Monday, August 7, 2006
Our school year
Posted in Education
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I haven't been posting much due to the fact
that it has been blazing hot outside and I've been trying to keep these
little munchkins of mine from going insane. It's so much worse than a
rainy day because it looks like
it should be a nice day for playing outside...it's just sooo hot... So,
we are all very relieved at the opening of our neighborhood pool this
weekend and spent most of the morning there! A good, solid naptime is
almost a gaurantee... I've been anxious to get out all of the books that we've collected over the summer for our first "official" school year and start to get everything all ready and planned out. I thought I'd post about our plans here. Our homeschooling philosophy is a combination of the principles laid out in Teaching the Trivium, by Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn with a Charlotte Mason style. Our Bible time is done all together and we will be reading a Proverb each day and working on their memory verses that Daddy starts with them in the evenings. We'll also use that time to work on any other memory work that I think would be good for them. At night we'll be starting Herein Is Love, by Nancy Ganz. Science we will do together as well. We'll be reading through The World God Made and the Christian Liberty Nature Reader, both from Christian Liberty Press. We'll also continue on with all of the bug catching activities that have pretty much characterized our summer. The boys built a birdhouse with Daddy a few weekends ago so I think we'll also spend some time learning about the various birds that come to enjoy the feast. For Travis (starting Kindergarten), he will be working through Horizons K Math workbooks (he LOVES workbooks and begs to do them!). We will also be sharpening his reading skills using our McGuffey readers and tons of reading aloud. We also going to work through the Drawing with Children book together (probably once a week?), which I'm really excited about. For Sam (3 1/2), we're working on letter sounds using the Get Set for School workbook by Handwriting Without Tears. He also really loves using his "letter lines" (the wood pieces from HWT) so we will continue to use those. We bought the Rod and Staff preschool workbooks for him to start and he can't wait to get into them! Caroline will sit with us during our hour of schooltime each day and color (now that she will do do without eating crayons!), play with playdoh, work puzzles, shape sorters, look at books...etc. I'll also continue to do activities with her from our Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready (June Oberlander) book. She enjoys most of those activities and I just skip any that don't seem like they would be fun. : ) She also absolutely loves being read to and is loving the books from the Before Five in a Row reading list. In addition to all of that (which I don't plan on spending more than and hour-and-a-half a day on), we will continue on with our reading aloud. One of the books that I'm most excited to get to is Little Pilgrim's Progress, by Helen L. Taylor. I think the boys will really love it. And, for those of you with boys (or adventuresome little gilrs!) we've discovered The Squire and the Scroll (Jennie Bishop) this summer. I anticipate reading that one almost daily for the next few years. : ) That pretty much sums us up for this year. We're all excited for our year to begin but, for now, we plan on taking complete advantage of these remaining lazy days of summer. We'll be back at the pool after naptime. |
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