I wanted to share a bit of our first week with you and also give a few details on our curriculum for this year. You can see the previous post for a recap of what our classroom looks like this year.
To begin our school year, we had a prayer service with Tata - what a huge perk of being a PK! (PK = priest's kid). He even sprinkled us all with holy water, as well as our school space.
We made a real celebration out of the first day of school! Unfortunately, the baby kept me up about 15 times the night before, so it was a rough start for me. Thanks to my hubby for stepping up to the plate and making breakfast for us all!
To celebrate the first day of school, I made a little cake as a special treat. The kids loved this! Definitely something to keep up for the rest of our first days of school.
Now, about our curriculum. Basically, I used several sources to put together our materials for this year. These were the Well-Trained Mind book and 102 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum. Both of these are wonderful and worthy of investment for a homeschool mama's library! (A new version of the Well-Trained Mind just came out, by the way).
We are focusing on reading and writing (handwriting most specifically) for this year. We are throwing in math, too, as well as a little bit of science (once a week). We are also using the Morning Basket to start our days together and this has been proving to be a favorite time of day so far.
Many resources can be found for putting together your own Morning Basket if you look on the internet. Since this is something new to me, and so is homeschooling in general, and because I am working with very young ages still, I wanted to keep the Morning Basket very simple for right now. I will write another post on our Morning Basket in a week or two, once I have tweaked it into exactly what I want at this time. I am still working on figuring out each resource for it.
Here are the other books/curricula we are using this year:
Reading
Plaid Phonics Level A Workbook (basically, whatever sound we learn that day in Phonics Pathways, I find a worksheet in Plaid Phonics to go along with it and to reinforce that sound)
These were both suggestions in the Well-Trained Mind, and Phonics Pathways also was recommended in 102 Top Picks. We are taking it very slowly (one sound a day for now), and I have been pleased with it so far.
Handwriting/Writing
Math
Science
One day a week, we do a read-aloud from the series "Let's Read and Find Out Science 1", which I take out of the library.
Once we have gone through this series, we will see where things go. For now, I am trying to focus on learning reading and writing before we do anything fancy.
Other
-My First Classical Music Book - we do one song a week from this book/cd combo, and I play the song for them each day so that we can get better acquainted with it. This book is SO lovely!
-The Artful Parent - I am using this absolutely wonderful book to help me come up with easy, simple art projects for the kids. I am trying to do one project a week, but the kids love art time so much that we end up doing simple painting or coloring every day
-15 Minutes Outside - this book is wonderful for giving moms an idea of something to do with their kids outside each day for just 15 minutes - it helps me get creative rather than say "go play outside" every day a few times a day - this creates a bit of a bonding activity instead of the kids running off on their own without me (which is fine, too!)
-Piano lessons
-Swim lessons (once a week)
To guide myself in read alouds and make sure that I am using quality, classical literature for my little ones I am using Ambleside Online's recommendations for reading out loud this year. I am sure we will get through the list before the school year ends, and I have several other places to get ideas from later on for read alouds.
No comments:
Post a Comment