Moving right along...

Just a small curriculum update - this is for my records as well!

Becca has completed Handwriting Without Tears' Printing Power book and is working on learning cursive ("fancy writing") with the New American Cursive font. I bought it on Startwrite and have just been printing out individual letter sheets for practice. She's learned how to form the entire alphabet and now we're working on copywork in printing and cursive.

We finished the first grade portion of First Language Lessons just before Thanksgiving and we're on to the second grade part!

We have moved quickly through All About Spelling Level 1 and will complete the last lesson after returning from our holiday break in January. Then we'll move on to Level 2.

We also completed Level 1A in her Singapore Math curriculum and will begin Unit 3 of Level 1B after our break.

Most exciting of all, we're wrapping up our animal studies in science with a little horse fun (we couldn't skip Becca's favorite animal!) and we'll be starting our study of the human body in January! The basic outline we'll be following is in her Living Learning Life Science curriculum, but I'm starting to feel that it's very "light." I have a number of books and plan to supplement heavily, especially since human body studies are a favorite of mine too. Here are some books we'll be adding:

Easy Make & Learn Projects Human Body (Scholastic) - this is going to be SO fun! It says for grades 2-4, but I think Becca will be fine with it.
DK Eye Wonder Human Body
The Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia
My Body by Teacher Created Resources - basically we're going to trace an outline of the girls' bodies and then we fill them in with organs as we learn about them. Not as complex as the Make & Learn projects, but great for fun visuals.
Head to Toe Science - full of experiments, on the slightly older side. We'll pick and choose.
Magic School Bus Journey Into the Human Body science kit - At first glance, I'm kind of disappointed by this, unfortunately. I plan to use it, but I'm glad I didn't pay the full $20 for it.
Usborne Science - Science and Your Body, What Makes You Ill, What Happens to Your Food, How Do Your Senses Work - a couple of these are on backorder with Amazon. I love Usborne books.


I'm already starting to scope out curriculum choices for next year. I'm highly reluctant to go with Living Learning for earth and space science for several reasons:
1. I feel that the Life Science is very light and wouldn't recommend it for any older than K.
2. LL does not have samples of the teacher pages on their website.
3. LL has not responded to several inquiries from me about the availability of samples from their teacher pages.

Sorry, Living Learning - you're losing my business.

I have, however, been happy with Pandia Press' History Odyssey. I think it's a great way to make Story of the World even more fun and activity-filled. I plan to go with their Level 1 Middle Ages plan, which also uses Story of the World vol. 2. I will still use the SOTW Activity Guide and pick and choose our activities. I look forward to learning about the Middle Ages! Pandia Press also publishes a science curriculum called REAL Science. They only have two levels right now, so I'm going to go with their Earth & Space science curriculum for Becca's next school year. Hopefully they'll get to publishing Chemistry and Physics soon so I can continue with them if I end up liking their science as much as their history. You can check out their website at www.pandiapress.com.

We'll also go on with First Language Lessons and All About Spelling. I'm going to get the teacher text for Susan Wise Bauer's Writing With Ease and see if Becca places into level 1 or 2. And hopefully we will move along in Singapore Math as well.

All I can say is, thank goodness for income tax returns! I've discovered that they come at a great time of year for curriculum buying.

Tentative curriculum list for Becca's 2nd grade (officially 1st grade) year:

Grammar: First Language Lessons 3
Spelling: All About Spelling 3(?)
Writing: Writing With Ease 1 or 2
Science: REAL Science Earth/Space
History: History Odyssey Middle Ages Level 1/SOTW 2
Math: Singapore 2A/continued Miquon supplements
Art: Harmony Fine Arts Grade 2
Latin: ???

Abra...ham

We're on the beginnings of Israelite history now, and Becca's learning about Abraham, Moses, and Joseph. I had her cutting out some clip art for her Who's Who pages and gluing them in the proper spots. She went to glue down Abraham and said, "I thought his name was Abram." I explained again how God changed his name to AbraHAM after he "called" him, and Becca replied, "So, he eats HAM?"

Gotta love those five year olds! LOL