Friday, August 9, 2013

This Year's Curriculum Choices

This year's curriculum choices are much the same as we had last year, although I did add several things to enhance our experience and switch up our days a little bit.

The Elder Cracker Jack will be beginning sixth grade work this year.
         Language Arts - A Beka books Language
         Arithmetic - A Beka books Arithmetic
                   (both of the above to be supplemented with some workbook work
                    as well as Kahn Academy math and several book reports for English)
         Science - A Beka books Science
                   (supplemented with at home science projects and some of the biology
                     information links provided on www.allinonehomeschool.com)
         History - A Beka books History
                  (supplemented with some of the ancient history links provided on                www.allinonehomeschool.com as well as a full month worth of native American history
                    and a month each of projects about Kentucky and Michigan.)
         Art - We'll be doing several projects this year, and hopefully tying many of them into
                    what we're doing in our other subjects (which I will be posting weekly on
                     what art project we've done). He also wants to work on building robots and
                     model cars this year.
         Physical Education - This fall's main physical education will be in the form of swimming
                    lessons for all three children. We'll do our stretches and nature walks as well and
                    he will continue with his practice running as he loves to run long distances
                     cross-country.
         Religion - Formal religion classes at our church once a week and memory verses all week
                     long.
         Music - He wants to learn to play the guitar this year.
           Partial Reading List - Little Women, The Last of The Mohicans, Adventures of Mark
                         Twain and Huck Finn...

The Younger Cracker Jack will be beginning third grade work this year.
          (most of the additions and notes from the Elder Cracker Jack apply here as well)
        Language Arts - A Beka books Language
        Arithmetic - A Beka books Arithmetic
        Science - A Beka books Science
        History - A Beka books Science
                     (we also use a Mead workbook for this grade which briefly covers
                       all the subjects listed above)
        Art - Other than our projects we'll all be doing together she wants to continue to work
                   on her crochet, with her goal being to finish every project in her crochet book,
                     and then she wants to sell some crochet items to donate the money to help
                   penguins.
         Physical Education - Fall swimming classes.
         Religion - the same as her brother
         Music - She wants to learn how to play first the recorder and then the flute.


Peanut is moving up from nursery school to preschool this year. There aren't many A Beka books directed towards preschoolers but what they offer we're using. I'll supplement this with a Mead workbook for preschool and a preschool learning computer game based on one of her favorite cartoon characters. She's too young for the classes at our church but I use a form of a letter a week curriculum for this age that I made for the Elder Cracker Jack many years ago and each letter has a biblical and animal story to go with them. Her music classes are mainly listening to "learning songs". Also I will be introducing the McGuffey primer sometime this year, using the link provided on
www.allinonehomeschool.com until I purchase out hard copy version. This sounds and looks like a lot for a preschooler but she's got a very short attention span and I need to be able to switch tasks quickly.

I use the grade level books listed for each grade at the A Beka site, but we do not follow their lesson plans as I prefer to make my own. Also in some subjects the Elder Cracker Jack may move up to seventh grade level work after Christmas depending on his grades during the first semester. This is our second year using the A Beka curriculum books and we're very happy with them, the children understand the lessons and enjoy the colorful books. Much of the art projects we do I simply look for ideas on the web concerning a particular subject we're working on at the time.






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