Curriculum updates...

Here is the latest on our curriculum - I made some changes and adjustments after working with Becca a little more.

Language Arts: For right now, I'm skipping Explode the Code workbooks. Rebecca seemed bored with them, and I don't want to be redundant because I wanted to be sure of her skill level. So we're just reading books of all sorts for her reading instruction. She's helping me read longer chapter books, and for her independent reads I try to make sure she's challenged.

Science: We have a bit more structure in it now, for which I'm extremely grateful! Thanks to some online help, I found Living Learning's Life Science teacher guide and student pages. It uses the same basic principles, but gives me more structure and direction. I am going to try and branch out and assemble a unit on horses - the girls are little horse nuts! I've also added a couple more spines - the Usborne Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Natural World and the Usborne Complete First Book of Nature. And Becca has decided that she does want an ant farm, so stay tuned for pics! First we'll be raising a frog, though. She's incredibly excited about her tadpole arriving. She's also anxious to raise real butterflies - they did a little project in preschool, but she was disappointed when she only found a paper butterfly inside her paper bag cocoon.

Math: Saxon was a total bust. I kept looking at it and trying to figure out how to make it work, but there was just no way to turn that into a mastery program. So again, thanks to some online guidance, I'm going with Singapore Math and Miquon. I'm planning to use them together. Miquon has a very unique approach that really intrigues me and makes logical sense, and Singapore is also highly regarded, yet a completely different program than Saxon.

At the very least, I plan to use the heck out of the manipulatives I bought for the Saxon program! Maybe spiral math will work for Sylvia.