For this coming year, we have decided to enroll N1 in a two-day a week program with a local church. I will school with her on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and she will go to a very small kindergarten class (10-12 students) on Wednesday and Friday. I will be responsible for her Bible lessons, language arts and all that entails, and math; the school will handle social studies, science, and art. Of course, I am not limited in what I want to do at home to supplement their programs with extra activities or real-alouds that tie in and there will be some of that that I hope to do. Truthfully, I went back and forth for months on whether or not we should put N1 in this program - I could see definite pros and cons on both sides. We've decided to go ahead with it for this year, and then reevaluate after kindergarten.
With that said, I was working towards two plans - one if she went to school two days a week and one if she would be home. I'll list all my thoughts below and what I was considering in hopes that it might help someone else. :)
Bible
We're going to use the Catherine Vos Study Bible and read aloud from it. It looks to be the logical (and well recommended) next step up from the Jesus Storybook Bible which we have LOVED. We will do daily reading and I plan on getting a large wall size map of Biblical lands that we can mark on - locations, where individuals lived and their travels, etc. I've also purchased Draw and Learn the book of Proverbs. N1 is my artist and loves to draw and color - each lesson has a few verses that you discuss and then a prompt for something to draw or color. I plan on all the girls doing this together (at their own level) in the morning as part of our table time before the 2 and 3 year old will be "released" to some play time while N1 does other work.
Language Arts
N1 and I have been doing some language arts for about a year now so I will just continue on with what we have been doing. That includes continuing with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and Explode the Code
workbooks. She is currently in EtC Book 1 so I am tentatively planning us to work up through books 2 and 2 1/2 for her kindergarten year. The only thing that I will add to this is A Reason for Handwriting. We'll wait and start spelling around 2nd grade, however, I do have the Doltch sight word lists that we work on sporadically.Math
We'll be using Saxon K. :)
Social Studies
The school she is attending is going to be covering American History and Westward Expansion this next year. They do a four year classical history cycle and we are coming in on year 4. I had already been planning to do some American History with N1 over the next year so this will tie together nicely with read-alouds that I've been thinking on. Two resources that I will be turning to for read-aloud suggestions are Turning Back the Pages of Time (An American history library book list) and the American history lesson plans on Elizabeth Foss's Seredipity blog.
Science
I hadn't truly decided on a plan for science beyond working on a nature journal with N1. I don't think there needs to be much more than that for Kindergarten. One resource that I love is Keeping a Nature Journal. Several others that I want to look at (but haven't had a chance because they aren't at my local library) are Pocketful of Pinecones: Nature Study With the Gentle Art of Learning : A Story for Mother Culture and Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together with Children. If we were going to do anything beyond nature observation and journaling, I was considered putting some basic lessons together on our bodies. Books I was looking at (but haven't purchased) included: The Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia (Kingfisher First Reference), Everybody Has a Body: Science from Head to Toe, and The Way We Work.
There! I'm such a novice at all this I hesitate to even say let me know if you have any questions. :) But, if you do, feel free. I'm working on some read-aloud lists that I want to try and work through this next year - both for fun and to tie in with her history so I'll share those as I have things pulled together.
Thanks for sharing this, Stephanie!
ReplyDeleteThe two-day-a-week school sounds perfect!
I found a Catherine Vos Bible story book at the library used book store, but because it hadn't been marked with a price sticker, the clerk wouldn't let me buy it. I asked her to hold it for me so I could buy it after it had been priced, but THEY SOLD IT!!!! Arrrgh!!!! It would've been $3 or LESS.
Okay, vent over. : )
I like your plan--it sounds very similar to what we're planning, 'though none of our plans are very concrete yet. We're planning to attend 2 or 3 conventions in the next few months (incl. the one close to you), so maybe I'll be able to post our plan soon.