07-18-05 ~ Our 2005-2006 school year is off to a pretty good start! Well, honestly last week was a bit difficult trying to adjust to a morning schedule instead of sleeping in; however, today went very well. We started last week by doing just math drills daily and language arts. This week we are continuing with the above and have added writing and science. Next week we will add spelling and math.

We alternate science and history. We cover each for two to three weeks, depending on the topic, finishing what we are learning before switching to the other. I find this helps keep the interest in what we are learning and gives more continuity in our learning. For science this year, we will learn about the Plant and Animal Kingdom. For the next four weeks, we will be learning about the Plant Kingdom; the remainder of the school year we will learn about the various aspects of the Animal Kingdom. We use Considering God's Creation for science. We love this curriculum. We used it last year, will use it this year, and will finish it up next year. To find out more about this curriculum, visit http://www.eagleswingsed.com/products/cgc.html.

For math we use Math-U-See. I love its hands-on approach and how it seems to fit all of my children's different learning styles. For information on this go to www.mathusee.com . We are also using Quartermile Math for daily math drills. This is a software program that you use on a computer for about ten minutes daily. My kids love it and I can see already how it will help them with their math facts. You can find out more about this at http://quartermilemath.com/

For language arts, my 3rd grader & 1st grader are using Learning Language Arts Through Literature. This uses the Charlotte Mason approach to teaching language arts. For more on this go to www.commonsensepress.com.  My 3rd grader will also be doing Read & Think which is a timed reading and comprehension selection twice a week. You can find these from www.abeka.com

My four-year-old is doing some kindergarten work this year. She is on lesson 44 of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and soon I will start her in Abeka's Letters and Sounds K book. She loves workbooks!

For history, we are using Beautiful Feet's Primary Early American History. I love the literature approach to learning history! For more info go to www.bfbooks.com.  http://www.bfbooks.com/
Those are our core subjects this year. My oldest is using something called "Draw-N-Write" that I got from www.joyceherzog.com.  He loves to draw and hates to write. I picked this up in hoping to combine the two and help him to develop a better attitude towards writing. Today was his first day using it and he really liked it.

This is all I can remember at this moment! As I think of more or if we change anything, I will let you know!