2011-2012 Homeschool Plans

As of last week we wrapped up our 2010-2011 school year and I now have a second grader, a kindergartener and a preschooler/pre-K girl on my hands for this fall! I am always amused that no matter how tired and ready I am for summer break, I also am super excited about what we are doing this fall and the new materials that have been and will be arriving on our doorstep over the next few weeks. For those that our curious, I thought I would share what we are planning on doing for this fall ... remembering that there may need to be some tweaking when we eventually start. Here goes!

N1: 2nd grade, age 7.5 (will turn 8 in October)

• Math: Saxon 2
• Language Arts:
• Explode the Code, books 4 1/2, 5 and 5 1/2 (we struggled a little at the end of the year with dividing syllables so we'll tackle the 4 1/2 book for review before moving on)
• A Reason for Handwriting Transition (from print to cursive) 
• A Reason for Spelling Level D
• First Language Lessons, Level 2
• Writing with Ease, Workbook 2
• Wordly Wise, book 2
• Journaling
• Social Studies: Story of the World, Volume 1, text and workbook
• Science: Apologia's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day, text, workbook, and lab kit
• Bible: 
• scripture memory through our Awana program at church
• Community Bible Study homeschool program - studying the book of Acts. (I will be participating in the adult version of this study and N1 will have her own student study workbook.)
• Other:
• Fine Arts: Art Friday, a weekly opportunity to create art. Projects will be eclectic, varied, seasonal at times, and/or tied to social studies and science. (More about this when I get to my kindergartener's plan).
• Music: Kids Praise choir 

N2: Kindergarten, will be 5.5 when we start school

• Math: Saxon K
• Language Arts:
• Explode the Code, books 1 and 1 1/2
• A Reason for Handwriting K (finishing from this year) and A 
• Wordly Wise, K (I didn't do this with N1, but am contemplating it for N2)
• Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
• Social Studies: Story of the World, Volume 1 (listening along with N1)
• Science: Apologia's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day (listening along with N1)
• Bible: 
• scripture memory through our Awana program at church
• Community Bible Study homeschool program - studying the book of Acts. 
• Other:
• Fine Arts: Art Friday, a weekly opportunity to create art. Projects will be eclectic, varied, seasonal at times, and/or tied to social studies and science. We will be using this time to tie in with our Five in a Row studies as we can - coming up with a craft to tie with our book of the week, however I'm leaving this very open to what I think we can accomplish each week.
• Music: Kids Praise choir 
• Five in a Row: as I did with N1, N2 and I will spend time each week with a story book - reading and discussing different aspects of it. I will be using suggestions of activities from Five in a Row Volumes 1 and 2, as well as several of the free lapbook materials that are available on Homeschool Share which we love to put together.

Other resources as they fit:

• Download N Go studies: I've amassed quite a collection of these from my own purchases and through reviews so I'm sure we will be pulled some of them out as they line up with our studies.

B: pre-K, will be almost 4.5 when we start school.

I really have no expectations about what I will accomplish with B for this year. She is such a busy (BUSY!) girl that I don't know how ready she will be to do much table work. And she can spend HOURS in imaginative play with her little dolls/figures that she plays with and I don't want that to end sooner than it has to. That said, I will probably purchase for her the same books that I bought for N2 last year and she can work on them as she wants. I found that by February/March, N2 was much more eager to pull out her books and wanted to work on them at the table with us and I was glad I already had a few things set aside for her. I'll pick up:

• Explode the Code's Get Ready for the Code, Get Set for the Code, Go for the Code
• A Reason for Handwriting K

... and that's really it besides lots of new crayons, (washable!) markers, coloring books and white paper. I have to say I love this planning time of year. : ) Whether or not we get all of this accomplished over the next school year will remain to be seen ... especially as this is my first year to homeschool two students and I will have a active 1-year old to keep and eye on as well. 

If you homeschool, have you made your plans for this fall yet?

I'm linking up with the 2011 Curriculum Fair over at Simple Homeschool today.