Planning Next Year’s Curriculum

We’ve are more than halfway through the school term and I am busy getting plans made for next year.  The current term has been very enlightening.  I love discovering the children’s potential and seeing what they are able to accomplish.  Both children has exceeded the expectation.  Little Miss finds a certain amount of excitement when challenged with her studies.    With that in mind, I am changing things up slightly for her.  Pookie has been the biggest surprise.  He is constantly proving that even though he is completely nonverbal, he is very bright.  He is slightly behind his typical peers in his studies, but not nearly as far behind as what people may expect.  he grasps new information rather quickly, but does need much practice to retain the things he learns.  It is truly a case of “if you don’t use it, you will lose it” where he is concerned.

We are continuing with Heart of Dakota curriculum for both children next term.  It has worked out very well for them and keeps their interest.  I love the format on how it is planned out.  There is much reading involved, which is something we enjoy as a family.  I also love the fact that you can purchase their very basic curriculum and add in the math and other programs that you choose.  This allows you to truly customize the curriculum to fit your child’s needs.

For Little Miss, she will be using the Bigger Heart for His Glory curriculum for 2nd & 3rd graders.  This will cover her studies for Bible, Art, History, Geography, and Science.

For Language Arts, we will be using the McGuffey Curriculum sold by Keepers of the Faith.  The Reading Series covers Phonics, Spelling, along with Reading Comprehension.  The Writing Series will cover Phonetics, Spelling, and Grammar.  As a part of the McGuffey Curriculum, we are including Spencerian Penmanship as her cursive writing course.  This is a beautiful script that is very easy to learn.  Seeing just how “girlie” our daughter is, she is loving the idea of learning to write using letters that are so elegant.  I am looking forward to it also.  I used to love doing calligraphy, so this is very similar.

Pookie’s will be using the Little Hearts for His Glory curriculum.  For a Math curriculum, we will be using Singapore Essentials Math for Kindergarten.  I still have a teacher’s manual for a Penmanship course from Rod & Staff that I had used with Little Miss 2 years ago.  I will be using it for Pookie’s writing practice.  I also still have the entire set of Rod & Staff’s preschool workbooks that Pookie is currently using to give him much needed writing and coloring practice.  We will be adding a page or two from those into his workboxes for additional practice as needed.

Both children are going to be continuing their work on the Keepers of the Faith programs.  Little Miss has graduated up to the Keepers at Home program.  Pookie is still working at the Little Contenders of the Faith program.  We do the Biblical character trait lessons together with both kids taking part.  At this point, Pookie simply listens to the lessons and Little Miss answers the questions.  He is still taking part and listening, obsorbing te information as we go along.

We will be doing a lot of notebooking activities for both of the children next term.  Once we got the hang of it, we have really enjoyed putting those pages together.  It is always fun to watch them sit with Daddy when he is home and show him their school notebooks.  Little Miss especially takes a lot of pride in sharing her notebook.

I have some fun trips to the zoo planned.  I found some great worksheets for the Zoo which the kids will be putting together into a notebook after our next visit.  We are blessed that the Oklahoma City Zoo has a family pass we can afford.  This will allow us to take unlimited numbers of trips to the zoo over the upcoming year.  (Note:  I will be posting the Zoo printables link list in a post tomorrow)

I hope that this overview gives you a good idea of what we are planning thus far.  I still have some adjusting to do on the actual lesson planning part of it but that will come once I have the books all in hand.

 

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Last Week of Preps

This week, I am finishing up getting everything prepared for the new school term.  I was so thrilled to hear Little Miss express to me a couple of times now that she is ready to get back to homeschooling.  She is not too pleased that she has to wait another week, but this week off is needed.  I was able to cheer her up when I asked if she would like to help me get the workbox areas ready.

Last Friday, I had printed out and laminated all of the visual schedule cards and tags.  These ones were free a download from Homeschool Creations.  I also took some graphics that I found through a Google Images search and placed them on a blank page in my word processing program.  The added graphics were for things specific to my kids.  Board games and her Keepers at Home program emblem.  For Pookie, I have images of his favorite snacks and a activities such as his sensory bin.

Little Miss was excited to see all the cards and workbox tags.  She is going to help me to get them sorted and made ready.  We went to the library and brought home an armload of books on the subjects of autumn and autumn crafts to go along with the thematic unit she and Pookie will be doing.  As a special treat, I also got a few books on her personal favorite topic – fairies!   She loves anything to do with the little fairy themes.  These will provide yet another motivator.  A couple of them are craft books that show how to make fairy themed items, including a tiny fairy garden.

I know that once we get started, this week is going to fly by.  I am excited.  It is so rewarding to see our daughter get such excitement over homeschool.  We are truly blessed in that.

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