NBTS Blog Hop : Curriculum

 

Oh my!!  It is “Not Back to School” today for me!  Well, really it is back to school.  But not away. 

So today is our first day of school for 2011-2012.  Yeah!! I am so excited!! I can hardly stand it!

But, this Blog Hop is not assuming everyone is insane like me and that many are still prepping.  But I want to join the fun, so I will still share all the goodies we are doing this year!!  WooHoo!  I love schooling these little blessings!!

 

We are of course Through and Through AMBLESIDE lovers!!  We are repeating year 1 this year with my younger crew – my 7 year old boy and his sister who is 5.*  And our new student this year who is also 7 and a sweet girl from our church.

*I know, AO does not suggest anyone younger than 6 starting year 1, but honestly this girl (despite her blond locks) is a brilliant little gem, and I trust she will be able to hang with the gang just fine!

(Can I tell you how excited I am to teach year 1 again!!  I cannot wait to meet back up some wonderful books and share them with these younger kiddos!!  cannot wait!!)

Next, we are starting year 4 with my older 2 – my 10 year old boy and my almost 9 year old boy.  They are almost as excited as I am, but I suspect their excitement will wane before mine does!!

So we use AO for history, literature, poetry, geography,    , then we use Math U See for math.  We love it.  (‘nuff said)

This year we are adding English from the Roots up – and I am really looking forward to this!  We are using notecards and notebooking pages.  I plan for the kids to really run with this, for the most part.

My2 big boys are going to start Spelling this year too and after looking at a Friend’s copy of Spelling Power, I am going to try it out and see how we like it.  So far my 2nd son it tickled to do spelling, we will see how that goes.

My oldest will start Analytical Grammar this year too, he will do that this fall, then we will use Total Language Plus this spring to discuss Shiloh and maybe Amos Fortune, Free Man.

We are also going to do Map Drills – we are going to work 3 maps a week – the US for states, the US for capitols, and Europe.  We worked Europe a bit last year, but need to get it really firm in our minds before we move to another continent.  I know 3 maps seems like a lot, but we spend about 5 minutes on each, and if we do one a day each week, it will be easy and my kids love the challenge of the map drills.  We use Simply Charlotte Masons suggestion for Map Drills.

Lastly, we are going to do a CM (Charlotte Mason) style co-op with our friends locally.  We are going to do Art Study (we are studying 8 different American artists), Composer Study (with this curriculum), Hymn Study (Hymn’s for a Kid’s Heart), Courageous Christians, and Nature Study.  We will be doing this with kids ages 16 through 4.  I cannot tell you how long I have wanted to do something like this and how much we are looking forward to it!

Did I mention for Geography we are using Ann Voskamp’s Book?  A Child’s Geography, Explore His Earth!!  OH MY!  This book is amazing!!

I know you cannot tell I am excited, I mean, can I contain it any better? I am about to burst in apprehension of all the fun we are going to have this year. I cannot wait to get into these amazing books!  Well, I better get going, I have students waiting to learn!!

(Next week I will share all the changes that took place in our school – hope it is all finalized by then!)

NOTE : All my documents that I created and that we are using are uploaded to scribd for easy downloading.