K5 in Casa Szrama (2014/2015 School Year)

Math- Saxon 1 (also TOPScience "Get a Grip!" workstation, also drawing from Right-Brained Addition & Subtraction).  I am still using my old wall pocket calendar (still haven't seen one I like more!  We use it instead of making our own every month with Saxon).  I haven't been able to track down a stand-alone copy of Saxon 1's Student Workbook Part 1, so until we get to Part 2 (which I do have), I'm filling in with plenty of workbooks I've grabbed from the dollar store and goodwill, our usual pattern block set, clock set, mini-white board, a printed-out hundred chart & numbers to trace (both in a plastic sleeve) and various manipulatives.

Language Arts- Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (last few lessons), then will use real books & readers for reading practice (Bob books sets 3 & 4, Dick & Jane (these are soooo funny to Eowyn, and I find the illustrations to be very attractive! Way nicer looking than the Bob books, IMO)
books, and level 1 & 2 readers from the library), and will start...

First Language Lessons Level 1 for English grammar.  She has started LOVING read-aloud chapter books now.  I have a bunch I hope to read, some tying in to history, others just fun.  Among them are The Little House Books (we're mid-way through Little House in the Big Woods), The Never Girls series (we're on Book 2), Captive Treasure, The House at Pooh Corner, Now We Are Six, and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.  We might start The Chronicles of Narnia or Prydain, we'll see.  We also are going through all the nursery rhymes along with Liam & Levi.

Ready for her first day of K5

Handwriting- we are still using Cursive First as well as the Kumon Cutting, Cursive Writing Letters and Cursive Words workbooks (she LOVES the Kumon workbooks, and they are the only workbooks I've found that always put cursive letters in the context of words, which makes sense since cursive letters all connect).  I have some PreScripts workbooks for her but they are a bit beyond her at this point.  (ps i have found Kumon workbooks on ebay for better prices than anywhere else)

Spanish - we're doing a weekly little co-op with a friend who has littles the same ages as Eowyn & Liam.  So fun!  This will tie in especially with our geography & culture when we get to our Argentina  units (see below).

Classical Conversations-- we attend this co-op for 3 hours once a week (for us it's Mondays which is perfect!).  Each week we have "grammar" (basically the building block-nuts-and-bolts of any subject) to memorize:  Latin words, the next chunk of the history timeline (same as last year), a history sentence, set of geography facts, a science question, and a portion of John 1 in Latin.  We also do an art project together.  Liam gets in on the school action and goes to his "cyass" with his beloved Mrs. Tina and a new teacher, Ms. Jasmine.  She came up today when I read the word "jasmine" aloud to Eowyn... he is always listening!!  Anyway I love CC because they are so chill despite being thorough and well thought-out, and have so many songs to help the facts "stick"!  And the fact that it's a three-year cycle so the kids will get all the material a second time by 4th grade, and we can build on it. (spiraling is a great teaching technique!)

Geography-- (with our friend) following CC Cycle 3 loosely, so learning states & capitals.  Each week we read about a state (library books) and/or cities in it.  We use a magnetic puzzle (from Costco!!) as well as one I made out of cardboard, a states coloring book I copy out of, maps and our globe.  We are first learning all the states & capitals, then will "zoom in" on South Carolina for a while, going (more) in depth into our own state geography as well as our history-- I forsee field trips to Columbia!  We also will study New York, Georgia, Oregon & North Carolina more in-depth since we have relatives there, and then expand to US features like rivers, mountains, lakes & deserts.  (We use a lot of songs from CCHappy Mom's youtube channel to help remember capitals.)  Finally we'll skip across the hemisphere to study the geography and culture of Argentina, which is where our fellow co-oppers lived and still have roots.

History-- (with our friend) following CC Cycle 3 loosely, so covering US History starting before Columbus.  We are using the American Girls books (as read-alouds) especially "Felicity" and "Kirsten" a LOT as these tie in perfectly with E's interests, listening level and all the fun extras (paper dolls, crafts, recipes, movies etc.).  My sister & I racked up finding the books for about $2 apiece at consignment sales, and the library also has them all.  We have historical paper dolls-- this series, from the Pilgrims through the Civil War, (thank you, Tia Nicole)-- and I'm excited about how studying the Native Americans, Pilgrims & Colonists will coincide well with Thanksgiving. :)  Of course my childhood favorite Little House on the Prairie series ties in excellently.

Science-- following CC Cycle 3 loosely, so learning about the human body first, then basic physics (parts of atoms etc).  We are using The Magic Schoolbus: A Journey into the Human Body Experiment Kit (which she loves!  Seriously, the look on her face when she "gets it" has been worth the "price" of homeschooling already.  I am so glad I got to be the one to see that!!), and various books on each topic from the library.  I have Reader's Digest's The ABCs of the Human Body as a resource for all the topics too. [Any ideas & resources for the physics aspect would be great; I haven't planned that far ahead!]

PE- she's taking gymnastics for 2 months (thanks to Livingsocial) and if she likes that can continue, otherwise she can go back to ballet/tap (I think she'll go for that).

Bible- we are going through the life of Moses (so Exodus- Deuteronomy) in BSF and I'm doing the Home Study sheets with her (and the boys, who are mostly oblivious, though Liam did have a great retelling of Moses' escape down "da deep wata" from wicked Pharaoh as a baby... on a surf board.) during breakfast or lunch.  I HOPE to get back to catechism somehow, someday this year, maybe using these books as an aid.  We also read Wisdom & the Millers periodically and this is a hit.

about to go in to CC on our first day
(Lil Bro is trying to show "5" like sis)

Music- we've been doing musical theater (right now My Fair Lady is big, with BOTH kids!  I snagged a CD on a whim for $1 at the thrift store), I envision more Broadway musicals & Patch the Pirate stories.  I also grabbed some organ recital CDs and hope to cover Peter & the Wolf, a Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra and The Nutcracker.  I pull out my old music lesson standbys to teach rhythm, pitch and notation as well as my xylophone & their instruments.  My goals in music for her this year are: ability to keep a steady beat, to copy rhythms, to match pitch, to understand "hi"- "low" and "soft-loud" and "slow-fast," know basics of solfege, to know the instrument families of the orchestra, to experience & "get" on some level how musical theater works, and to gain familiarity with the works I've mentioned.

General- I have found the "What Your __ Needs to Know" series to be VERY helpful.  You could really use this as a curriculum base and just supplement a writing/how-to-read and math curriculum.  I am finding it very helpful to just have in the car for whenever we have down time & need to read something (there are so many interesting things in there, stories, poems, history, science, etc.).  I'm especially using What Your 1st Grader Needs to Know for Geography & History this year.

How it Works... (-ish =D)
We spend about 1 hour each morning on "school," total, and on Mondays and Fridays don't do anything beyond our co-ops.  Afternoons are taken up by lunch, outside play and nap time (every day for boys, every other day for E) or rest time (she picks a type of toy and plays with it quietly while L naps.  Options include reading, books on tape, drawing/coloring, playing with blocks, figurines, Barbies, doll or any bin of toys from our "toy library.")

oh wait, this isn't actually school

We try to read every day, both her and me to her, read the Bible (usually over lunch), and focus on one other subject a day, be it math, music, science, geography or history.  My main sources for materials are thrift stores, the library, ebay and pinterest-found-printables offline. School is fun, not stressful, and if we don't cover it one day, I figure we'll cover it another day. Since we only work for 1 hour a day, she is able to focus and stay on-target and I can expect her best out of her.  Also, since the bulk of her learning is hands-on and story-oriented (seriously, try reading a list of words... nope.  Each word gets put into an entire paragraph of a very random story if I let her!)-- she finds workbooks to be fun and loves them! We go outside every day, the kids get lots of imaginative play (dress up, castles & figurines, Barbies, baby dolls, tool sets, kitchen pretend), puzzles, drawing, painting/art, playdough, blocks... basically anything without batteries) and I try to pull out some sensory experiences every now and then (water table, bean box, etc.).  She helps me with chores and is learning to garden, cook & clean.  For us at this point, a laid-back approach year-round with shorter breaks as we need them works just dandy.

Well, that's what I've mapped out for the year and we'll see how it goes!  Any suggestions or comments are welcome!