School Is Back In Session

School has started again here at Keep The Way Christian Academy.  And the usual question begins:  What grade are your girls in? 

I watched a series of videos from the wonderful Gregg Harris (homeschool dad and author, not my husband! Yes, very weird coincidence.) where he discussed this question.  His answer was:  "In what subject?"  See, you would have to be pretty average to be in the same grade for all of your subjects, right?  I'd never thought of it like that before, but it definitely made answering the question easier :-)

So here are the stats (FWI:Jordan turned 6 at the end of November and Cali is turning 5 in exactly ten days):

Bible, Character, Devotional: 

• For our Bible time in the mornings, we are following along with My Father's World Second Grade's Adventures in My Father's World.  This week has been focused on the importance of names, and what our names represent.  Gregg and I wrote letters for them, telling them why we named them "Jordan Faith" and "Carolina Grace."  What is awesome is that Jordan does have this AMAZING Faith that inspires us, and the name Carolina comes from the name Charles, which means Warrior.  Since Cali is known for her spontaneous, EXTREMELY heart-felt prayers, we talked about what it means to be a Prayer Warrior.  Later in Handwriting, we had them trace their names and how the attributes associated with their meanings can be used for the glory of God!

• After we read from the Bible and discuss, we move onto Character Training, and we are reading through Everyday Graces: Child's Book of Good Manners.    Oh my word, I heart this book!!  It takes classic children's literature and poetry and uses samples and snippets to correspond with the topic of the chapter.  Yesterday we read a piece from The Princess and The Goblin and I think next week we will be reading something from Pinocchio.  So cute!

• Our Devotional is Manners Made Easy For the Family: 365 Timeless Etiquette Tips for Every Occasion by June Hines Moore.  It goes over manners for just about everything you can think of and has a corresponding Bible verse at the bottom.  The girls love this!

History and Science:

• My Father's World, Adventures In My Father's World, Second Grade.  We are looking forward to a wonderful year learning about American History and Geography!  We will be learning about all fifty states along with key characters in our nation's history and important things like the Pledge of Allegiance.  This week, we've covered map skills, talked about North America in depth and discussed the other continents, and learned about the Vikings.  They have done excellent notebooking pages on all of these topics and go around saying the Pledge all day lol!

• Science actually didn't happen this week.  But it is probably for the best.  They LOVE Science, in particular the experiments, and this week's lessons was just short readings in the Encyclopedia that I am sure they've already confiscated and read through anyway.  Next week we'll sit down and read for probably an hour all the pages at once and then be able to do an experiment.

Handwriting, Readers, Language Arts/Writing, Spelling:

• Handwriting is something we are working on everyday. We purchased Sonlight Language Arts, different levels, for both girls.  They only list Copywork on Mondays.  So the rest of the week I added other copywork, used the meaning of their names from Bible and then used some suggestions from My Father's World yesterday.  How we do this, since they are still so young, is that I write the sample in pencil in a lined handwriting notebook we bought from Walmart, and then they trace over the letters while I watch, correcting for "proper formation."  This is going very well and I am very pleased!

• For reading, it is almost going too easily.  I am waiting for the other shoe to drop as last year, before our huge break from April till now, this time took a good deal longer, even though they both could read and wanted to learn.  Now, the time is over in ten minutes . . . if that!!  We purchased Sonlight Language Arts 2 for Cali and Level 2 Intermediate for Jordan (she could've gone up even higher but then next year or the year after we'd be dealing with advanced topics for her age that while she could read, would be too heavy for her.  Better have her read something she flies through then deal with that).  Jordan asked if she could read her samples on her own and we discuss later, using the short list of questions Sonlight provides in the Teacher's Manual to check for comprehension.  This week she read Clara and the Book Wagon and The Long Way to a New Land.  Yesterday, she read 3 days worth of reading, basically reading an entire reader in one day, so next week she will get to choose a book from her shelf for this time.  Cali is reading The Beginner's Bible, one story a day.  Well, she is supposed to do that.  Apparently she's been grabbing it and reading ahead, so I've been asking her the next day to tell me about the stories she's read secretly and we move on, lol. 

• Language Arts themselves and Writing is going beautifully.  I love Sonlight's curriculum for this reason in particular.  Short lessons that cover so many topics and really focus on strengthening creative writing skills which I place a strong importance on.  Even more so now that I am writing my own novels.  This week Cali worked on description and wrote a cute descriptive paragraph about a crocodile named Louis and Jordan worked on grouping like topics for strong paragraphs. 

• Spelling has been a learning curve.  I discovered Spelling City over a year ago and the girls loved it then, so while I went over their words once with them, I then had them use that program for learning the words by playing the games everyday and yesterday we took the test.  Jordan got everything right . . . well actually the game said she got them all wrong because she took the time to put her keyboard skills to use and started each spelling word with a capital letter and the computer didn't recognize them as the same word since I put them in with lower case --I told her that was HOGWASH (a word she giggled at) and wrote 100% on top of the paper with tons of stamps :-)  Cali struggled just a bit more, knowing that many of the words had a silent "e" but putting them next to the other vowel instead of at the end of the word.  So next week we are goign to keep with the same list and do much more one-on-one spelling with manipulatives and use the computer just for fun reinforcement.  

Math:

• After much debate and going through our variety of math curriculums--we have MUS Alpha (which Jordan had started over a year ago and we had to stop as it focuses on mastery and she wasn't quite there . . . after all, she had just turned 5 lol.), Horizons K (which the girls had started when Alpha stopped and they loved for awhile and they quickly HATED), and Critical Thinking Press workbooks--we decided to try MUS Alpha again.  This time is going very well and both girls got 100% on their Unit 1 tests yesterday.  They are actually getting a little cocky with it but right now I am so proud of them, and so glad they are enjoying it, that I am finding it amusing!

Read Alouds:

• There are great lists provided in My Father's World and Sonlight has some good ones, but I am doing my own thing this year.  They are young and I want to just enjoy this time.  Plus, Jordan has developed an obsession for the old series Animorphs and I want to make sure we read lots of books that have appealing topics for them that she will want to pick up instead.  So right now we are reading Ella Enchanted.  They got so excited the other day when they were watching one of their videos and saw a commercial for the movie!  So I guess we'll be renting that this weekend :-)

And finally, today is Fancy Friday:

• We get together with our friends Skylar and Emy two Fridays a month for art and music appreciation.  While we were winging it and doing our own thing before, today I am going to start teaching out of Artistic Pursuits.  We are excited!

So, whew!  What is your school year looking like?  How was your week?  Any new curriculum you're starting?  Anyone else out there use the beginning of the calendar year as the beginning of their school year? 

Happy Friday!!