 4 kids at same time are on these themes. Picking themes each month is a great way to plan units of literature and accompanying arts and crafts. Other read alouds are read to the boys and girls per their area of preference...for example this month (August) found me reading Black Beauty to the Girls and Diary of a Wimpy Kid to the boys.
