Next year will be Haden’s second grade year! All my researching seems to be paying off because I’m feeling pretty solid about the choices I’ve narrowed down to so far, and I only have a couple things I still need to make a decision on. So, here is the list that I promised!
Math
We will continue doing mostly Living Math, and will be using a variety of resources throughout the year. So, I’ve just listed some of the things I want to add to our collection of living math tools.
Miquon Math – This will be the core of our math. We have already started using the Orange & Red Books, but will continue on throughout the rest of the series.
I Love Math Books
Logic Links
Usborne First Maths Dictionary
Learning Resources Creative Color Cubes
Citi Blocks
Plus, living math books that we will borrow from the library. 🙂 You can find book lists here, here and here.
Language Arts
I have had the hardest time making a decision here! I’ve thought that I had it all figured out a couple of times, only to change my mind again. I think this is it though. Hopefully….
I linked to the main website for all the Brave Writer materials below, but you can buy them at a really great discount on the Homeschool Buyer’s Co-op.
Brave Writer’s The Writer’s Jungle
Brave Writer’s The Wand
Brave Writer’s Jot It Down
And of course, reading TONS of books. 😛
Science
Elemental Science: Elementary Biology
Required books for Biology:
Kingfisher First Encyclopedia of Animals
DK First Human Body Encyclopedia
Plant Parts
Janice VanCleave’s Science Around the World
Janice VanCleave’s Biology for Every Kid
Intellego Unit – Evolution
History
Classical House of Learning – Grammar Stage Ancients (FREE literature-based program.) Although, this curriculum offers a reading schedule that includes Story of the World, I’ve decided to skip that, and use the Usborne Encyclopedia of World History as a supplement to the program. I may do Ancient Civilizations History Pockets with it too.
I will be borrowing most of the Required Books for the course from the library, as well as the Optional Books.
Also, we will be doing American History read-alouds throughout the year to go ahead and dip our toes into our history a bit better, until I’m ready to do a more thorough study. 🙂
Geography
Intellego Unit – Maps
Geography from A to Z: A Picture Glossary
World GeoPuzzle
We will probably do misc. country studies as Haden shows interest too.
Social Studies
Intellego Unit – Goods and Services
Intellego Unit – Choices and Resources
Art
We will continue using our Usborne Art Coloring Book and Draw.Write. Now.
BLAM by Roy Lichtenstein
Spanish
I’d really like to start doing Spanish next year, but I am still undecided on what to use. I am considering using the book, Getting Started with Spanish. Maybe Mango if I can budget it in… I’m really not sure yet…
Others
I will be adding to our collections of field guides for Nature Study. We really like the Peterson Guides. 🙂 I’m getting Peterson First Guide Rocks and Minerals & Peterson First Guide Caterpillars, plus maybe a couple others.
The Kids’ Book of Questions – This book was recommended in the book, Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief, which is a really awesome book, BTW. I will be using it as a starting point towards having more thought provoking discussions with Haden and to encourage moral reasoning.
Usborne Encyclopedia of World Religions
And (of course) we will be taking classes through our co-op next year too.
All about chickens in Life on the Farm class.
Websites
These are all websites that we love and utilize now. Just thought I would share the love. 😉
Education Unboxed – Oh, the amazing things you can do with Cuisenaire Rods.
Cool Math Games – Cool math games. 😛
Math Playground – More cool math games.
Living Math – The place to check out for living math resources.
Handbook of Nature Study Blog – I love their monthly newsletters because they include fun outdoor challenge grids and free notebooking pages to go with them.
Notebooking Fairy – Lots of free notebooking pages.
Homeschool Share – FREE lapbooks!
Pre-K
Addison will be 3 1/2 in the fall, so I will most likely start making a more concentrated effort to plan activities to do with her. She already tags along with Haden during school sometimes, especially science. She likes to sit at the table with us and work on puzzles or pages from her cut and paste book when we are working. I’ll keep it simple, but do want to start forming a habit of thinking about her more than I currently do when it comes to our plans for the day. I’m thinking about buying her some sand paper letters and numbers… I’ve started a preschool Pintrest board to pull ideas from, and I will likely try to take a literature-based unit study style approach with her for Pre-K, and see how that goes. The last two classes of this term at co-op she actually attended class on her own, so I’m hoping she will do that in the Fall too!
[box] So, what are your plans for next year? You know I want hear about them! :)[/box]