2011-2012: Lillie Anna

Lillie Anna is going to be 8 years old in September and she is at that age where fostering that love of learning is critical. That window of opportunity is going to close in a few years and there is so much I have missed that I want to give her...so many things I wish I could do over now that I'm slightly older and wiser. But God's able to turn our mistakes around, I truly believe that. After searching high and low, list after list, comparing prices (and finally deciding I can get by with not buying things LOL) here's the general plan. Keep in mind this is going to be scattered as I just tend to jot things down throughout the day as they come to me so it's not uncustomary to see little slips of paper laying all over the place with ideas. This will also be lengthy with lots of links and things because she is also at the age where formal lessons really begin to come into play.

BIBLE

I will read Catherine Voss's Story Bible. In addition, I am going to use my Ed Emberley Make a World Drawing Book and have her make her own little book about each story where she illustrates it and writes it herself. Here is the article that gave me the idea. We will discuss the key issues of the story.

Here's a sample of Ed Emberley's books (I love his focus on simple shapes...my kids LOVE his books and I hope to be able to invest in them all) He takes simple shapes and step by step shows how to build up to the finished product. I love the Make a World because it has a little of everything in it and it's like heaven for the artistically challenged, such as myself.

Bible Verse Memorization : 1 verse bi monthly. Any time shorter than this I don't think she commits it to long term memory and verse memorization needs to be a life long habit and retention should be the key, not the number of stickers on the verse chart.

She will copy the verse every other day for some handwriting practice. This will help her spelling also, I think.

She will be assigned a passage of scripture to read...probably one a week.

READING: Explode the Code Book 4, Amelia Bedilia books for readers. I also started a reading incentive program for Lillie to encourage more independent reading. For every book she reads by herself I give her 25 cents. Another thing I've been doing is using a tape recorder for her to record herself reading. Lillie Anna tends to get embarassed easily if she makes a mistake and so she doesn't like to read to other people and that includes me. So when she's ready to read a book, I let her record herself in her room all by herself. Then later I go back and listen to it and follow along with the book to see if there's anything I need to address. Early on in her education I was so very stupid as to push her with reading because I fell prey to that whole "She needs to be reading by the first grade" spill everyone thinks is correct. I pushed her when she was not ready and now I will do anything I can to help her reclaim a love for reading, even bribing her with money. I'm not above it . LOL

MATH: This area is where I tend to freak out the most because I myself am not very good at math, or at least never felt like I was. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree obviously because I can see alot of the same issues I had with math in school cropping up with Lillie and I don't want her to hate math or think she can't do it. So I looked through my Home Learning Year by Year by Rebecca Rupp (this is a great book and I've plum worn it out) and started in the first grade math section (yes, Lillie is in 3rd, but when you don't go by a packaged curriculum , gaps can be a real issue if you don't stay on top of the list of skills commonly suggested for the grade your child is in.) and made a list of math skills and topics we needed to cover and ones we needed to review through the 3rd grade...I was pleased there weren't more gaps to say the least.

So I will take that list and we will knock those out one by one the goal being mastery of those skills as opposed to finishing the whole list by the end of the year.

Lots of hands-on games and activities, online computer games, worksheets and real life experience.

Here are some of my favorite resources for math worksheets and activities

Lesson Pathways I strongly suggest this site for all subjects. It covers all subjects grade K-5. You can assign pathways to each child and it's TOTALLY FREE. Music to my ears!

Super Teacher Worksheets BEST WORKSHEET SITE EVER!!!!!!!!!! And I only use all caps when I'm really really really pleased with something.

COPYWORK: Daily/ Bible verses, poetry etc....

SCIENCE: Nature Study at least twice a month (it's kinda hard to take walks with all the kids right now on a weekly basis)

Weekly Science Experiments pulled from the books I have here at the house and the internet.(FREE)

Human Body (yes...still)

Beakmans World and Magic Schoolbus from NETFLIX (Check out the all caps)

HISTORY: (Weekly) Topics I want to cover are the Presidents, Vikings, Explorers, Ancient Rome, Ancient China, Maya and Incan Civilizations.

We will use our Book of Centuries Timeline (This is FREE and it's Simply Charlotte Mason how can you go wrong?), books from the library, projects pulled off Lesson Pathways, Notebooking and some Lapbooking though I don't see alot of that going on right now as it's very time consuming and hard to get all the kids involved and you can't leave the others out, you know. :)

The History Channel has a This Day In History on their website...I thought it would be good to add these events to our book of centuries and if the kids showed an interest in learning more about an event, then we'd stray off the beaten path and explore a little. This way they're getting a lot of snip-its of history they can go back to.

Tennessee State History and hopefully some cheap field trips around the state throughout the year. This site is great if you're interested in Tennessee History.

GEOGRAPHY: World and United States ( Including the 50 States) Bi-Weekly

Notebooking will be or primary learning mode here. I have the GeoScribe (see previous post) set and the 50 states Copywork and Notebooking pages. Basically we will be using dry erase atlases (Basically a notebook of printed maps put into sheet protectors so that they can use dry erase markers on it and reuse the maps) to find the place we'll be learning about. I want the kids to make a Physical Geography (Landforms) picture atlas of their own. I was going to purchase the Geography Challenge Books by Arnold Cheyney, but the cheapskate in me who needs ink cartridges more than books right now decided to search out a FREE alternative...Enter National Geographic GEO BEE!

So funny how things change! LOL. Just this morning I was lamenting over what books to buy and now I don't have to buy any! I've found a reasonable and quality alternative to every single book I wanted to purchase. Now I can buy office supplies! LOL I'm like Meg Ryan in that movie You've Got Mail ( I too love a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils.) And call me simple minded, but is it weird that I am super stoked that now I can justify buying myself a THREE HOLE PUNCH?!!!! I want a pink one! I have never had one and I am so very sick of using a single...oh yeah and a stapler! Not one of those dollar mini ones either...I mean one that holds a WHOLE ENTIRE ROW OF STAPLES!!!! Oh man, life is GOOD!

SPELLING: Lillie likes spelling like I do and she's very good at it, so I bought Kathryn Stouts Natural Speller to use. Kathryn Stout is one smart lady and her articles have helped me out alot lately.

WORD OF THE WEEK: Pretty self explanatory. Starting at Page One of our Childcraft Dictionary (a salvaged copy from my childhood...brings back good memories ..YES I read the the dictionary for fun.) one word a week. Copy the dictionary entry for it, work on it's spelling, use it in sentences, whatever.

I had purchased Karen Andreaola's Simply Grammar, but she doesn't suggest starting it until 9 and since this is my first year really covering a whole slew of subjects, I will gladly leave off one.

So, that's the plan for Lillie. I know it was lengthy and possibly very boring, but maybe the links will be helpful. I always like to see how other people schedule things and such and this will be a reminder for myself that I can go back to to stay on track.

Well, that time of year has rolled around for alot of homeschoolers and I wish you God's blessings on your journey!

Have a blessed day!