It is so weird to be in May already! Only about 6 more weeks till we start the new school year. Still enjoying the year around schooling, it gives us a lot more flexibility with our schedule and we don't have to shove as much into a few days and gives us more freedom to do family things. :)
I have just completed the lesson plans for Smith kid #3 for Pre-K. Still need to finish up Smith kid #4's and Smith kid #2's....there is also a possibility that Smith kid #1 will be joining us for homeschool this next school year! She will be entering 4th grade. Excited!!! Have not gotten to those lesson plans, just want to make sure they are concrete plans before I spend my time planning that out. I do have an idea ....or I guess a really rough draft outline of how I would like it go...but to try to plan daily what we are going to work....whew...no where near that! LOL
For History we decided to go with Story of the World Volume 1: Ancient Times. We bought the book, the activity book and the test booklet. There are 42 chapters and it says to do one chapter a week with a test at the end of the week. Well I guess we shall see how this goes. We are planning on doing Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages for 2nd grade, Volume 3: Early Modern Times for 3rd grade and Volume 4: The Modern Age for 4th grade. They all seem to have roughly 41-42 chapters in it. This school year coming up I am skipping all of July for History just to make it easier on myself while adjusting to doing homeschool with a newborn. If we can start earlier, then we will! We are also taking a week off for Christmas, New Years and Easter. I think we (if we stick with the one chapter a week schedule) will finish the entire book with one week left to spare of the school year. This is all just a plan, if it seems to be too much for Smith kid #2...then we will back off a little and adjust the schedule.
The Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages talks about the fall of Rome to the Renaissance We have an awesome Renaissance Fair around here in September and October so that would make an awesome field trip! Thinking of going in 3rd grade, since we wouldn't learn about the Renaissance till the end of 2nd grade and the fair is in the beginning of the year. Sorry, so many ideas! Brain is everywhere!
For math right now, Smith kid #2 is on 3 tier addition. He is just flying by with it. The next place I plan to go is addition facts to make sure as soon as he sees 1+1 he knows the answer is 2 and so on. Beginning of 1st grade I plan to do ones & tens place and do double digit addition and subtraction.
We are also going to be getting into grammar this coming up school year and learn about nouns, verbs and adjectives....well I found Mad Libs to make it fun.....not just Mad Libs, but Lego Star Wars Mad Libs! LOL It will be fun to do those with him.
I have been going through pinterest quite a bit looking for homeschool ideas. I have gotten so many. They have links to things that I use for lesson plans or lapbooks or printable worksheets. I love pinterest! I know I have said it before...but I DO! LOL
Well that is all I can think of for now!
Mrs. Smith
