Homeschool Curriculum 2009-2010

Well, we are off on our home school journey for yet another year. Smiley in 2nd grade, Jmama in K, and Boy in the way! The newness of crisp books and clean paper is enough to make the school year a delightful beacon. Well the start of it anyway.
This is about our choices for this year and how they are working, or maybe not...
Math: I have a 2nd grader that is great at math, like her momma, she just gets it. That is such a blessing. We are using Miquon Math Red book. I love it for her. She looks at the paper and 80% of the time she already knows what to do. Sometimes I have to slow her down and teach her how to use the tools in the book, like number lines. She is great at it with out the new stuff, but it may be helpful later. Miquon math +++ for Smiley.
Language Arts: This same 2nd grader is also going through "First Language Lessons". Again, great for her she gets what I am presenting to her and it is so helpful that FLL is so scripted! Woo Hoo! She is learning nouns, poems, thinking through a picture and the actions on it. Fun stuff. FLL +++ for Smiley. She is also doing some reading comprehension from an old book that I was given. The wording is kinds tricky, so she is not flying through it but with a little thought guidance, she usually figures it out. (if not she is in a ball of tears... perfectionist) I plan on moving to this at Currclick when we are done. She likes the story, that is why I am sticking with this one for now. She has 10 minutes of free reading/listening 3 times a week that we overfill with books on cd and her reading to her little brother before bed. And the 3 shouts and a trumpet go to our spelling program: Sequential Spelling! I love it. You don't study words to forgot them tomorrow, you just repeat them and then they stick! Love it, did I say that? She is spelling words she has never seen, and often right the first time. Sequential Spelling +++ and a horn, woot woot!
Handwriting and Scripture memory: These are together because we use "A Reason for Handwriting". This is Scripture based, you have 3 days of word copy, one day of verse copy and finally you copy the verse inside a "frame" and give it away, or just to have record of handwriting. Since we are already practicing our handwriting with Scripture, I figured this is a great verse to memorize, so that is what we do. I think the fact that she is writing words from the verse helps her to remember it. "A Reason for Handwriting"+++.
Now for my Kindergartner we have a very loose plan, she is in K after all!
Math: We are again using Miquon Math but Orange. I am not sure we will stay here with her yet, I just can't decide if she is struggling with the way it is presented in Miquon, or if she just struggles with Math in general. I will have to get back to you on that one. Miquon for K, +.
Language Arts: We are just focusing on reading right now and using "Ordinary Parents Guide to teaching Reading" This is just her speed so it is going well. We skipped the memory in the beginning because she had already learned her sounds through Abeka last year. She was having a harder time trying to remember the new poem than learn the sound so I just moved on to the reading part. Glad I did, she is doing great and loves that she is learning to read. Bob books will be presented soon.
She is not doing memory verses yet, I just don't want to overwhelm her. That will be later and most likely the same that sister is learning.
Now the girls have a few things they both do:
Typing: Yes I have started both kids typing. They are on the computer and I don't want them to get into bad habits. So Smiley is just using a free program I have found and she likes it. I found lots of cd programs online but most have content I was not comfortable with. I may try an adult program next year but for now, this is great. Jmama is using Talking Fingers and she really likes it. It is reinforcing her reading skills, which I love.
History: we will be using Mystery of History. We started it last year and it was just over all heads, so we will do it this year. It has visual/hands-on stuff that I like.
Science: Stratton House kits. I think it is going to be great. I wanted some fun stuff to add to all the paperwork type things so this is it. right now it is the bird study. This time of year makes it very interesting. Currently, we are trying to identify some birds. We fill out an identification worksheet on them, try to get a picture, then look the bird up and see what it is. This has made our interest in birds even greater. We will be doing "My body" after the birds... can't wait for that one!
Hebrew: We have chosen Hebrew as a second language. There are many reasons, but I will save those. My mom is the one in charge of Hebrew. She has been learning Hebrew for a few years now and I suggested she teach the kids so as to keep it fresh and use it! Rosetta Stone is the way to go for foreign language, especially if you choose an odd language. :)

I am going to post our scheduling of school days soon, so check back!

Letterboxing

We just finished our first "treasure hunt" otherwise known as letterboxing. I found out about it and just started digging deeper into it. I have always wanted to go geocaching so when I heard about this I was instantly curious. It requires nothing much more than a compass and time. We were able to find our first box without a compass, just simple clues.
I am not a "Hey lets take a walk and see what we see" kind of mom. I kinda have to have a goal and destination. Well this is the way for me to get out, hike, walk and school my kids along the way. On this particular hunt we went to a local nature trail. The clues were very simple... follow this trail, look for a fork in the road go east, pass two Braille signs and look toward 300 degrees and in the middle of the tree you will find it! And we did! As we looked we talked about a fork in the road, and about the reasons for Braille signs. We found several tiny frogs and saw turtles and fish. We talked about leaves of 3, let them be. We also saw some cool trees and flowers. All while hunting for a plastic box. When we got to the box we were not really sure what to do as it was our first. We just looked at it funny.
Then I got to explain... We opened the box and found a stamp and a book. The stamp was of a hand and a tree, the clue was in the "palm" of the tree. Perfect sense. We took scrapbook paper for this one so we each stamped our paper and we kept that. Next we looked at the book. This book started in 2006. In it was stamps from a Girl scout troupe and folks from all over, very cool! Now it was our turn to say "we were here". Each girl had a stamp they had gotten out of their crafts, and stamped a page in the book. On it they wrote their names and the date. Just another in a long list but very neat to see where they all came from. We did put that on there also.
One of the unusual things about box we found is that it had been there for 5+ years! How fun is that. I bet I have walked past letterboxes and never knew they were there! They are all over the city and parks, and there are LOTS all over the country.
We had a great time, even the boy enjoyed exploring nature. He told me the places he needed his hammer and when he was working.
Overall, I will put this on our list of things to do on vacation from now on! I had a ball, and the next day we introduce Daddy to the hunt. He had as much fun as we had the evening before. It was a good thing he was there, I didn't understand the clues as well this time but he did. I guess that's the fun of it, sometimes you find it, sometimes you don't!
I hope you get a chance to look up some places close to you and enjoy the game! Here are some sites for ya! http://www.atlasquest.com/ and LbNA