So, I started this blog post on Friday and I am determined to finish it today.
Curriculum! Ugh!! That's what's been on my mind all week. It really isn't unusual to switch curriculum every year. Sometimes even mid-year, depending on how your child is learning (or not). The Weaver curriculum, which is what we are using now, has it's positives but also has it's negatives (which all curriculum has). It is a really good program for preschool and Lauren is benefiting, but Kristen is bored so we are going to switch it up. I have been looking at the different curriculum's online, reading reviews and going on websites to see what other homeschooling parents recommend for certain grades/subjects. Now that I have sat down with both girls I know how they learn best, so looking at curriculum this time isn't as overwhelming. I know what I am looking for in certain subjects, it's just finding that curriculum that has been time consuming. But I think I have come to a decision on what we will be using for the rest of the year and what we will be doing next year. There is one thing that is for sure...curriculum isn't cheap! I will be making copies of every workbook so I can recycle it all the way down to Dallas.
I ended up ordering Hooked on Phonics for Kristen for reading and hopefully it will be here by the end of next week. After the New Year I am going to order her Horizon's Math to finish up the rest of the year. We will still be doing everything in the Weaver book, but just adding reading and math to it for Kristen. With Lauren I am just going to continue with just the preschool material in the Weaver book. I will definitely do the Weaver preschool lessons with Dallas when he gets older. Next year Kristen will continue with the 1st grade curriculum of Hooked on Phonics and Horizon's Math (assuming I will like them). We will be adding in Horizon's penmanship and spelling/vocabulary. We will also add in R.E.A.L Science Odyssey and The Mystery of History as electives, but will not do these everyday. Next year I plan on solely focusing on reading and math with Lauren. We will do Hooked on Phonics and Horizon's and I will let her participate in the History and Science lessons as she feels led because they will mostly be for Kristen's age and probably a little over her head. I think once we devote our time to math and reading we will have probably reached her learning time frame for the day. She is a reluctant learner, quite like myself.
So this week I have felt a little un-motivated (that is why our bulletin board is so bare, my house isn't clean, my laundry is piled up and why I started this post three days ago and it's just now getting published).
Our verse this week was:
"And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good." -Genesis 1:10
They haven't learned it yet, but are on the road to learning it. We talked about how God made dirt and rocks. We looked at maps and talked about the different oceans on the world. They got to color a picture of the earth, worked on their creation books and made crowns.
I was very impressed with Kristen's creativity when coloring her world. She even made the atmosphere and stars!
Kristen working on her creation book
Lauren working on her creation book
(This was Lauren's general mood on Monday, which I can't really blame her because I was feeling the same way.)
This week Kristen worked on her numbers, mostly just recognizing them and being able to write them down from memory and she is doing really good.
Lauren mostly worked on staying in the lines while coloring. As you can see from the above picture (the one on the right) she really needs to practice this. She also practiced her circles, tracing them and doing them on her own. We did a review of shapes and colors and she is doing great on her shapes. She knows them all. We are currently working on getting her to know brown, orange and yellow. Hopefully by the end of this week!
Oh, and here is a picture of Dallas with a crown on. It is fitting because he is the King of this house. When her cries we all come running.
