What's On The Agenda

School is just around the corner. My friend, Kim, just listed all of the curriculum that she will be using with her four kiddoes this year. My list wasn't nearly as lengthy. I thought I'd do the same, just for fun...

The last of Mary Alice's books just arrived a couple of weeks ago. I was absolutely giddy when I saw that huge box of books on the front doorstep. The kids and I dragged the box inside and tore into it. Mary Alice was smiling and laughing and commenting on the wonderful new book smell. (She shares my love for books.) Major just sat there with his arms crossed and a huge scowl on his face. He said, "I don't like Mary Alice's school. I am not excited." When I asked him why he didn't like school he frowned and said, "Mary Alice can't play any more. She just ignores me and does her work." Poor buddy. He has been used to having his big sis as his constant companion. His world is about to change.

I am looking for some type of fun (and minimal) phonics program for the Maje. I don't believe in beating kids to death with flashcards, worksheets and facts at the age of 4. I just want something fun that I can do with him a few minutes a day that is just for him. I really want something with games and music....nothing too formal.

I am so excited to begin this new year with Mary Alice! It is amazing what she will be learning this year. The great thing is that I am going to be learning right along with her.

Here is what we will be working through this year:

Sonlight History 1 with Read Alouds Just look at all of the fun books she will be going through this year!

We will also use A Child's History Of the World and The Usborne Book of World History with her history curriculum.

I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS!!! I was especially impressed with A Child's History of The World. It presents a great overview of world history from the beginning of time until now. It looks like it is going to be a fun read for both of us. One of the things that I love about this curriculum is the fact that it teaches kids to have a broad world view, to discover all of the things that happened long before our country ever came to be. I think this year is going to be fascinating!

Sonlight Science 1 I really enjoy this curriculum. It is perfectly suited for Mary Alice, as it requires LOTS of reading. There is also a cheesy but funny Science DVD that features a mad scientist completing all of the year's experiments. Both of my kids love to watch this. Last year, we would usually watch a couple of experiments each week, whichever experiments happened to correspond with what she was learning that week. Mary Alice became a little mad scientist herself last year and could often be found in our kitchen performing some of the experiments on her own. This worked out great most of the time. This year I need to be better about supervising the kids. I will never forget the day that Mary Alice was supposed to be performing an experiment with citric acid. This experiment involved tasting the final product. She grabbed the wrong pouch (a pouch full of baby powder) and came running into me spitting and crying because she knew she had done something wrong. Poor girl! I am sorry to say that, as much as I tried, it rarely worked for me to do the experiments with the kids last year. It just seemed like too much trouble, when all the kids had to do was watch the DVD to see the same thing without the trouble or the mess.

One of the things that I like best about our history and science curriculums is that they involve lots and lots of reading. We like to utilize one of our favorite places, the library, to get additional materials. I get online and select dozens of interesting looking books that have to do with what we will be studying the next week, request them, then pick them up before the week's studies began. This curriculum is a perfect fit for my little bookworm.

For Math, we have decided to go with Singapore Math again. We used this last year and were very pleased.

We are using Bob Jones curriculum for English and Spelling. I really like Bob Jones curriculum for language arts. It is very thorough. I like it because, along with being educational, it is also colorful and not at all boring. We will definitely have fun with this curriculum this year! Mary Alice really enjoyed her Bob Jones Phonics and English from last year.

One of the things that I am most excited about this year is THIS. This Geography Songs CD is just an extra thing that I thought I would purchase. It has a CD with catchy little tunes that teach songs about the countries of the world. I'm sure that we won't go through all of it this year, but may go through different bits of it as it fits in with our studies of various countries in history. I thought that it was something that both of the kids would enjoy. Fun fun fun!!!

We are using A Reason For Handwriting again this year. I really like this handwriting curriculum because Mary Alice gets to improve her penmanship by writing Scripture.

Last year, I read through Egermeier's Bible Story book with the kids. This is what we used for our day to day Bible. I tried to aim for once a week in teaching them Bible using my Children Desiring God curriculum just to spice things up. It usually turned out to be more like every two weeks. :) I am still looking for another Bible story book to go through this year. I like things that are halfway meaty. I would love a recommendation on another good story Bible if anyone has one.

We're still looking at purchasing Rosetta Stone for Mary Alice. A friend of mine used their French program with her daughter last year and loved it. We are thinking about purchasing the Spanish curriculum for her. I am not sure whether or not we will purchase this. We've been talking about it for months and ordered the demo CD, etc. We're still thinking about it...

That is an overview of our curriculum for the year. I have had plenty of things to post, but have been really tired lately. I have so much to say, but by the time the kids are in bed, I feel like getting into my bed too!

Speaking of which, I think I'm going to head off to bed right now! Good night!