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Saturday, July 28, 2012

Reed Family curriculum pick for 2012-2013 school year Part 2

Hello and welcome to part 2 of our Reed family curriculum pick this year.  To give you a short recap. I'll begin with telling you that we are taking a very eclectic approach to our school year this year. Money is tight for us and we're going to make due with what we have at the moment and go from there.   Most years I pick with one whole curriculum and stick with it because I like the all in one approach really , you just open and go. I do like to add to things when I can with things like: Lapbooking and notebooking. 
I'm hoping this year I will have the time to do this and we won't be needing to make any more trips to Cincinnati for at least another year with Maggie. We can hope and dream, can't we? 






So I will continue on with Hannah. Hannah is our 9 yr old. She is the third child and is very smart. She is quiet and cunning and soaks up everything around her. I'm convinced Hannah has no fear and she is my cuddle bug that's for sure. This year I'm hoping to get her through two grades 3rd and 4th because technically she should be in 4th grade.  The year they went to private school the school thought it was a good idea to keep her back in 1st, even though she finished first grade at home and did well. She was just a few words off from their list they used to test for reading skills and it really wasn't anything they couldn't have sent home or had Hannah work on more in school. Needless to say they kept her back in 1st and it was the most total waste of her time that year. It truly did a disservice to her and it was just a breeze through , blow through year for her.  Hannah's teacher even thought she had some learning disabilities. Which again, was proven through testing that Hannah didn't. The test they used she scored a 93/100. So, um,, no. Just because she has speech issues doesn't mean she has learning issues. Needless to say I think Hannah can do it and she is a very hard worker and loves to please her mommy. 




For Language Arts : We will continue on with Christian Light and let her finish the 200 level.  We were working on it last summer and it will give her some time to ease back into her homeschooling by starting off a little easy. If its too easy we'll just move onto the 300 level and go from there. 




Reading:  Once again Christian Light wins out with Hannah. She is a very independent soul and she likes to learn and do things really on her own.  Hannah likes minimal help from people so an independent curriculum is what I really need to stick with when it comes to teaching Hannah.   So we'll be finishing up the 200 level reading we have because I'd like to see where she is at in her reading, and if we blow through it, fine. We'll go right into the 300 and then 400 since those levels only have 5 Light Units per level.  I'm most sure I'll get Hannah to where she should be this school year even if it means we work through it all next summer.  I will say I'm not one to be stuck on grade levels because that's not what homeschooling is to me ( that will be another post sometime) but its about getting Hannah to where she really should be academically because that first year in school was just a total waste of precious learning time she could have had. 


Writing: We'll be giving Writing Tales a try for extra writing practice. I'm not sure as of yet where Hannah is with her writing, but I think this will be a good start. Marilyn and Katie really enjoyed Writing Tales a lot and I think Hannah will too. 








Spelling:  I will be combining both Hannah and Maggie with All About Spelling. This has got to be my most favorite spelling program right now. We'll be finishing up the level 1 , we're almost done with it , and going right into level 2. I believe that Hannah will finish up more than this but she'll work alongside Maggie in this level and then she can work as fast or slow as she needs to. 


  I wished it had been around when I first started homeschooling because I know Marilyn could have greatly benefited from it. She still could but I feel like teaching her the rules at this point maybe mute and she won't take the time to do it. But I will say if Sequential spelling doesn't help with her spelling she maybe joining her two younger sisters with this as All About Spelling now has all 7 of their levels out.  






Math: CLE math. Hannah is almost done with the 200 level and as soon as she is she will start right into the 300 level math. Hannah really likes the Christian Light math and she does really well with it so I'm not going to rock the boat with her and we'll just stick with what works. 


History:  Hannah will join right along with Katie in the Mystery of History. The nice thing about this program is its set up for all age levels. I wish I could have Marilyn using it too because it would be nice to have everyone at least doing one thing together at the same time.

Science: Again, I'll be combining the younger three and they will be doing the Apologia science. I will say a long time ago when we started this there used to be free notebooking pages online that we were able to use. 




Electives: Hannah will learn along side her sisters with the Home Ec course as I think she'll do great with it. Hannah is my one that wants to get right in there and learn something new. She's my child that loves to help me prepare things and even was my only one to learn how to take care of Maggie with her new medical equipment. I can seriously see Hannah either being a nurse or a spy someday. He, he. 






Last but definitely not least is Maggie. Maggie will be 6yrs old on August 8th. Maggie will be my 1st grader and she's smart as a whip. Maggie has picked up everything from her sisters that's for certain. Though we will have to maybe accomidate the amount of writing she does due to the fact she has a hypoplastic left thumb on the hand she writes with. I think Maggie will do spectacular this year.  






Reading: We'll be finishing up Learning to read and hopefully get right into the I Wonder series with Christian Light. The reading has been super easy for Maggie but the writing work in this level has been perfect for her so far since Maggie's attention span is that of a squirrel right now. I'm hoping with time that will change and she can concentrate more but I'm going to start her off easy and simple. We had a tough summer and we need to ease into it all.  




Writing:  Copy work. Just as much as she can handle. Like I said Maggie's hands tend to be a little weaker due to the defects in them. Thankfully she is a  lefty and not a righty ( she has a missing thumb on her right) so it helps that she has a good grasp with a pencil. Just her hand tires out fast.  We'll just work more on handwriting than anything this year and I'm not sure what to get her. I might start off  Abeka cursive but that will be after we get finished with the Learn to Read because it has enough handwriting in it right now. 




Spelling: All About Spelling.  We're almost done with level 1 and she'll be working with Hannah in level 2 already. Maggie loves her All About Spelling. Its her favorite subject of the day because its so hands on. 




Math:  Last year we worked with the CLE math. I've got mixed feelings about how its going to work with Maggie. I'd like to stick with it because it is a good math program. It really is.  So we'll see.  We just worked on the first two Light Units in the 100 level so we'll continue on with it and see where she ends up. 




Science and History. She can listen in on the Mystery of History and Science and do some projects with us if she wishes. I don't really stress History and Science to , to much at this stage because the subjects above are what I like to focus on first in the beginning. If we get this in with Maggie we do. I won't stress if we won't. 






So there you go. Our crazy eclectic mix of school books for this year. I hope this crazy plan works and we'll be happy with it and won't have to do to much changing this year with curriculum.  I do envy those who pick out one curriculum and just stick with it for all subjects.  I think its great that there are families that can do that.  For us we'll try this and see how it all goes. I hope I don't mess the girls up to much this year















1 comment:

Unknown said...

Loos like you guys are prepared for a great homeschooling year. Thank you for sharing.