Well, we are four weeks into a new school year, so I thought I'd share a little about what we are doing. Arianna is doing first/second grad-ish work, Noelle is doing kindergarten math, phonics, and handwriting, and participates in all our other reading, I do not hold her responsible for any of the information, except Bible.  

We begin the day with breakfast, and then while everyone is at the table we do the table work. I purchased the StartWrite software for handwriting (hat tip: Dell) to print out my own copywork sheets, and while there are a few things that twerk me about it, It's a handy tool to have. The girls copy memory verses, hymns, quotes, definitions, their dictated narrations, and whatever else strikes my fancy. In math we are still working through our Horizons books - and we LOVE them. I highly recommend this program. The girls are making excellent progress. Oh, and lately I have been reading our daily poem at the table too (usually while they eat). We read one a day from The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

After clean up and chores we have a little break until it is time for Emi to nap. While she is napping it's time for phonics, Bible, literature, history, social studies, science, and Spanish. We don't do every subject every day, and the 5th school day of the week (which is often Saturday) is art and music day. Here's a brief run down of those subjects:

Phonics: Noelle is working on letter recognition and sounds. Arianna has become quite the fluent reader, so to celebrate we recently took her to buy her own Bible. If you're interested, she chose THIS one. She read our Bible passage during devotions yesterday and was SO proud of herself. Anyhow, to practice phonics she reads; here is a short list of the books she has or will cover this year: Animal Rescue Club, Because A Little Bug Went Ka-Choo!, A Big Ball of String, The Bravest Dog Ever, The Cat in the Hat, A Fly Went By, Go Dog, Go! Goose and Duck, Green Eggs and Ham, Henry and Mudge, Little Bear, Little Bear's Visit, A Kiss for Little Bear, One Fish, Two Fish, Put Me in the Zoo, Sammy the Seal, Small Pig,  and Tigger Comes to the Forest. That is the first grade list, and she is about half way through it, so when she has read them all we will move on to second grade, and I will share that list then. 

Bible: Last year we read through the Bible chronologically using The Bible for Children. This year, we are reading Leading Little Ones to God, and reading the daily passage from the NKJ. Since we have been reading and discussing the Bible for as long as they can remember, LLOTG is a tad simple for them, but I think we will stick with it. We should be done long before the school year is over though, and I have not planned what is next. 

Literature: So that I do not neglect my littles, I have planned preschool and 2nd grade literature. For my preschoolers that means reading 2 pages of nursery rhymes from Lavender's Blue every day or so (LOVE this book) and reading a book from Ambleside Online's Year 0 book list (click the link and scroll down) once a week (or so). Currently we are working our way through The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh (we ALL love these, and Milne's poetry too!) At Arianna's level, aside from our daily poetry, we are/will be reading Understood Betsy, The Wind in the Willows, and Robin Hood this year.  This is from AO's Year 2 list, and I am really excited about all of them. I will also be ordering a version of Pilgrim's Progress and will add that to our weekly readings when it arrives.

World History: We are continuing our chronological study of history using The Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages as our "spine" to keep me focused. We are supplementing this with more books than you can imagine, so that will have to be a post in and of itself!

Science: This year we are Exploring Creation with Astronomy. I like it because a) It's not a boring textbook, b) all discussion points back to God, and c) it suggests related projects and activities to do; this is good or me, because even though I love those things, I will leave them out if the research/finding/planning of them is left solely to me.

Social Studies: This is a category I have mostly to cover the "life skills" and cultural literacy stuff that I would forget to teach my kids if I didn't have it written down! Things like How to Tie Shoes and Reading A Calendar and What A Fireman Does. I purchased a Learn at Home Kindergarten book from Costco that I am actually really enjoying and I get a lot of my ideas from there. We have worked on All About Me books and read Love you Forever, The Keeping Quilt, They Were Strong and Good,  and Me on my Family Tree, as well as made our own family tree on a large poster board. Most of this work is at the younger kids level, so it is just another way to include them in what we are doing.

Spanish: I still don't have a curriculum for, but we practice several new words and phrases weekly, and check out books in Spanish from the library. Just yesterday Arianna asked me how to say "sad" in Spanish. When I told her triste, Ezekiel said "Jorge etsaba triste"  which we read in Jorge el Curioso y el Conejito! Hey, I was impressed.

I think I will save Art and Music, as well as our read-alouds (and  history books! I haven't forgotten!) for another post or two. It's been fun, and if you've read this far you are either a) a homeschooling mommy of young children, b) a curriculum junkie (you know who you are!) or c) obsessed with me or some strange reason. 

Good Night!  

Posted by Nana

Sounds like you are keeping quite busy teaching the most adorable grandkids in the world. Do you think you could come teach Caitlyn Algebra II? I met her teacher at open house and I am not impressed.

Posted by EEEEMommy

Sounds like you're off to a great start! :) It's busy isn't it. :)
I loved catching up on the summer pictures! I'm glad you got the tower open. The kids are all adorable!