It is amazing what you can accomplish when you set your mind to it.
Friday I reviewed James 2nd grade curriculum and made a few changes. I had realized what the problem was after going to see Susan Bauer at the CCHE Seminar. I had gone crazy with the curriculum choices and added quite a few extras, which seemed to be bogging us, or rather me down. Besides the Well Trained Mind choices, I had been looking at Mater Amabilis (catholic charlotte mason), Ambleside Online, and others. I found so many neat books that fit into our studies and overdid it. Every single book’s table of contents was entered into excel with how many chapters needed to completed for each book.
AND, this is a biggie, instead of calendaring everything out like I did with 1st grade and knew what need to be completed and how long it would take us to finish, decided to just go with the flow and just do the next thing in the list. Without regard to how long it would take to get it done and the number of weeks in the school year, just go with the flow. I discovered I am not a go with the flow sort of person…uh uh! Neither is James. For the past few weeks, when starting to make up the lesson plan for the week, I was getting overwhelmed with all the choices and it was taking longer each time to work up the lesson plan. Then James starts looking at me cross eyed with all the work and books I am trying to get him to do. So…..I dropped some books from the repertoire, reworked the schedule, calendared everything out so would have an exact idea of what going to be doing every week, and voila!!!!! I am happy, organized, satisfied and better prepared. Which in turn, will benefit James and Father as well, since he does the teaching two days a week.
Our school year runs usually from June to April. We ended up taking May and June off, started in July, but did light work during July and August. This means we didn’t progress very far, but I still want to keep our stopping date of April.
We will continue to do “Day to Day devotions” daily. We are just finishing up the Fruits of the spirit study, which has been quite beneficial for all of us.
“Lord Teach Me to Pray for Kids”: Instead of trying to complete one lesson each day, going to do one lesson a week. The lessons are pretty long, information intensive and need to be broken up over a two day period.
Rod and Staff English has 6 units with 25 lessons each which include a lot of review. If we were doing lessons 5 days a week, then might be able to finish it. However, I am scheduling it for two days a week and will double up on some days. Even with doubling up on some days, won’t be able to complete the whole book, so plan on coming to a stopping point after the 3rd unit at the end of April. We will pick up where left off after our break in May.
Rod and Staff spelling has 33 lessons and we are 1/3 of the way through, so will be done by April. Going to continue with Write A Story once a week which has 29 chapters.
Reading will continue with Five in a Row, Catholic Mosaic and other assorted books.
Shelving some books purchased on the recommendation of mater amabilis and the rest of Holling’s living books for later. We will be doing lots of reading and eventually will work those in somehow.
For history, we are just going to do Story of the World and drop the study of the presidents and California. Currently on chapter 19 and will be finished by May.
My big decision for science….drum roll, please. I am giving up the teaching of science to Father. My thinking before was that I had to do it, otherwise wouldn’t know what he is learning or if it was getting done. Letting go of the control stick on this one…now! I will be working up the lesson plans, of course, so that they will know what to do. Science will be two days a week reading Usbornes Energy Forces and Motion on Tuesday and doing projects from Sciencewiz Electricity (target find) and Let’s Make an Invention (christianbooks.com find) on Thursday. I am dropping the study of dinosaurs and microscopes for now.
For Mathematics, we are using Modern Curriculum Press A which is for K – 3rd grade. So, after reviewing the lessons, realized the whole book didn’t have to be completed within the next year. We will be coming to a stopping point after Chapter 9 and pick up where left off after break. I had been stressing about this because we had been doing each lesson twice and it was going to take forever to finish. I purchased two workbooks and Father would have James complete the worksheet again on his days in order to cement the lesson in his brain. Math is not James strong suit at this point.
On daddy days, James and Father will be working through Evan Moor’s Non Fiction Reading and Draw-Write-Now, plus reading from the Blue Fairy book or whatever else I decide to assign.
We are dropping Japanese for now and will pursue foreign language study during the third grade. If James wants to use the program for fun, he will be able to do that.
J'ai fini