Thoughts on curriculum.

We are pretty much done our first year. We are working a little on secondary programs through to June, and then we will see where we go from there. This first year of homeschool (grade one for my son) was grand. We all learned so much as a family and educationally too, of course. I want to reflect on our chosen curriculum. Choices are ongoing around here it seems- always excited for the next....

For grade one we used:

English- Veritas Press, Phonics Museum. I really liked the emphasis on phonics in this program and the classic approach. I liked the readers included for the sake that they were true historical stories in a form that young readers can take on, however some of the words were too Old English and even mom would never use them- it made it hard for Aiden to sometimes follow what the stories were about. We also hit a snag in the printing practice portion of this curriculum as the printing style was different from what Aiden had learned.
We supplemented with My Printing Book, Handwriting Without Tears.
*Tip- In the early years you can choose from a variety of printing styles. Be sure to check your curriculum choices to ensure that they match the style of printing that you want your child to learn.
Aiden finished this first english program very early so we continued on with another grade one curriculum. Sonlight Grade One Readers with Language Arts. I love this Sonlight  program and will hopefully want to carry on with it throughout Aiden's school years for English. I want to stick with one program in English now so that there are no gaps, and I appreciated that there is a great balance of all skills. There is daily/weekly reading, copywork, phonics, grammar, and then creative writing lessons. Aiden is really enjoying this curriculum and it gives him some freedom to be creative when learning to write stories, paragraph's, notes, etc. He also liked that he got to read a little everyday and in smaller portions. Oh, and the Doctor Seuss books are always a hit. Mom likes that this program is laid out in daily lessons for 36 weeks, and is organized and easy to follow without much planning- all I use is a highlighter at this point for the different sections.

Math- Math-U-See, Primer. The colorful blocks and easy, organized layout made this a great program. I loved that the premise of Math-U-See is math with a purpose. It is a little different teaching than how mom learned but for now we like it.
We have now moved onto Math-U-See, Alpha, which includes unit tests- I will let you know how that goes. This is the part where mom had to let go of grade levels and just let Aiden learn at his pace and ability.

Socials- Donna Ward/Northwoods Press, Canada My Country (All inclusive bundle). This was a fun curriculum. There was a variety of activities such as using a compass and we mapped across the country and back again. We picked this curriculum for grade one because it fit in with learning about who we are and where we come from. We didn't fully use all the books, although we skimmed all of them at different times, and did not need such a large, expensive bundle. I know we will use these great books for years to come, and I am already looking at other curriculum from here. I love that it also included both story books and purely factual ones. Next time I will buy the basic bundle though, just to keep spending down. 

Science- Answers In Genesis, God's Design for Life, The Human Body. I had originally wanted us to study one topic at a time and so I bought a three pack; The Human Body, The World of Animals, and The World of Plants. There was enough information to use just one text for the whole year and thoroughly cover it. Aiden never tired learning about the different systems of the body. This program comes in a great format, with a beginner, intermediate, and advanced section so that you can teach your whole family and cater the work to their grade/ability level. Aiden answered questions after each lessons and retained a ton of knowledge. We will be able to use this curriculum again later on. I am wanting to try a more broad program next time, to learn a little about different sciences through the year.
Our Backyard Tree Project. We started this project in the spring before we actually started doing school. We all ran around the yard looking at the trees and bugs on the trees, taking pictures in every season. It was fun to make up a curriculum of sorts and to learn about our backyard environment. I might want to do this type of project again but if there is a next time, we will work more on the project itself as we go, instead of just collecting data and then putting it together at the end. We had a little problem with our computer breaking and then transferring pictures and are not sure if we lost some. We really should have printed out and categorized our pictures right away. Lesson learned.  

Fine Arts- Watercolor for the Artistically Undiscovered, by Thacher Hurd and John Cassidy. This art book was great because it has step by step directions and clear examples of painting techniques, and in a simple form. I also loved that the watercolor paint set and brush are attached to the book, so it is basically ready to go. Aiden actually didn't finish this whole book but there is so much to learn so I am not worried about it, and we will carry on with it.
The Usborne Book of Drawing, Doodling, and Coloring. We really used this book as a supplement when Aiden needed to change things up a bit. He wasn't too interested in it all the time but it is great in the fact that kids can carry on a pattern or idea and just create.
Piano Lessons with Serena. Aiden loves playing piano and can pick up things well by ear, but he is stretched when it comes to relating note-to-letter-to-finger placement/playing. I am not going to put him in piano next season and will let his brain catch up- maybe he will pick it up again later on.

Health and Career- ICBC, Roadsense Kids, Activities for Learning Road Safety- Walk Smart, Bike Safe. We watched the videos that go with this package, as a family. I appreciated that it taught all safety concerns as my kids are at the age where they are learning to ride bikes. We have a long driveway and so I haven't let my kids/Aiden venture out onto the road, except with Dad, but it is great preparation now.
I had originally purchased an Apologia, Who is My Neighbor? And How Can I help Them? workbook as a type of character development devotional, but quickly found that it is at an intermediate level. We are therefore saving it for a higher grade.
We then just picked up a My First Bible that we had around and started to read. The simplicity of that worked great for us and of course all scripture is living so both Mom and Aiden enjoyed this.
Other activities we did were things such as cooking and talking about nutrition and developing chore sets.  

PE- U7 Soccer. Aiden plays on the local soccer team. We have enjoyed getting outside to cheer him on. There is one practice and one game per week which isn't too bad to handle. Other than that most of our gym time is outdoor play, whether the kids are at the playground, bike riding, running, playing ball with the dog, digging dirt, tobogganing, or jumping through the sprinkler. The kids really never slow down for long. We also had the kids in swimming lessons last summer- we really need to continue with this important skill as my kids haven't been swimming very much, especially when we lived up North. 


I love that we had to throw away a book, that we had to save one for later, that we needed to change a program and alter it, that we had to start the next levels in the same year, that we needed to supplement, and that we learned to just let go sometimes. I am glad that things don't always go as planned because we have gained wisdom going into year two of homeschool with three kids! (Or maybe two.... we will see if Keiran can keep up to Gemma in Kindergarten....)

organized chaos

I just finished organizing our books in order to be able to fill out the kids' planners. I am super pumped (do moms say "super pumped," haha) to get into all of these books. The more I look at all the kids' curriculum, the more I get excited. There are great things that I haven't seen before in each program. Pretty soon I will post all our individual curriculum pics but for now here is a look at the organizing chaos of tonight....

I love laying out all of the kids' books. This year I am teaching three! I am so glad that we went with enrollment. It is great to know you have support, funding, and I need the organized approach for my brain. I like to use my school planner (resource plan and year overview) during the year sporadically in order to see if we are where we need to be and then I have a person planner that I use to keep track of our daily activities.I can't believe we are starting homeschool year two!

bending

We have reached the part of homeschool where it is time to for mom to let go of her formed mindset on school. I have already done this in many ways but it is about to get different. When we reached the end of our grade one english program early in this year, we picked up another grade one program that was a step above and it worked out great. This allowed me to keep my brain organized within the school year. My son has been done math now for quite some time too and for the sake of not leaving it so long that he forgets it all, we are going to pull out the next level. I had already decided that I was not going to hold them back from learning and therefore keep them in a box. The only stop in my brain is that of what if they ever go into school years from now and they are so far ahead that they are bored and it messes them up. Now that is an absurd statement if you think about it, and I have talked with my homeschool mom friends about this before. Why should we keep our kids dumb, in essence, so that they stay with the norm. Isn`t this why we homeschool in part, to let their learning thrive and for them to work at their level of abilities. Anyways, I just had to let that resonate out loud. We are ready to just learn and not see grades anymore. Of course they will be registered within a grade on paper, but I need to trust that God knew what He was doing when drawing us to this plan and I will not succumb to these `what ifs.` What if my child is allowed to thrive endlessly. I will think on that for awhile.  

A picture of family.

In our lives family is important. We have made it priority. I have to share a few pics from today at Grandma's. My kids are very close and this shows it well.

 

Mom's view from her spot in the sun- I had to sneak a pic. They wanted to be outside but also wanted to watch a movie on Grandma's Ipad, which is always a treat when they are over, and this was their solution. 

 

A view from the inside. 

 

Brotherly love. Makes a mamma's heart happy. 

Creative Writing.

I looked back on some of Aiden's creative writing. I love that Sonlight is so different than our other grade one program and is adding onto it. Aiden loves to make up his own stories and so this goes great for him. There are some older and newer samples here.

 

Aiden recalls a movie. 

 

His instructions on how to make a grilled cheese sandwich.

 

A journal entry. 

 

Telling mom a story (which I was to write down) to go with this picture.He was to include a beginning, middle, and ending.

 

Imagining. (He still throws in capital letters when he is thinking hard. He remembers better with copywork and there mom makes him fix his mistakes, but I like don't like to discourage him in his creativity when he is making up stuff.) 

 

The cutest invitation to his Grandma. 

Notes for a race car story. 

 

The race car story. 

Creating a story to go with the picture. The last sentence says: She called for a big goose that brang her home and her dinner was cold. 

Describing his ant farm experiment. I have no idea why it went as expected because it was raining. Haha. 

 

A couplet poem. 

Our Backyard Tree Project

We worked on Our Backyard Tree Project since last spring, taking pics of the trees and bushes throughout each season. This project was inspired by Great-Grandma who can tell us all of the trees in our yard by name. We wanted to know too so we we made it a project. Here are some pics of it all put together:

 

Aiden's cover page. 

 

Red Currants. 

 

Red Currants almost ripe and ready to taste. 

 

Crab Apples trees. 

 

Crab Apple blossoms and bark. 

 

Ripe apples. 

 

Crab Apple trees in winter. 

 

Some interesting observations along the way. We got the chance to witness a whole bunch of butterflies mating on our lilac bushes. 

 

An interesting tree...

 

Tamarack tree. 

 

Tamarack in the fall. 

 

The bare Tamarack in the winter. 

 

An interesting fact about the Tamarack. 

 

A rose bud. 

 

A rose in full bloom. 

 

This last year there was a lot of rain and we noticed this fungus growing on some plants and logs. 

Printing Practice with Numbers

Our world.

I am not sure where this project originated, but a lot of our friends have done it and I have seen it over and over again. It looked like fun so we did it as our final Socials task. It was great to go over all the things we learned about Canada and our surroundings. I used this greatly as review for Aiden- to sort of test what he remembered....

 

The project. 

 

Our home- Aiden's rendering.  

* In here there is "Our Street" and "Our Town" circles. (I would rather not advertise our address.) Aiden knows his street address. We talked about the industry in our town- mining and about some of the town's attributes such as the lake.

 

Our province. We talked/mom asked about some of the geography in BC. 

 

Our country. Aiden was able to tell me where our province was, that Saskatchewan has fields, Northwest Territories is snowy, BC is close to the Pacific Ocean. He also told me about many animals that live in Canada such as deer, birds, brown bears, grizzly bears, and coyotes. 

 

Our planet, Earth. 

Science Project

Aiden finished off his Human Body curriculum with a body project. Here it is:

 

Senses.

 

Bones, muscles, nerves. 

 

We looked up some anatomy on the computer for the rest...

Aiden knew his brain, heart, and lungs....

 

He had a little trouble identifying the intestines....

He has learned so much through this Science book and never tired of staying on the same subject. Kids are like sponges, it's true!

Bible

Aiden finished "My First Bible." He was so excited to be recognizing the Easter stories that he wanted to read on through.

 

He has now finished this beginner's type bible-through the the old and new testaments. Mom was excited to find him a kid's NIV bible at the homeschool conference as he has been asking for his very own bible. It turned out great just reading through and we ended up not needing a devotional or any curriculum as I had first planned.

Art by Gem.

I love Gemma's art work.

Sonlight

English

 

On to book 3. 

 

One of Aiden's word/spelling lists. 

 

Matching contractions. 

 

Another word list. 

 

Analyzing an experiment. 

 

Writing his words out on big on the board.