Hell Hath Frozen Over

It's worth checking if it has because my school plan for this year is now complete. The odds were against me, hell even I bet against myself. But remember I am ever the pessimist so I had to bet against myself, it's in my nature. I was pushing my luck with time, but the choices are finally made. I just need to input them into my schedule in a realistic, non horrifying way. I have spent the better part of the day trying to clean and organize the dining room because it in fact could be described as horrifying. This is the room we use for school. The computer is in there, all my book shelves and we sit at the dining room table with baskets of the books we will need. It's cluttered and messy no matter how hard I try to organize it. What I really want is Expedit computer desk/book shelf combo. I want it in the black-brown wood colour and with the larger size book shelf. Computer on one side, she can sit and do work on the other and all our books and supplies would fit nicely onto the shelves. It's not realistic in this apartment though, because the spot it would have to go has such as slanted floor we can't have book shelves on that wall. I'll keep it on my wish list for the next place. In the meantime baskets and crowded table it is!

This is my plans for this school year, grade 2.

Language Arts

First Language Lessons 2

Writing With Ease 2

All About Spelling 2 and 3

Handwriting Without Tears Cursive

Math

Just call me Miss indecisive, or just plain stupid. Either works in this situation. She started last year with Singapore Math 1A/1B and it seemed to jump topics too quick and I had to keep going back. So we stopped and I got Math Mammoth 1A/1B for her because it has a lot of practice. She completed it by summer so I purchased Mammoth 2A/2B for this year. I decided over the summer to finish our Singapore Math 1B book and noticed that she is doing much better with it and math is less torturous. So I ordered Singapore Math 2A/2B and will use Math Mammoth as a supplement.

Singapore 2A/2B

Math Mammoth 2A/2B - supplement

Life of Fred Elementary series - Apples, Butterflies and Cats. There are 4 of these books out right now and we love them! I can't wait for the others to come out.

History

Story of the World 2 - Middle Ages

Activity Guide for SOTW 2

It's my favorite time period so I am very excited. I also got the Pandia Press wall timeline which I am getting laminated and timeline figures from the Hannah_hs_ helps yahoo group already cut out and laminated. 

Science 

Elemental Science Earth Science and Astronomy

Geography

Ideas from The Core by Leigh Bortins for learning the world by mapping it.

Expedition Earth done secularly

Foreign Language

Latin for Children A

L'Art de Lire 1 - French

Art and Composer Study

Art - Meet the Masters Online. She is also enrolled in a weekly art class. 

Composer 
The plan is a composer a month study. Print and post a picture of the composer on the wall, read a biography on the composer, map where they lived and listen to their music. Classicsforkids is a great site for this as well. 

*** I forgot Memory Work, so I will add it at the end here. I am still using the same ideas as before using the Charlotte Mason Method for memory work (but not memorizing scripture because we are secular). I will be adding memory work for what we will be doing this year Science, History, Latin, French. 

I hope the links to everything I posted work. If they don't, please let me know.

I don't know if I am missing anything, but I feel as if I got everything I wanted to covered. The lack of having 62 hours in everyday is frustrating but I am trying to overcome it and get what I need done a piece at a time. Our school start date is after Labour Day so I still have a couple of weeks to manage. I am also implementing a chore/task sheet this year. Everything from school work to, going and staying in bed, to teeth brushing will be on it (it's a fight to get her to brush her teeth as well as stay in bed). At the end of the week the sheet will be evaluated and she will get an allowance and/or treat based on the completion and the attitude while completing. Wish me luck because I am not holding my breath on this one. 

Weekly Report

This week started off with an early morning dentist appointment for Roo. A passport photo redo after the dentist, followed by a trip to the library. Roo has her first loose tooth. It is so loose the dentist said it is hanging in the breeze. I can see the adult tooth breaking the skin behind it, but she won't let me try to get it out. So I guess we have to wait.

For phonics this week I decided to try a different approach to change things up a bit. We do our daily lesson from The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading, do review by using Blend Phonics lessons and we do readings from McGuffey's First Eclectic Reader . The variety lessens the monotony and it feels like we are doing less but learning more although we are spending more time on phonics than we did in a single sitting before. We are on lesson 110 in the OPGTR and lesson 12 in the Spelling Workout A. Next week I will start doing a weekly spelling tests with the list words because we have now reached words that are harder for her to spell. This first bit seemed more of a review of words we have been working with and reading often (aside from a few new words).

In math this week we finished 4 lessons and one review using Saxon 1. She learned about dividing objects in half, subtracting half of a number, and graphing the pieces used to cover a design. She caught onto subtracting half of a number quickly and could apply the graphing lesson to the worksheet easily. She really likes the math fact sheets where she gets to be the teacher. They are already completed with a mixture of correct and incorrect answers and she has to mark the sheet and write the correct answer beside the wrong ones. She even asks to do these when it is not school time for some reason.

The sheets she uses and pretends she is a teacher.

Today she fell and hurt herself. She declared today would be school in bed day because she couldn't walk.

The books we used for school in bed day.

In geography this week we did a small overview of South America, it's location, the oceans surrounding it and what types of foresty and animals are located there. We fell off the science/history wagon a bit so I decided before I continue with our pre history studies we would learn about evolution. We read a short picture book called What Mr. Darwin Saw. It was a brief story of how Charles Darwin came to his thoughts of evolution. It was cute, short and easy to read/understand. Next week we are starting a book called Evolving Planet which will allow us to delve deeper into the subject. After we complete this book I will continue with the pre history studies, it should make more sense by that point.

It was our last art class for this semester and she was sad. It starts again in the middle of April though. We were debating putting her in the next age group because her teacher said she would be fine for it.  She is enjoying this class though, so I think what we will do is one more semester with this age group and then we will put her in the next level in September. It is a longer class and at a better time, so it doesn't have any effect on the school day.

Early morning chocolate cookie before art class.

After art class, thinking and waiting for the bus.

Finally we have gotten the MusIQ Homeschool piano lessons working. We have officially begun them and she seems to really enjoy it. The lessons are broken down in to 5 sections. First you go through the actual lesson with a cartoon version of Beethoven (I think the composer changes over the different lessons). They explain and walk you through it. Next you go to the practice room Mrs. Melody to go over what was learned, then off to play the reinforcing games. After that you go to the improvisation room where you can try to make your own songs/music using a variety of instrument sounds or you can try to play along with several pieces of music ranging in difficulty. The last portion is going through the written lessons which involve colouring pages, activities and worksheets. This was a easier and cheaper way to do piano lesson for us since she can do this program any time of the day and whenever she wants to.

MusIQ Homeschool lesson one with Beethoven.

All in all the week went well. I try to incorporate about an hour of DS playing time daily with her eye patched in order to exercise the weaker eye. I just need to find some educational games (for younger kids), so if any of you have an recommendations I would appreciate it.

DS eye exercises. No complaints from her:)