First Week

We had a good first week of school! The boys are excited to be back!

Since I always like seeing what other people are doing, here's what our school plans look like.

Elijah's 1st Grade:
The basics look a lot like kindergarten, especially since we started our current math and phonics books mid-year.

Bible: memorizing Bible passages, hymns, and catechism plus our family devotions

Math: finish Right Start Level B (we're about 1/3 done) and start Level C -- love it! And Elijah likes it, too

Language Arts:

• Phonics: continue Rod & Staff Phonics -- solid program; don't love it, but it works well for Elijah and our co-op
• First Language Lessons -- short lessons, mostly oral, make for a gentle introduction to grammar 
• Writing with Ease -- separates the skills of putting thoughts into words and putting words onto paper using narration and copywork
• And, of course, lots of read aloud time!

Handwriting: Handwriting without Tears -- 1st grade

Science: R.E.A.L Science: Biology -- hands-on, experiment based program; my first time using this curriculum, but it looks like fun

History & Geography: Early American History using Beautiful Feet curriculum; very literature based history; the boys are still super into American history, so I know they'll love it. Also learning US geography and memorizing key bits of history (Pledge of Allegiance, Preamble, Star Spangled Banner, etc.)

Fine Arts

• Art: rotating between drawing using Mona Brooks' "Drawing with Children," picture studies of early American art with some accompanying projects, and unstructured art projects
• Music: studying the Orchestra using "Story of the Orchestra" (fall semester)
• Poetry: reading poems and poetry memorization
• Lessons: Piano with Daddy

Foreign Language: Weekly Spanish with a tutor for the class; hopefully we'll do some DVDs and CDs to supplement at home

It looks like a lot when it is all typed out, but a lot of the extras we do only on co-op days. Our just us days are pretty basic.

Josiah's PreK:

Having already sat in/participated in three years of preschool, Josiah is very ready for more of a challenge. He asked to learn to read, so we'll continue working through "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" (almost 1/3 done!). He's doing some Before the Code workbooks for independent work during 1st grade. He's also using the Handwriting without Tears PreK book, and we've started Right Start Level A for math (I'm aiming for 2 lessons or so a week). Plus whatever activities we do at his PreK co-op (and he sits in on most of the first grade work).