Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Other Plans 2014/2015

Most of these will be done together, some more regularly than others, but they are still important parts of our homeschool and I thought they deserved to be listed, if only for my own records.

Religion:
We are very religious, and while I don't really consider us "religious homeschoolers," it is still an important part of our lives.  In the morning, immediately after breakfast, the girls and I will read one story out of the Illustrated Scripture Stories books put out by the Church.


We will probably be focusing on the bible this year, as we focus on the Book of Mormon in the evening as a family.  Every night we read one page together out of the BoM and talk about it as we go.  Lydia reads a verse or two as well.  While we read, the girls look at The Illustrated Stories from the Book of Mormon set that we happen to own (thanks Mom and Dad!).  It is a 16 volume set that is out of print, but really detailed and awesome.  We recently finished the Book of Mormon for the second time as a family, so we are starting fresh right now and are only a few chapters in.

Memorization:
Since we stopped memorization for a while and are adding Eleanor in, I'll be focusing on reviewing ones Lydia has already learned for a while and teaching them to Eleanor.  So all of our previous memorization lists still apply.  If we finish that (and Lydia likely will, if not Eleanor) then I will just continue with last year's plan and the timeline.


Science:
Science is not a formal priority for us this year.  I do plan on doing some formal science though, specifically Building Foundations in Scientific Understanding.  The first volume is for K-2, so we will be doing 12 lessons out of it this year.  They are fairly meaty, though.  I also plan on doing some interest-led science this year, including a lot of time on the human body, which Lydia is especially interested in right now, and probably space.


We will be doing My Body which is a project where you build a life-size body diagram organ by organ.  We will also likely make a few lapbooks.  Lydia has been enjoying Human Body by Tinybop and My Incredible Body apps, both of which are excellent and she has learned a lot.

I am also getting chickens in a few weeks as day-old baby chicks, so we will probably do some informal science as they help me with them too.


History:
We will do nothing formal for history this year.  The girls listen to Story of the World volumes 1&2 all the way through every few weeks at bedtime which covers from pre-history to the beginning of the renaissance.  We are still working on memorizing the Classical Conversations Timeline too.


And the girls watch Liberty's Kids all the way through every few months, which is a great program about the founding of the United States.  Besides those and reading library books, I plan on no history focus this year.  Actually, now that I list it out like that, this is a fairly decent history plan for a first grader and pre-schooler.


Computer Science:

I consider computer science an important subject in our homeschool, so we will be doing Code.org's new K-1st cs program when it comes out (promised to be this summer).  Looking at it, that is about 20 lessons total.  We will also be doing some pre-coding activities, mostly in the form of apps like Kodable.  I don't think Lydia will be ready for Scratch by the end of this year, but that is our goal in the next few years.



1 comment:

  1. I noticed that your science plans are not a huge priority this year, but I wanted to mention a great curriculum that your girls are the perfect age for. Science4Us is an online curriculum that is specifically designed for k-2 students. We had a chance to check it out and my daughter, who is a visual learner and loves the computer, really enjoyed it. (Truth be told, she was too old for the curriculum at the time, but she still said there were things she learned, so I take that as a real positive!)
    I love that you are including computer at a young age! Children are such sponges at the age your kids are. They will learn quickly and easily! (Unlike adults like me, who seem to struggle with each new step in technology LOL!)
    Have a great, wonderful, and adventurous school year!

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