His Treasure Seekers

Keyword: “Plans” (Every thing in this post is subject to change!)

Recently I was part of on online conversation with some other homeschool moms and someone brought up the topic of “planning.”  It’s amazing what a wide range of planning goes into different families’ school years depending on how many kids they have, what style of education they lean toward, personalities, etc.  Some of them literally just go day to day, following a “delight directed” learning approach.  Others want the support of a curriculum that lays out what they’re going to do each day over the 36 weeks of the school year.

For myself, I find it incredibly helpful to have at least a rough outline that shows me where I want to be in each subject each week if I plan to complete something by the end of the year.  I usually allow a lot of flexibility with weeks scheduled in for catching up, and I’m not a slave to the schedule.  I just find that it really helps me to see everything laid out.  (I’m a visual learner and have a hard time functioning without some sort of plan that I can see.)  Plus I find that we accomplish a lot more when I have things written down.

I have found the easiest way for me to plan is to use a blank calendar.  There are many available online, but this year I printed mine up from www.calendarlabs.com.  I ignore the days of the week and instead use those columns for different subjects.  (In the Sunday column I number the week of school that we’re on.)

The only subjects I’ve scheduled for the whole year are history and science.  We’re currently reviewing a program that uses children’s literature so I’ve written in those books for this month as well as where we’ll be in our Bible study, just so I can see what we’ll be learning about at the same time.  Sometimes when I see a holiday or break is coming up I’ll try to finish an extra lesson or break from a subject early just so we don’t stop right in the middle of something.  (For example, in August Ian has a week of baseball camp and then a week of music camp, and we’re hoping to get away for a week in September.  So I tried to make sure our science units got squeezed around those weeks.)

I didn’t write on the calendar any of the reading assignments from Ambleside Online Year 1 because those are already so nicely laid out for me it seemed like a waste of time to try to write them out again.

Here’s what we’re planning to use for 1st grade with Ian:

 Bible/Character

• For morning devotions we’ll continue going through Proverbs and the Miller family books.
• For study, we plan to finish Bible Road Trip – Year 1 (review coming soon!), which will correspond somewhat with our family Bible time as we go through Old Story New by Marty Machowski
• I’m sure there will be quite a few We Choose Virtues discussions as well.

Literature

• Right now I’m reviewing Lightening Literature for 1st Grade, but I don’t plan to continue it past this month.  (We’re revisiting a few of our Five in a Row favorites with it, so it’s a fun way to start the year.)
•  Ambleside Online Year 1 – I don’t plan on using everything from AO as written, but I would like to try to get through all their literature and poetry selections this year.

Writing

• Spelling You See – We did the first half of Level B- Jack and Jill last year, and I think we’ll go back and finish at least that level once we finish the Lightening Literature program.  (I tend to lean toward a Charlotte Mason approach when it comes to writing, so we won’t be doing much composition unless Ian expresses a desire.)

History/Geography

• I’ll be loosely starting our 4-year history cycle, covering Creation through Christ.  I’m not going to be using any particular program, but I’ll be covering various stories from Mystery of History and Story of the World and incorporating several other resources to help Ian become familiar with some of the important people and events from that time period.
• For various reasons we won’t spend as much time on our history cycle as I plan to in the future, so I think we’ll also do some of the history and geography selections from Ambleside Online Year 1.

Science

• I’ve had my eye on the God’s Design for Science series from Answers in Genesis for a while, and I decided to give it a try this year.  We’ll be doing God’s Design for Life which has 3 books:
  1. The World of Animals
  2. The Human Body
  3. The World of Plants

 Math

• We’re finishing up the last week of Year 1 in the Mathematics Enhancement Programme (since we took a break mid-year when Ian started getting frustrated).  Then we’ll start right in with Year 2.
• I’m currently reviewing two supplemental math programs, one online and one software program, and I’m sure we’ll continue using at least one of them until Ian has mastered his addition/subtraction facts.

Foreign Language

• Ian has been looking forward to getting back into our Salsa Spanish lessons using the Salsa materials from the Wyoming Department of Education.  Luckily there are still plenty to take us through this coming year.

Arts

• Hymns: Ian is learning about 1/month on the piano, so we’ll focus on those.
• Composers: AO selections
• Music: piano, choir, hand chimes
• Art: ARTistic Pursuits (finish K-3 Vol. 2; possibly start Vol. 1)

I’m considering this a “Jr. Kindergarten” year for Elijah (who won’t be 5 until well into the fall) simply because he’s already doing so much Kindergarten work on his own and reading really well.  I don’t insist that he join us for any part of school (sometimes it’s more helpful if he’s off playing with Arianna), but he manages to pick up quite a bit and I have no interest in pushing him beyond that.