Quarterly Curriculum November 2013 - January 2014

It's that time of year again where I start working on next quarters curriculum.  So I repost this quarters as a post for my records so I can move on and clean up the "Optimus Prime & Bumblebee" page (and, ultimately the "Scooby-Doo" page as well) to get it ready for next quarter.

This quarter's schedule worked out real well.  I really liked the layout, I liked not having 9 classes a day, I liked not covering everything everyday.  I almost feel like I struck gold.  I only have one (minor) complaint.

Just to give you some background, we always tackle three subjects at once.  When we covered nine subjects that meant three at a time, three times a day.  Now that we are doing seven a day I figured we could do three then four and just do two schoolwork chunks.  No, my kids were not having it.  Three is their magic number.  So, that's the one complaint.  We would do three subjects then our snack, followed by three more subjects and lunch, followed by three subjects - with lots of playtime thrown in to really break up the schedule.  Now we do three subjects then our snack, followed by three more subjects and lunch, followed by one subject... then nothing but lots of complaining because they had to stop playing just to do Spelling.

So, I'm thinking next quarter will be almost the same, but I'm going to have to figure out some nine and six subject days.  So, just a bit of tweaking, that's all.

We'll also stick to just one Concept Week a month, for the first week of the month.  I was thinking about doing Concept Weeks ever other week, but not for this quarter I think.  Maybe next one.

Anyway, here is our current schedule along with all of my observations and notes (half of which somehow got listed above).

Optimus Prime & Bumblebee:

Schoolwork Friday & Saturday, Sunday off, schoolwork on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Thursday off.

Letter Practice - Practicing handwriting, reviewing the alphabet, etc.
Days - Friday & Monday
Textbooks - Total Reading Kindergarten (American Education Publishing), Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills Grade K (American Education Publishing).
Number of Pages - 2 1/2

Number Practice - Practicing handwriting, working on counting to 100, etc.
Days - Saturday & Tuesday
Textbooks - Total Math Kindergarten (American Education Publishing), Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills Grade K (American Education Publishing.
Number of Pages - 2 1/2

Science - Learning about different animals (broken into units) with some reading comprehension thrown into the mix.
Days - Friday & Tuesday
Textbooks - The Complete Book of Animals Grades 1-3 (American Education Publishing).
Number of Pages - 1

Spanish - Practicing Spanish vocabulary (broken into different units) and comprehension.
Days - Monday & Wednesday
Textbooks - The Complete Book of Starter Spanish Grades PK-1 (American Education Publishing).
Number of Pages - 2

History/Geography - Map reading, directions, land-forms, continents, etc.
Days - Saturday & Tuesday
Textbooks - Beginning Geography Grades K-2 (Evan-Moor), Scholastic Success With 1st Grade Workbook (Scholastic Teaching Resources).
Number of Pages - 2

Art - Coloring, painting, activities in coloring books, etc.
Days - Monday & Wednesday
Textbooks - Cheap coloring books from the dollar store of their favorite cartoon characters, as well as cheap paint with water books.
Number of Pages - 2

Sight Words - Learning the sight words to help with solo reading.
Days - Friday & Tuesday
Textbooks - Sight Word Fun Grade 1 (School Zone).
Number or Pages - 1

Reading Comprehension - Learning to read, as well as some reading comprehension & activities with some short stories.
Days - Saturday & Wednesday
Textbooks - Listen, Read, & Learn Grade 1 (American Education Publishing), Total Reading Kindergarten (American Education Publishing).
Number of Pages - Will vary from day to day.

Logic - Same/different, patterns, opposites, mazes, dot-to-dots, word searches, crosswords, etc.
Days - Friday, Saturday, Monday & Wednesday
Textbooks - Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills Grade K (American Education Publishing), generic 1st grade logic workbooks.
Number of Pages - 2 1/2

Math - Addition, subtraction, fractions, etc with a big emphasis on time and money.
Days - Friday, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday
Textbooks - Spectrum Math Grade 1 (Spectrum), Total Basic Skills Grade 1 (American Education Publishing), quite a few Addition, Subtraction, and Time & Money books from Dollar General and Target.
Number of Pages - 2

English - Learning the difference between vowels and consonants, learning how to sound words out, synonyms, antonyms, compound words, rhyming words, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, sentences, punctuation marks, etc.
Days - Friday, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday
Textbooks - Scholastic Success With 1st Grade Workbook (Scholastic Teaching Resources), Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills Grade K (American Education Publishing), and some English workbooks from Target & Dollar General.
Number of Pages - 2

Spelling - Spelling words & units
Days - Friday, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday
Textbooks - Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills Grade 1 (American Education Publishing), Total Basic Skills Grade 1 (American Education Publishing).
Number of Pages - 1

Some final notes:

• Why the schedule shake-up?  We don't want this to be boring, here.  Homeschooling is supposed to be fun - not stagnant and boring - and varying the schedule helps keep it that way.
• No more quizzes, book reports, or Quiz Days; Wednesdays will now be a regular schoolwork day.  This stuff may all come back, it may never come back, or maybe part of it will come back - who knows.  I wrote up the schedule deciding that we needed a break from this stuff and didn't tell my kids.  Then on our second to last Quiz Day Bumblebee had a freak out because he "doesn't want to do quizzes anymore."  I was surprised - he usually gets 100% (which just goes to show that he really didn't need it anymore) and the quizzes don't stress him out or anything.  So I told him he only had 2 more days of quizzes then we would be done.  He was relived, and I was glad I had already decided to drop them.
• The first week of each month will just be our "core" subjects (Logic, Math, English & Spelling) and our Concept Week.  Trying to tackle "core" classes, "secondary" classes, and a Concept Week all in one week was too much.  When they were in kindergarten it was no big deal to add on a Concept Week since they only had 4 subjects a day, so every day was a half day and asking them to do a little extra was no big deal.  But we have 12 subjects (granted, not all are covered everyday), and tacking on an extra class with a book and a project was too much. 
• Still no gym class!  Football is going on right now, they are still worried about catching butterflies and beetles in the backyard, and once our obligatory one day of snow comes along they'll be out there making snowballs.  No gym class, just fresh air.
• I came to a decision about mythology during our last Concept Week (Ancient Egypt).  The last thing we need is class #13, so instead we'll just tackle some mythology each quarter in one of our Concept Weeks.  I'm thinking Norse mythology this class.  We'll see.
• I'll start doing one-on-one time to help Optimus Prime & Bumblebee out with learning how to read and anything else that they need help with.  I wanted to start it last quarter but our schedule was too packed.  That's another part of the reason for our current slim-down.

Scooby-Doo:

Scooby Doo isn't preschool age yet, but he loves watching his older brothers do their schoolwork, and he likes to feel involved so I decided to start doing schoolwork fairly regularly with him.  When Optimus Prime & Bumblebee were three we did one page (front and back) of schoolwork everyday.  Since Scooby Doo isn't three yet I'm not going to go with such a set schedule but I do have some rough goals for us to work towards (but not necessarily meet).

• We'll keep doing "Colors & Shapes" workbooks.  We have a rough goal of one page (front and back) everyday.
• We're going to start some "Alphabet" workbooks with the same rough goal of one page (front and back) everyday.  We'll also work on him learning his alphabet song.
• The other day he surprised me by counting to 11.  I was surprised since numbers is something we've never really worked on before.  He further surprised me by pointing to the correct numbers as he was counting.  That might of been a coincidence, but it might not.  I had already decided to do the alphabet with him, and had unpacked those workbooks instead of numbers, so I went through a big internal debate over what to do.  I didn't want to do numbers and letters at the same time when we were already working on getting our colors down (and shapes too, as a secondary goal) so should I repack the alphabet workbooks and pull out the numbers ones?  In the end I decided to stick with the initial plan of working on our alphabet, but we'll also work on counting to twelve everyday.  Then thirteen, then fourteen, etc.
• We'll keep coloring in our coloring books.  Some days he love it, some days he doesn't.  But like I said, these are rough goals.
• Doing three board books with him a day was a big success.  He loved getting read books his level instead of books like The Berenstain Bears all the time, and he loved the "us time."  But lately he's been bringing me harder and harder books to read to him.  Books like Dr. Seuss, Scooby-Doo Readers, The Berenstain Bears, etc. so I'm thinking our new goal will be to read one of those a day instead.

*all page number refer to the front and back of one page.  Example, 1 page means the front and back of one page, 1/2 page means just the front (or just the back) of a page, etc.

Two Week Review: December 6 - 19

(This post is a little late because Christmas for us (or rather Yule) falls on the 21st.  So you can imagine I wasn't in much of a rush to get this post up since I was too busy getting ready, wrapping presents, planning the menu, etc.  All that's done with, however, and the tree is probably coming down today so I decided it was time to catch up on my blogs, so here is this post - up a bit late.)

I'll start with Scooby-Doo since that's what I always do.  These two weeks were the exact same as the last two weeks.  Scooby-Doo really wasn't interested in anything other than reading.  He's also been refusing to count to ten for me with is irritating since I know he knows how to.  He still loves reading books, though, so we've been doing just fine on that front.  I'm thinking we'll take the next two weeks off...  Between Yule, traveling for Christmas, my husbands two week vacation from work, the housework I've been slacking on lately, and Scooby-Doo's current disinterest I think we could use a break.

Optimus Prime & Bumblebee have been doing good.  We did Scooby-Doo and Thomas & Friends magazines again for both Handwriting and Reading Comprehension.  We have a stack of them to go through, but we are running out.  Soon we'll have to go back to regular Handwriting and Reading Comprehension sheets.  They loved Science like always.  We finished up Australia and we'll start Africa next week.

Art & Sight Words were the same as always.  In Spanish we learned about the family names & body parts.  None of it really stuck with them.  I'm beginning to think we need to start doing something new with Spanish.

Geography overlapped with Science these last two weeks.  Our last unit in Geography covered different animals that lived on the seven continents, why they lived in certain environments, etc.  Some of it was review, some of it was not since we haven't gotten to those continents in Science yet.  We started (and finished) a new logic book.  It was called Path Quest and frankly it was a complete waste of time even though it said it was for grades 1 & 2.  However, Optimus Prime & Bumblebee enjoyed it even though there was virtually no work involved in it at all.

For Math we did counting by fives & tens followed by shapes & fractions for the whole two weeks.  I did (FINALLY) have some one-on-one time with Optimus Prime where we reviewed counting by tens until he got it down.  Bumblebee can count by ten just fine and he's okay with counting by fives, but Optimus Prime is at a loss with both.  So Optimus Prime & I focused on counting by tens until he got it down.  Next two weeks we'll all focus on counting by fives (like I said, Bumblebee could use some help there too).

We finished up our old English book and started a new one.  This one was largely rhyming words. page after page of writing words that end in -ox, followed by a word search with words that end in -ox, followed by words that ended in -ed, followed by a word search for words that end in -ed, etc.  It was unbelievably boring but it did help them to understand rhyming words better.  Next week we start a new book.  Lastly is Spelling, where we learned about the 5 senses and weather words.

All in all, a good two weeks!

Two Week Review: November 22 - December 5

So, just to let you know we are completely back on schedule.  We made up our couple of days by tacking on an extra subject here and there and now everything's (more or less) fine.

Why "more or less?"  Scooby-Doo has refused to do schoolwork.  Part of me's like "No biggie" another part of me is like "But I want to do the schoolwork with him" and the last part of me is like "Awwww, he says 'no' so cute!!!"  So, my response has been to go ahead and do it with him next to me, and if he joins in great, if he doesn't it's no big deal.  So we sit at the table.  I read the page's to him.  "Look, the flower is yellow!  Can you find the other yellow things on this page?"  Sometimes he joins in with me but usually he just giggles at the sight of me doing his schoolwork for him.  Sometimes I give him the marker but he always just throws it.  I'm pushing on to see if this is just a phase.  He doesn't have to actually start pre-k for another year and a half.  We only started workbooks because he was jealous of his big brothers.  We'll see what happens.  If we stop, we stop.  Like I said, no biggie.

Optimus Prime & Bumblebee caught up pretty quick.  It's easy when you slip in an extra page or two here and there, and an extra subject each day.

They enjoyed their Ancient Greece mythology unit (post soon!).  They already knew a little bit so they had fun expanding on their knowledge.  As for everything else, for once I have absolutely zero to talk about.

I know I've mentioned before that we have subscriptions to both Scooby-Doo and Thomas & Friends magazines, but I don't know if I mentioned that we also have a subscription to Friends magazine (all by the same company).  So for Handwriting & Reading Comprehension we did a couple of Friends magazines.

In Science we are still doing Australia.  In Spanish we FINALLY finished our Spanish alphabet.  I can't wait to start something new next week.  In Geography we covered half the continents.  They enjoyed Sight Words, like always.  They were lukewarm towards Art.  I'm thinking Art once a week next quarter, with lots of painting, clay, and plaster molds...

Logic was the same, Math was the same (addition and subtraction), for English we are almost done with our book (next week we finish it up).  I'm going to miss this English book, it was nice and different.  Lately we've been reading short stories and poems and they have to give the story or poem a name and say what they think the main point of it was.  No capital letters, no periods, no sentence structure, no long or short vowels (which to be completely honest sound exactly the same to me half the time), etc.  Also, Spelling (Numbers & Verbs these two weeks) is the same as always.  (Side note - it came to my attention the other day that I only posted 12 Spelling units for this quarter when there are 13 weeks.  I have no idea how this happened, and I'm going to fix this in the next couple of days.)

Lastly, there was nothing to have one-on-one time for, again.  Like I said, absolutely zero to talk about.

Two Week Review: November 8 - 21

This Two Week Review is up late because I got sick during these two weeks and we fell a couple of days behind.  This was followed by Thanksgiving, decorating for Yule, and trying to catch up and not fall further behind.  So, it's been a crazy 3 1/2 weeks, so here is my belated post about the first two of them:

Scooby-Doo is doing fine.  He's counting good, when he feels like it.  He won't say the names of the shapes or colors, but he does recognize the shapes.  I think he might recognize his colors too, but I'm not sure.  He's starting to sort of pick up on his letters.  I caught him with his letters schoolwork book pointing to random letters while saying a different letters name.  So that's progress, I guess.  He's falling out of love with coloring.  He's still crazy about stickers but he'd rather put them all over himself than a piece of paper.  Reading has become his new favorite "subject" (for lack of a better word).  He still likes his workbooks, but he'd rather curl up on the couch with me and read.  I'd rather do that too!  We're currently behind three days since I got sick for three days, but we should catch up soon.

Now onto Optimus Prime & Bumblebee.

We did some fun stuff for Handwriting & Reading Comprehension to take a break from our normal schedule.  I think I mentioned before that they have subscriptions to Scooby-Doo and Thomas & Friends magazines.  So we did the activities and stories in some issues.  It was a nice break.  I think I might do that again for the next Two Week period.

In Science we finished up the South America unit and moved on to Australia.  In Spanish we are still learning the abc's (the Spanish version, obviously).  We should be finishing that next week.  I'll be glad, and I think they will be glad to.  It was a pretty boring unit and the whole thing looked like some preschool abc pages.

In Geography we finished up our Landforms unit and moved onto Oceans & Continents.  Also, apparently we (meaning the U.S.) can't seem to decide how many oceans our planet has.  I know that technically it's just one big ocean, but when I was in grade school I learned that there are five - Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific, Indian, & Arctic.  (Side note - it always seemed silly to me that the Pacific got a North & South but the Atlantic didn't.)

When I got to high school (and later on in college) I was told it was four oceans - Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, & Arctic.  This made more sense to me (see side note above), though I was always confused why I learned differently in grade school.

So, Optimus Prime & Bumblebee's geography workbook names five oceans - Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic, and Southern.  I have never heard of the "Southern" Ocean before now.  It is apparently the ocean around Antarctica.  This makes since.  The arctic has it's own ocean, why shouldn't the antarctic.  Why it's not called the Antarctic Ocean confuses me but Southern makes sense too.  What I'm really baffled about, though, is why we can't seem to decide how many oceans we actually have.  Just decide already!  It's not like new oceans are discovered daily here.  We know what the damn planet looks like.  Just decide.  Anyway, that's the end of my rant.

Optimus Prime & Bumblebee are finally at the point where they don't want to do coloring books anymore.  They have never been big on coloring books.  Sometimes they bore them, sometimes they don't.  When first grade rolled around I tried buying more age appropriate Coloring & Activity books instead of just straight coloring books - both to shake things up a bit and to help them learn how to do easy word search and crossword puzzles.  However, they've reached the point where they are no longer interested at all.  So we'll finish up this quarter the way it is written (I don't feel like rewriting the whole schedule to drop 16 days of coloring, plus I just bought them some new Santa coloring books for December) but next quarter we'll have to start doing art projects instead, I think.

They like doing a special Sight Words "class."  I really just view it as an easy extension of Spelling.  They are still (thankfully) in love with the Spelling class.  Two pages seems to be the answer to get them to do it.  Logic is a favorite, like always.  We're almost done with our current Logic book.  I'll be glad when we are, it's more kindergarten level than 1st grade.

In Math we've been reviewing time & money like crazy.  They have the basics down, but when we try to move beyond that they start getting confused.  We did all kindergarten time & money sheets for the whole two weeks.  It was a nice review before we get back to regular math.  Next week we start up regular math again, which we'll do for a few weeks, then we'll go back and do some more time & money.

We finished up our English book and will start a new one next week.  The next English book is more of a throw back to the basics, which will be nice.  I'm sick of sentence structure, capitalizing letters, periods, and question marks - and I'm sure my kids are too.

That is pretty much it for these two weeks (well, 1 1/2).  Oh, I forgot.  We were going to start doing some one-on-one time, but there was nothing to do it on!  I figured we'd spend it going over time & money, but since we did kindergarten sheets they pretty much got everything right.  There was nothing at all that they needed help on.  So I guess we'll try again next week.