2011-2012 Curriculum Choices Part 2 {LINKY}

As I said in my last post, I am really doing a mish mash of things this year.  Here is the complete run down:

Together as a Family:
Bible
My Father's World  (MFW) - We will be studying the Life of Christ and the New Testament.  Last year we used The Victor Journey Through the Bible and we have really come to LOVE it!  we read a chapter in the Bible and then we read the corresponding pages in The Victor, it is like a commentary of sorts plus it gives lots of history facts about the cities and time period - a must have in my opinion.

We will also pull from KONOS and I am sure we will continue with Keys for Kids, at least sometimes since the kids love to listen to them.

History
MFW - Rome to Reformation, the books that go along with it except we will use Mystery of History instead of Streams of Civilization.  KONOS - we will be pulling some fun activities from KONOS.  we plan on including lots and lots of living books.

Science/Health
MFW - Rome to Reformation which will include the study of the human body using The Body Book and planets using the Apologia book, Exploring Creation With Astronomy (Young Explorers). 
We are also going to pull in some fun projects from KONOS like dissecting a cow eye. Can I just tell you that I CAN'T HARDLY WAIT!!

Reading
We definitely read around here.   We do read alouds daily after Bible and then the kids have quiet time.  For at least a half hour I have the girls read and the boys look at books until they fall asleep for their naps.  We discuss our read a louds and I have the girls narrate their readings back to me. 

Art
My kids draw daily.  And craft almost daily.  I frequently have them color something to go along with what we are reading.  We also have several art idea books that we can pull from and the Abeka Art books that we complete projects from occasional.

Extra Curricular Activities I like to do stuff out side of the home but to many things can stress me.  I have been praying about speech, choir, soccer and piano lessons.  These are all things that I want to with me kids but I know that all those things would really be too much.  So, I have just been laying it before the Lord and asking Him what His will would be for us.   So far I think that all the kids will do choir, the girls will do speech and it looks as though the Lord is going to provide flute lessons for the girls.  I think for now soccer may be out. 

The Lil' Chef - 6th Grade
Bible
I am really excited to be adding Draw to Learn from Notgrass this year.  It is like a daily devotional that the children can use independently or together as a family.  Each lesson has a portion of scripture to read and then something for them to draw.  They have several of these to choose from, we are doing the Life of Jesus to coincide with our New Testament studies thru MFW Bible.  VERY EXCITED!!

Language Arts
The Lil' Chef is going to be using Easy Grammar & Daily Grams and Spelling Power. We are generally Abeka users but we are trying something new, I let ya'll know how they work out.  Lil' Chef is also going to continue with Institute of Excellence in Writing (IEW), which we reviewed last year.  IEW is a keeper by the way. 

Math
I am still on the fence about this one.  I really, REALLY, REALLY want to use Teaching Textbooks.  I really lack confidence in teaching math,  and it is not my favorite subject, so the idea of TT is very appealing to me.  After researching it, ALOT, and talking to a few homeschool mom's I decided that maybe it was not a good idea for us.  I have heard mixed reviews Teaching Textbooks, one of the not so great things I have heard is that many children do not test well in the upper grades which was a huge disappointment to me.  I had really hope to ride that little wave all the way thru high school but am now having second thoughts.  If anyone has had good experience with TT and would like to way in, please leave a comment.

As it stands right now she is going to use Abeka Math and continue doing Math Facts Now and Times Alive, which we LOVE!


Computer Girl - 3rd Grade
Bible
Computer girl is also going to include Draw to Learn - The Life of Jesus into her quite reading time.

Language Arts - She is also going to try Easy Grammar, Daily Grams and Spelling Workout this year.  I think I am also going to have her work from the IEW book at a very slow pace. 

Math
Computer Girl is using Mathematical Reasoning 3 from The critical Thinking Co. this year.  We reviewed another level of Mathematical Reasoning last year and LOVED IT!!  She will also be doing math drills using Math Facts Now and Times Alive.

Alpha Boy - Kindergarten
Phonics
Alpha Boy is going to continue using Sing, Spell, Read and Write, which  he really loves and BEGS ME TO!  I mean we aren't even doing school right now and it was a SATURDAY and he brings me his book to do.  I was thinking, REALLY!! 

I also decided, just last week actually, when visiting with some friends that I really wanted to incorporate MFW Kindergarten.  I really just wanted it to pull some of the hands on ideas into the letters that we are learning. 

Math
He is going to be using Arithmetic K from Abeka.  I am also adding in Mathtacular for some added hands on fun. 

Little Bits - Pre K
I don't do anything formal with this little guy.  We is more than welcome to hang with Alpha Boy and I when we do our Phonics and Math.  He is generally around for all our reading and I do read to him. 

I plan on setting up a workbox for him to have with lots of hands on goodies to play with.  I am going to include things like wooden puzzles, Play-Doh Cookie Monster Letter Lunch, Lauri Toys Number Puzzle Boards and Pegs and Lauri's Phonic Center

What is your family going to use this year??  Please link up and share with us.

2011-2012 Curriculum Choices Part 1

After much prayer and consideration, and a nudge from a good friend, I think I've  f i n a l l y  got my curriculum for next year figured out.  I think. 

For those of you that don't know, we have been using My Father's World for the last 3 years.  For some reason I was not really crazy about Creation to Greeks.  I loved, loved, LOVED the Old Testament Bible studies but really got tired of studying Egypt.  I was telling a friend today that I felt like we studied Egypt for like 40 years : )

So when you home school and you are not happy with a curriculum you can either 1) suffer through it, 2) do a switch ola or 3) tweak it.  I am deciding to tweak it!

I really wanted to continue the chronological wheel of MFW but just felt l I really did ALOT of tweaking to our curriculum last year and need to change something.  I have been eyeballing KONOS for a long while now.  I just couldn't really seem to wrap my little finite mind around it, so I dug a bit and learned a little more about it.  The more that I learned the more that I liked it.  I was really drawn to the fact the the focus is character traits.  So, long story short I decided that I wanted to find KONOS used and do it along with MFW.  Crazy right??!!  I did indeed find it used, all 3 KONOS volumes as well as the timeline figures to go with it. 

After looking through the KONOS curriculum I began to reconsider doing MFW.  I decided to focus on just KONOS.  We tried a part of the Attentiveness unit at the end of our last school year and really enjoyed it.  We loved the read a louds, the discussion, the hands on projects and such.  BUT, I still didn't feel settled in my mind with it for some reason.  I had been asking the Lord to lead me to the right curriculum and give me a peace about it, but I just really didn't have it. 

Fast forward to last week, my friend Marta (remember the girl from the zoo) stopped by to see the KONOS books because I was trying to get her to co-op and do Konos with me (mind you I am the one that got her using MFW).  She is an hour and a half a way from me but I figured, hey we'd work that little detail out later : )   Once she looked at the MFW book I'd be using next year (Rome to Reformation) and Konos she said, hey why don't you tie them together.   The Lord reminded me that this was the original leading that I had.  But I really didn't think I could do it since there isn't a ton of Roman studies in Konos.  Marta encouraged me to just sit down and take a look at both curriculum's, and that is just what I did last Friday evening. 

What I figured out was, where I couldn't pull from Konos to match up with the MFW history I could match up the science.  So, some weeks we will pull in some science from Konos and some week history stuff.  Hope this makes sense outside of my brain.  I am really excited to finally feel at peace about it our curriculum for next year.  I don't know about you but I am a little bit stressed when my school plans are in limbo.  Ya know what I am sayin'!

I tell you what we are doing for the 3 R's in another post.

Weekly Wrap Up!

This year we have been doing My Father's World - Creation to Greeks.  I have loved using MFW the last few years, but this year I have definitely tweaked things more than in the past.  

For quite awhile now I have been eyeballing Konos.  For those of you that haven't heard of Konos, they are the granddaddy of unit studies (according to their site).  It is a unit study curriculum that uses character traits as their topic and as their site states, they cover....

elementary science, literature, history, Bible, arts/crafts, music, writing, drama, geography, social studies, health/safety, character, critical thinking, and practical living. ** excluding math, spelling, upper grammar.

I had the chance to buy all 3 original volumes, the timeline characters, timeline wallchart, the Compass Book (this is like the How to use Konos Book) and the Index used, so I did.  Don't you just love getting new curriculum, it feels like the Holiday!

My only hang up so far, is that Konos is not done chronologically for Bible and History.  I have read that the timeline really helps solve this problem but I just haven't settled it in my mind,  Know what I'm sayin'.

After opening up our new curriculum for NEXT year, I decided to do the unthinkable.  If you are thinking, No she didn't, I have to tell ya, yes she did!  We started Konos.  Yes sir ree, with about a month left of school I am starting something totally new, pretty crazy right.  : )

Part of me just wanted to try Konos, as is, to see what I thought.  I have been wondering if I still want to follow the MFW's Rome to Reformation timeline next year and just pull in from Konos or do just Konos alone.  Not really sure yet, still mulling all the over.

Here is what I do know, we had a great week.  We started a new chore system this week, called Children's Miracle Music (I will be reviewing this shortly and have a coupon code for ya'll).  My house has been CLEAN, all week and it has been WONDERFUL!  Usually our living areas are kept up pretty well, but the girl's room generally looks like a tornado has gone thru it, twice!  I always tell the girls that for my health I do not like to even look in their room, looking in there makes my blood pressure rise 50 points.  Really!

As far as school goes, we started Konos.  For the next few weeks we plan to study Attentiveness.  Here are some of the highlights of our week and the Attentiveness Study :

• For Bible we studied Elijah and Elisha (per MFW) and read in the Victor's Journey Through the Bible (love this books BTW)
• The kids and I studied the ear.  We read about the ear and then the kids made model of the ear out of my kitchen table, they had a great time!
• We read about Helen Keller and Louis Braille.  
• We read the biblical account of Samuel and saw how he was attentive to God's voice.
• We learned the meaning of Attentiveness.
• We talked about 15 different jobs that require people to be attentive, like a babysitter, a surgeon, firefighter, etc...
• We listened to some classical music, included Mr. Beethoven Lives Upstairs.
• We talked about ways that we can be Attentive to the Lord and how Christ was attentive to the Father.
• The girls both finished their spelling books for the year and started memorizing poems.
• We finished up our memory work on Psalm 1.
• For PE they rode bikes, and jumped and jumped and jumped on the trampoline 
• For independent reading one of the girls is reading about Corrie Ten Boom and the other is reading a Boxcar Children Book, I have them tell me about (narrate).
• As a fun book we also read The Cat in the Hat's book about money - 1 Cent, 2 Cent, Old Cent, New Cent which was a very cute yet informative little book that the kids and I enjoyed.
• We also read about instruments and an orchestra.   
• To finish out the week, tomorrow we are going to play Simon Says , watch The Miracle Worker which is about Helen Keller's life and hang up our new timeline wall chart.  I think that we are even going to put up all the Bible people that we have studied this year and review them as we hang them.

Like I said, we had a really good week.  Next week we are going to continue with our attentiveness study and focus more on musicians and sight.

Here are the books that we read from this week...

Did anyone else decide to switch up their curriculum at the end of the school year, just wondering ?