Sunday, August 5, 2012

On homeschooling...part 2

Here are the results of the past year of homeschooling, and my thoughts on the curriculum and the progress made on my daughter’s education.

You can read Part 1 here.


Phonics/Reading - The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading

RESULTS: My soon-to-be first grader is doing very well at reading. She is over half-way through the reading book, and BOB Books are way too young for her now. She reads short chapter books for fun all by herself, and even has some books for slightly older readers, like The Boxcar Children and American Girl books. We are a bit more than halfway through the book, and are continuing using it for first grade.


Writing - A Reason for Handwriting: Manuscript A

RESULTS: Dd is moving right along in handwriting, but doesn’t use the curriculum too terribly often. Every now and then she will do a few handwriting pages. Her handwriting is improved dramatically, and she has a notebook that she loves to write in. She has been writing songs and letters to friends. She also likes to write down her dreams sometimes.


Math - Math Mammoth Grade 1-A

RESULT: WOW! My six-year old went through 1-A, and is just a few weeks away from finishing 1-B. I imagine she will probably be starting on 2-A in the next several weeks…second grade math! She is learning very well, and even her four-year old sister enjoys doing simple mental math (addition and especially subtraction). The four-year old has actually even started working through grade 1-A as part of her preschooling at home.


Science - Magic School Bus DVDs

RESULT: The girls both watched the Magic School Bus DVDs over and over to the point where several are scratched. They really enjoyed them, and would tell us all kinds of facts about the bloodstream, outer space, the water cycle, deserts, and other fun topics. We just purchased three more DVDs that include about 10 episodes they haven’t seen yet. We have an exciting curriculum for our oldest dd for 1st grade science that we she is really enjoying now too!


Bible - Big Truths for Little Kids. We will combine this with regular readings from The Jesus Storybook Bible, as well as continuing in AWANA for Scripture memorization.

RESULT: Well, we got a few chapters in to the book, and the girls became very good at answering questions like “Who made you?” “How many Gods are there?” and “Why did God make you and all things?” My eldest finished two AWANA books this year, mostly by reading them to herself and memorizing several verses each week on her own.


So, what about first grade?


Phonics/Reading – Continue with The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading

Writing
– Continue with A Reason for Handwriting: Manuscript A

GrammarFirst Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind… she actually started this several months ago.

Math – Math Mammoth Grade 2-A once 1-B is completed

Science – Mr. Q’s Classic Life Science. This is a FREE Science curriculum based on classical education. The only cost is printing out the pages. There are 36 chapters, and we plan to do one chapter per week.


History – The Mystery of History. This is a classical education based history curriculum. Volume 1 starts with Creation and covers the time period up to the Resurrection of Christ.