One of the other reasons I am going to love this curriculum is that it is already fully scheduled for me. That's right, no intensive planning for me to do this year. But knowing me, and knowing I can't leave well enough alone I know that I will be adding things to it. lol I've already changed the order of the units to fit better with the seasons here in MI and to help stretch it out to go year round in order to just go for a normal school year.
I have decided that we will try to school year round. Especially in the early years. You have to keep 3 kids occupied during the summer anyway, might as well make it educational too. Doing this will help not waste time on review in the fall, and will also give us much more leeway during the actual school year to take breaks and do other things.
This is a picture of our core material. A core is the base of the program. This core happens to be science based. Most are history based. This year we will be looking closely at an animal a week as we travel through different environments. We will be passing through the Savannah, swamp, woods, frozen tundra, rainforest, ocean, and desert. Along our journey we will be doing lots of fun experiments and projects.Language Arts (Reading)
We also decided to go with Winter Promise Language Arts. Again everything is scheduled for me, which is fantastic! I loved looking through the Explode the Codes. We did these books when my mom home schooled us.
Also scheduled in with Language Arts is the use of the GeoSafari Phonics Pad.
I also bought some more readers that go along with the Animal Worlds core.MATH
I am really quite nervous about teaching Annabelle math. Mostly because Annabelle really wants nothing to do with numbers (I don't want anything to do with numbers either). Because of this we both get very frustrated. I have been doing much better at not getting all worked up which in turn gives her a much better attitude. I just have to give her a pep talk several times during our math lessons about how smart she is and then she perks right up.
I chose Horizons K. It was one that Winter Promise suggested. It is a spiral based curriculum which I like (like Saxon). It is very colorful and covers the subjects nicely. The only thing that I was bummed about is that the Teacher's Manual doesn't really explain how to teach the lesson. But I think I will be ok, I have a lot of fun manipulatives to help teach some concepts. We may start this in July just so we can take our time. It does move quickly.SONLIGHT
We have been absolutely blessed to receive from a friend Sonlight Cores that would take us through 8th grade! We will be using this right alongside our Winter Promise Curriculum. In our effort to become more of an unplugged family we will have a lot of spare time to fill up (believe me...we watch more TV than I care to admit). Because of all this spare time we will need something more to fill it up. What better to fill it up with than reading and fun? I have yet to go through this curriculum, but will be doing so in the next couple of weeks and plucking it to line up with the Animal Worlds curriculum. This core is a brief one year overview of world history. Should be fun!
BIBLE
We will certainly be doing Bible lessons each day like we have been. We are going to mainly be using Hubbard's Cupboard 3's Bible and Rhyme curriculum. It is free and all 3 of the kids will be doing this together. We will be going through the Bible in a year and I think it is going to be great!
So that is Annabelle's K year. I am really, truly excited to get started and am praying that this enthusiasm will last me all year. I have some really fun things planned and think it is going to be a memorable, growing year for all of us! Happy blogging.
jess_hak
Linking up to the 'Not' Back to School Blog Hop at Heart of the Matter
Awesome!! I'm so excited for you!
ReplyDeleteMath can be fun :) Granted, math was my favorite subject all the way through, but it really can be enjoyable. We chose RightStart ( http://www.alabacus.com/ ) and the kids think they're having a lot of fun :) If WP recommended Horizons, I'm sure it will be EXCELLENT!! :D
Oh how fun! I love looking at different curriculum. I'm leaning towards Sonlight-- but I've never heard of Winter Promise. I'm going to go request the catalog...
ReplyDeleteI hear you on the math part- I dislike math. My husband majored in it, so I'm probably going to end up deferring math questions over to him. :)
Looks like you have made some good choices. Math is going to be ok. If you have lots of manipulatives, it won't even feel like work. Can't wait to hear how it goes!
ReplyDeleteIt all looks great! I have heard wonderful things about winter promise. I hope you all enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
Dawn
We used WP Animals and Their Worlds a couple of years ago. One thing we did for each habitat was make a mural. It was lots of fun. I have pictures of a few of them at my blog. The Rainforest one was especially fun.
ReplyDeleteHave a great year! Stopping by from the Not Back to Home School Blog Hop.
happy dance!! You are going to have a great year!!!
ReplyDeleteI just love Winter's Promise! I do not own any! But I so want to!!! I am praying for next year maybe. But the Lord God has been so good to provide what He has provided for this year! God Bless Your Homeschooling!
ReplyDeleteWas googling Animals and their World and came across this post. Will be eagerly reading through your posts to see how your year using both WP and Sonlight has gone, as it's been in the back of my mind these cores would compliment each other well.
ReplyDeleteI am looking at adding ATW for my K son now. (January) We started out light and now I feel like we aren't doing enough for K for him. Just wanted to see what you thought about the curriculum now that you are done and have moved onto other things.
ReplyDelete