2013-2014 Curriculum Choices

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We officially started back to school on July 29th.  Our plan for this year is to do six weeks on and one week off.  We will also be taking extra time off in December.  This will have us finishing up our school year on May 16, 2014.

Emily is in 5th grade this year.

For her core curriculum we are using Trail Guide to Learning ~ Paths of Settlement.

We used Trail Guides to Learning Paths of Exploration last year and loved it so much that we are continuing on with the series.

No changes here for us this year.  We are continuing on with  Teaching Textbooks 5.

Emily’s core curriculum includes everything, but math.  We decided Emily needed a little extra help with spelling and grammar.  For spelling she is using Sequential Spelling 1.

For grammar we are using Easy Grammar 5 and Daily Grams.

Aiden is 1st grade this year.  We will be using the following:

For Aiden this year I decided I needed to simplify and buy a curriculum that had it ALL laid out for me.  We LOVE, love to read and our lessons have always been around books we are reading, so we decided to use Sonlight Core A with Readers.

This is another change for Aiden this year.  We are switching from Math-U-See to Singapore Primary Mathematics and Life of Fred.

We are using the Language Arts program that comes with Sonlight Core A and adding Explode the Code 1, 2, and 3 and Getty-Dubay Handwriting 1.

This is another change, as we will be doing science everyday.  We are using Sonlight’s Science A.

Whew!  That’s everything.

Linking up with iHomeschool Network “Not-Back-to-School Blog Hop.

~Cindy

Snowy Day Sensory Tub

To go along with the book we are reading this week, Snowy Day, Aiden helped me put together a Snowy Day sensory tub.

What We Used:

• Insta-Snow in a jar (LOVE this stuff)
• wooden blocks
• wooden tree (I have wool roving on the tree but we took it off and put the snow on the tree)
• Peter and his friend (made from Peg dolls)
• snow plowing vehicles
• white pom poms
• plastic tablecloth to put your tub on

We poured the Insta-Snow into our container and I let Aiden add the water. 

As soon as you add the water you can see the snow puff up ~ seriously, it is so fun to watch!

We added Peter and his friend

and some wooden houses.  Aiden made it “snow” so the tops of the houses were covered.

The he plowed the street and we talked about how high the snow was on the sides of the road.

Aiden tried to make prints in the snow but you couldn’t see them so we grabbed some of our snow play dough and he made prints with his fingers. 

Aiden found Peter’s stick in the snow and helped Peter hit the tree with it.

Peter and his friend then had a snowball fight (without the big kids). 

Aiden had fun retelling the story and playing in the tub. 

I will say that the plastic tablecloth or some kind of drop cloth on the floor is a MUST!!  This stuff is messy.  Another note ~ DO NOT put an air tight cover on the snow because it will mold.  If the snow starts to dry out just add more water.

~Cindy

Snow Play dough

This week we are reading Snowy Day.  Since we have had a warmer than usually winter (which I am NOT complaining about) and no snow in the forecast, I made a batch of “snow” play dough for the kids to play with.

To make the play dough I mixed the following:

• 1 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup of salt
• 1 tablespoon cream of tarter
• 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
• 1 cup of water
• lots of iridescent glitter
• 2 tablespoons of white paint

Mix in all together in a nonstick sauce pan until it forms a ball.  Turn the dough out and knead it.  Then all you need is some kids and some accessories.  We used: buttons, a piece of orange pipe cleaner (nose) goggle eyes, sticks from outside, a felt scarf and hat, and popsicle sticks.

 

We used to popsicle sticks to hold our snowman up and keep his hat on his head.

Some of the kids creations. 

May I introduce robot snowman, grandma snow, and Ms. Hollywood snow lady.

~Cindy

Preschool Corner ~ Robots

This week our theme was robots and what a busy week it was.  I didn’t realize how much we accomplished until I looked through our pictures.

~Circle Time~

Carissa at 1+1+1=1 put together a Calendar Notebook, which we have started using.  The notebook has been a BIG HIT with both of my kids.

We also like to add lots of singing and dancing during our circle time to get out the wiggles before we do any table work.  This week we sang and danced to Robot Song from Preschool of Rock.

Aiden doing the robot dance.

For most of the learning activities we used the Robot Printable Pack from Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations.

~Alphabet~

Aiden worked on the letter Rr this week.  He has his uppercase letters down so we focused on the lowercase letter. 

He sang the ABC Song and traced the letter Rr with his light up pointer.

~Math~

Aiden was very proud of himself for cutting and putting his robot puzzle together (counting 1 –10).

He also worked on graphing different colored robots,

matching shapes to the correct word,

and we talked about fractions and he used our Guidecraft Fraction Cups ~ matching them to the fraction robots.

  

~Bible~

We recently started using Raising Rock Stars Letter printables from Carissa at 1+1+1+1 to go along with our letter of the week.  I am loving this addition to our homeschool curriculum!  This week the focus was Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

~iPod Apps~

If you ask Aiden what his favorite part of school is I feel sure he would say using my iPod.  This week he played Toca Boca’s Robot Lab

and UmiNumbers.

~Getting Crafty~

Our big craft project this week was making a robot costume.

     We also had fun making wind up robots.  Aiden did most of the coloring and I assembled them.

Then we had a robot race.

~Snack Time~

I absolutely love a theme so when I found these cute robot cupcake molds I had to have them.  The kids actually use them all the time for snack.  This week they had chocolate pudding with sprinkles and graham crackers.

~Just for Fun~

We pulled out a favorite at house, robot stackers.

Aiden’s art work for the week ~ our family as robots (with some help from his sister). : )

~Robot Week Links~

Aiden’s work for the week PROUDLY displayed.  All of the printables/curriculum we used this week is listed below.

• Robot Printable Pack from Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations
• Raising Rock Stars Letter R printables from Carissa at 1+1+1+1
• All About Reading Level Pre-1

For more Preschool Corner posts, head on over to Homeschool Creations.

~Cindy