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► curriculum
We pull together resources from many sources for our curriculum, including plenty of living books that aren't listed on our resource pages (oh, how we love the library and bookcloseouts.com!) We also don't limit ourselves to "The Curriculum," preferring instead to go as wide and deep as common sense and our family's interest will take us.

That said, however, we do scope out a game plan to help us focus ... and because the law requires it. We retain an immense amount of flexibility on timing, additional resources and subject matter, and methodology. But if you want a gander at our curriculum plan, here's what it was as of whenever we put it on paper.

• Grades K-1 (ages 5-7-ish)
• Grades 2-3-ish (ages 7-9-ish)

It sounds so much more formal on paper!
 

► photos
Click here for Family School photos (password = family).

• Current (immediately below)
• 2006 - 2005
• Some projects on the various assignments page
• Family School photos (password = family)

Read-alouds:
(Some books may be on the read-aloud list and one of the girls' lists. That means that kiddo read the book aloud or independently, usually before mom and dad read it to everyone.)

• Marvels of Science, Haven (ongoing)
• A Wild Goose Tale, Gage (finished)
• Kemi, An Indian Boy Before the White Man Came, Buff
• Thirteen Moons on Turtle's Back, Bruchac, London
• Paul Bunyan, Kellogg
• John Henry, An American Legend, Keats
• Pigs Will be Pigs, Axelrod
• Sluggers' Car Wash, Murphy

~A~'s additional reading

• Stormy, Misty's Foal, Henry
• The Cabin Faced West, Fritz
• The Littles Go Exploring, Peterson
• The Littles and the Terrible Tiny Kid, Peterson
• The Littles and their Amazing New Friend, Peterson
• An Eskimo Family, Alexander
• Thunder Rolling in the Mountains, O'Dell
• The Matchlock Gun, Edmonds
• Wild Bill Hickok, Weidt
• Marie Curie: Brave Scientist, Brandt
• Shark Lady: True Adventures of Eugenie Clark, McGovern, Chew
• Birds Do the Strangest Things, Hornblow
• Annie and the Wild Animals, Brett
• Night Boat to Crete, Mullin
• Going to Sleep on the Farm, Lewison
• George Washington's Teeth, Chandra, Comora
• Peeping in the Shell, McNulty
• Lewis & Clark: A Prairie Dog for the President, Redmond
• Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares, Murphy
• Abe Lincoln's Hat, Brenner
• Paul Revere's Ride, Corey
• A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare, Coville

~C~'s additional reading

• Tatty Mae & Catty Mae, Martin
• If You Were Born a Kitten, Bauer
• The Berenstain Bears Say Good Night, Berenstain

Language Arts:
Spelling, check (AVKO program for ~A~; Blurt! spellings, Boggle games, etc. for both gals).
Reading, check (see above).
Handwriting, check (~C~ is making *big* strides; ~A~ is quite consistent).
Grammar, check (paragraph structure and punctuation for ~A~).
Dictation, check (poetry stanzas, definitions for ~A~).

Hyperbole and personification as literary devices were the big fun in language arts this month. We read from It Figures!, a great book about figures of speech; made up our own examples; read some American tall tales as examples of hyperbole; and generally had a grand time.
 

Math:
We studied money, money, and more money. We played "store" quite often ... buying items, selling items, making change, measuring by-the-pound items, rounding off, estimating, etc. ~C~ got to know each coin and its value intimately, and had lots of good practice with mental addition of two-digit numbers/prices, which is a new-ish concept for her. ~A~ was a change-making wild-girl, working that subtraction muscle hard! She also applied the concept of multiplication very quickly when charging her customers by the pound.

We also did some Singapore workbook exercises related to money, played some money flashcard games, and read a few money-based books (doing the math along the way, thank you). Gotta love Stuart Murphy and Amy Axelrod!

On the logic front, we started a basic logic workbook called Mind Benders. It's an introductory book challenging you to recognize what you do/don't know (i.e., don't make assumptions!), map out relationships, etc.
 

History/Geography:
We have moved into North America in our study of the ancient Americas. We've done a brief overview of how folks may have gotten here, the first Europeans (as a contrast), and basic differences and similarities among the Inuit, Woodland, Plains, and Pueblo groups. You should have seen the results of our housing discussions ... after reading and comparing a few structures, we built igloos out of marshmallows (complete with entrance tunnels), and the girls built a miniature teepee outside.

Geography often stems from our history studies, including North American climate, topography and location this month. We also got in a couple of games of Mad Dash, a USA state-to-state game.
 

Science:
Magnetism is a hot topic 'round here these days! I'm not sure who enjoys it more ... Kip or the girls. They've extended their compass-building activity to include mapping and creating scale drawings. They even built a small electro-magnetic motor in the garage. ~C~ had a slightly shocking discovery about batteries, but no long-term damage was done. <smile>

While in Florida, we took another Sea Life Safari trip with the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. If you're ever near Clearwater or St. Petersburg, check it out. We found it to be worth every penny both times we've gone.
 

Other:
Memory/Presentation: "March" by John Updike, microphone use

Research: horse info, mileage and mapping questions (~A~); state capitals, map-reading, author information (~C~)

PE: jogging, balance, softball (started league)

Miscellaneous: "Cinderella" ballet in Tyler

Read-alouds:
(Some books may be on the read-aloud list and one of the girls' lists. That means that kiddo read the book aloud or independently, usually before mom and dad read it to everyone.)

• Marvels of Science, Haven (ongoing)
• Understood Betsy, Fisher (finished -- and loved!!!)
• A Wild Goose Tale, Gage (1/2)
• The Treasure, Shulevitz
• The Legend of Food Mountain, Rohmer
• Look What Came From Mexico, Harvey
• The Story of Valentine's Day, Bulla
• "Stand Back," Said the Elephant, "I'm Going to Sneeze," Thomas
• Magnets, Schreiber
• Body Battles, Gelman

~A~'s additional reading

• Incredible Animal Adventures, George
• The Street of the Flower Boxes, Mann
• Crow Boy, Yashima
• Ruffle, Coo, and Hoo Doo, Houk
• Me Oh Maya, Scieszka
• Anasazi, Fisher
• Rain Player, Wisniwski
• How Mountains are Made, Zoehfeld
• The World of Chickens, Coldrey
• McBroom and the Beanstalk, Fleischman
• McBroom Tells a Lie, Fleischman
• Pinchpenny Mouse, Kraus
• Sheriff Sally Gopher and the Thanksgiving Caper, Quackenbush

~C~'s additional reading

• Bingo, the Best Dog in the World, Siracusa
• I Touch, Isadora
• Baby Wolf
• Mike's New Bike, Greydanus

Language Arts:
~A~ is doing especially well with dictation, tackling sentences like: "Fools need advice most, but only wise men are the better for it" (Ben Franklin) and "Corn was the most important crop for the Maya." Dictation is tougher than plain ol' spelling or copy work, because it combines listening, memory, spelling, handwriting, and punctuation. Whew!

Both girls have worked on paragraph writing, ~A~ from start to finish, including revising and editing; ~C~ by narrowing down a topic sentence and assorted support points. ~A~ worked a bit on punctuation use and editing this month, and both girls composed and edited letters to friends. We also started looking at hyperbole, and will spend more time with that next month.

~C~ continues to develop her phonics reading skills. She likes workbook-style assignments in addition to the other activities we do, and she's plowing through Explode the Code 2. This workbook deals with recognizing and differentiating various blends, and it's mostly review for her so far. She's also working her way through some Scrabble workbooks that we use for practice with handwriting as well as phonics recognition.

 
Math:
We continued with a lot of fun reinforcement work this month, and both girls have really solidified their basic operation skills lately. Give us dice or cards or any game with scoring potential and we can turn it into a math workout! We also tested out a new hands-on math concept kit from TOPScience. It looks quite promising.

The girls both took on some logic/thinking activities this month, too, primarily in the form of code-breaking.
 

History/Geography:
We continued learning about the ancient Americas, finishing up various readings and activities regarding the Maya. One activity that brought together history and geography was creating topographical maps of the Americas. We used waxed sand, various maps and globes, and our memories of the main cultures we've looked at so far (Olmec, Maya, Nazca, a touch of Inca). Click here to see some of the photos (password = family).

We also had fun learning about the possible origins of Valentine's Day, and exploring the stories of Newton, Gallileo, DaVinci, Michaelangelo, and others. Thank you Jim Weiss (storyteller) and David Devine (movie producer)!

 
Science:
Kip and the girls started a study of magnetism ... what fun! TOPScience puts together a great hands-on series from which Kip drew to have the girls learning about magnetic poles, making magnets and compasses, and all kinds of fun stuff. This is science the way it should be ... engaging, hands-on, and developmentally adjustable.
 

Other:
Both girls are enjoying the new Kids Who Read! club, which includes summarizing in front of a group for ~A~ and fun reading/listening activities for ~C~.

As for the research and reference projects we've begun this year, ~A~ this month had research questions that took her to the newspaper, an encyclopedia, a mail order catalog, a thesaurus, the dictionary, several biographies, and other such sources. ~C~ got in some good practice using an atlas and the dictionary. This admittedly biased mom finds her amazingly fast in the dictionary for being only 5 years old! We're just delighted that they are learning to use these resources, and, perhaps more importantly, figuring out which resources will help answer a question. I don't usually suggest the appropriate reference tool, just a question they have to research. They have to figure out which tools to use, and how to use them.

~A~ continued Hebrew dance lessons. I just can't adequately describe how much fun these classes have been.

In addition to our regular monthly John Updike poem memorization, the girls each chose something different to memorize. ~C~ chose a Jack Prelutsky poem, and ~A~ chose a page from Ben Franklin's Wit and Wisdom.

Read-alouds:
(Some books may be on the read-aloud list and one of the girls' lists. That means that kiddo read the book aloud or independently, usually before mom and dad read it to everyone.)

• These Happy Golden Years, Wilder (ongoing)
• Marvels of Science, Haven (ongoing)
• Understood Betsy, Fisher (ongoing)
• McBroom's Wonderful One-Acre Farm, Fleischman
• McBroom the Rainmaker, Fleischman
• McBroom's Zoo, Fleischman
• Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Barrett
• Alice and Greta, Simmons
• The Clown of God, DePaola (FIAR)
• Magic School Bus: Inside the Earth, Cole
• What Is the World Made Of?
• The Soil That Feeds Us, Heady

~A~'s additional reading

• The Boxcar Children: Surprise Island, Warner
• There's an Owl in the Shower, George
• The Littles Have a Wedding, Peterson
• The Littles Give a Party, Peterson
• My Friend, Flicka, O'Hara (audio)
• Hill of Fire, Lewis
• The Corn Grows Ripe, Rhoads
• Cleopatra, Stanley
• You're on Your Way, Teddy Roosevelt, St. George
• Volcanoes, Wood
• Two is Company, Delton
• The Three Little Javelinas, Lowell
• Can You Do This, Old Badger?, Bunting
• Snowshoe Thompson, Levinson
• Dooly and the Snortsnoot, Kent
• Froggy Gets Dressed, London
• Let's Go, Froggy!, London
• Owen & Mzee, Hatkoff
• Secrets of the Forest, Lipp
• Tell Me a Trudy

~C~'s additional reading

• Tiny's Bath, Meister
• Witty Ditties I, Burkes
• Hot Dog
• Froggy Gets Dressed, London
• Let's Go, Froggy!, London
• What is the World Made Of? (4 pages)
• 6 Sticks, Coxe

 
Language Arts:
We're starting the new year with a more scheduled approach to language arts, including composition and grammar twice weekly (using Writing with the Best and some terrific Marvin Terban books, in part), and spelling (AVKO) and dictation each twice weekly. It's a low-key structure, but one that is already serving ~A~ well. Taking dictation from Ben Franklin's Wit and Wisdom has been interesting, to be sure! And ~A~ is picking up spelling rules very quickly ... just watch her drop those y's and add "ies"!

~A~ and ~C~ both reviewed alliteration and a touch of onomatopoeia, including describing a magazine cut-out with an alliterative paragraph and performing a variety of tongue-twisters.

We also discussed biography and autobiography, including the root words that tell you what each means. The plan is to make sure biographies are part of our regular reading, which ~A~ kicked off with a bang by choosing to read Cleopatra, by Diane Stanley. Not to be outdone, ~C~ rushed over and slugged it out with an advanced reader about Pocahontas.

And finally, we worked more on descriptive writing, including paragraph structure and using a variety of literary techniques to accomplish the goal.

Miscellaneous stuff: letters to friends, editing practice, Puzzle Island code-breaking and word scrambles, spelling, dictation. ~C~ also worked with letter formation, phonics, and rhyming words.
 

Math:
Coming out of the holiday season, we used January to review and practice some basics. We reviewed standard measures (capacity, volume, length, weight) and played lots of addition and subtraction games. ~A~ has good recall of the basic facts, and she tackles multi-digit addition and subtraction with gusto, including re-grouping and carrying. Very important to us is that she can work out complex and multi-digit equations with just a little thought ... both mentally and on paper. (We're big on being able to do the mental math before becoming reliant on columns and paper.)

~C~ has a lot of her basic addition facts down, and has been working hard on the +9's; she knows how (and why!) to figure the answer, and just has to think for a moment to get there. She's becoming a regular Quarter Mile Math junkie!

On a related note, the girls also exercised their logic and spatial skills, using tangrams and various games/puzzles to get a good brain workout.

History/Geography:
We are studying the ancient Americas, sort of the 500 BC to 500 AD period, with little forays into the times before and since.  We started with Meso- and South America: Olmec, Maya, Nazca, and just a tad of Inca. We've read and watched videos, looked for native foods, researched artifacts, and mapped out locations, among other activities. It's another case of mom thinking, "this'll be short and sweet," which subsequently turns into, "Wow! This is cool!"

Next month, we'll head up to North America to see what was going on there. Eventually, we'll get over to ancient Rome. :-)

Oh, and we went to see Night at the Museum, a movie that includes some funny historical stuff. Great fun! (Bonus: ~A~ came back ready to learn more about Teddy Roosevelt.)
 

Science:
Kip and the girls had fun with motors and lubrication, electricity, and earth science. Kip does a good job of showing them the why's and how's of what they're looking at ... experimenting with friction and lubricants before working on an engine, for example, or talking about circuits and then letting them see it happen with a wiring project. ~A~ proudly talks about changing the oil and lubricating her lawn tractor. And both girls can tell you about their lamp re-wiring project.

Earth science has so far covered everything from planet composition to volcanoes and types of rocks, to soil and sedimentation. I'm told that our garden soil is alive and well ... yippee!

Kip and the girls have also researched some birds we've discovered here recently (juncos, ruby-crowned kinglets, and some as yet unidentified ducks) We've also started over watching a wonderful David Attenborough video series called Trials of Life.
 

Other:
Both girls memorized and practiced presenting two John Updike poems, "December" and "January," in addition to recalling the earlier months. We practiced presenting with voice only, with the audience's eyes closed, so they could focus on inflection and volume.

~A~ has started learning to type, and was able to attend a couple of art classes with a local homeschool group.

Both girls learned some colors and numbers in Spanish, and have practiced a variety of basic phrases. And both have begun basic needlepoint projects, as well as learning a little about stylized art shapes and drawings.

Although we've had lots of really cold weather lately, we have gotten outside for some physical activity: frisbee, play, and short jogs and walks. It's amazing how many times these kids will run around the circle pen when each round wins them a cookie! ~A~ and mom have also started a Hebrew dance class ... very fun, and perfect for beginning dancers.

Oh, and we started doing research projects this month, in an effort to learn about resources and how they are organized. ~C~ has used the phone book to find addresses and phone numbers (white and yellow pages, thank you very much!), and ~A~ used an atlas, a biography, and encyclopedias to find a variety of information. And both girls helped organize our collection of National Geographic magazines, sorting many years by date.