2nd & 3rd grade launch!

UPDATED from the first post....  plans have changed a bit this week and I'm even more grateful for what the Lord has brought together for our kiddos now....

I'm excited for our big two this year....  It's going to be a great year.

And it's going to be just about as different as can be from what I've dreamed about....  since last fall, I had in my mind that we would be homeschooling our kids together with another dear family nearby.  I thought we'd rent a small apartment to be the little schoolhouse for these 7 students every day and they would have an English teacher come to teach them and a Chinese teacher to divide up the big and little kids so that everyone gets both languages.

But then those friends went back to Canada to give birth and we decided not to rent a schoolhouse (alone? of course not!) and we never found a teacher willing to come and bless our kiddos as their teacher.  (Only the Lord knows how I'll be able to continue in language study myself now that I'm the homeschool teacher... but we just might be able to swing it still, by the Lord's grace!  I hope so!)  And...  the *wonderful* apartment home the Lord blessed us with is just cooler than we imagined getting to live in.

Now... shockingly...  we have a four bedroom home (Matt and I are in the new, little bedroom and the large bedroom upstairs is a fully devoted schoolroom.)  OK- this is all so far a rewrite of the post below that's all about our school room- sorry.   I am so grateful though.  It's working super well!

For the morning, John and Vivi are going to preschool now!  The local preschool in our complex decided to accommodate us crazy foreigners and allow our kids to attend for only half days.

Isaiah and Marian meet with their Chinese language teacher for nearly 2 hours, 4 days a week.  Then for five days, they will do 3 English subjects a day and memory (which is only 15 minutes, so it doesn't count as one of their "subjects"- those are all about 20-30 min.)  In the afternoon (again, 4 days, not on Wednesdays) they also meet with a Chinese math teacher for 1.25 hours of class.

Here's their weekly assignment sheet that they will get every Monday and cross off as they finish lessons.  Fridays, they need to turn these sheets back into me, with their parts on the right filled out.   Hopefully, it will be a sweet record to keep.

For their English lessons, we'll try to run our lesson time on "pomodoros":  25 or 30 minutes on task and then a 5 minute break but I'm not bothering to introduce the term pomodoros...  we just call them subjects or classes....

Bible:
It's not on the kids' weekly assignment sheets because Bible as a subject is covered more in family devotions than in our homeschool time.  I also have a weekly sheet that's equally unprofessional as the kids' sheets- it's my own weekly homeschool planning sheet.  On that page, I have these categories for our Bible learning:  Reading in the Word (discussion), Memory Verse (this one thing is from their memory time in school), Song, Catechism Question, Prayer.  We try to do morning devotions together every morning before breakfast.  This is usually a quick time of reading and prayer.  Then, 2-3 nights per week we try to do extended family devos with songs and longer discussion.  I'm glad Bible is more a Family Devo's thing than a Homeschool subject b/c that way Matt gets to lead and be involved more (although he's great about discussing history and checking on other subjects with the kids too.  #Ilovemyman.)  

Language Arts:  (they'll probably get 3-6 lessons of LA a week in the following categories)
Reading-  what the kids read independently (or Marian still reads to me)
Grammar- a workbook, complete a few lessons
Spelling-  just covering the Fry Words, spelling test
Copywork- a poem, a hymn or a verse each week
Writing- a letter (to family or friends or guests in our home), a journal entry, or a story

History:  
I love Tapestry of Grace.  I just love it- the organization of it, the excellence of academics, the Charlotte Mason with a bit of Classical tinge,  the humility and rootedness of the theology undergirding all of it.   But we're not using it b/c it's a bit more labor intensive than I can afford this year since I'm still hoping to get in some serious language study myself.  So...  these two are doing Veritas Press's Self-paced history course for the ancient world.   We're still using Tapestry's suggested read alouds along with the VP course since they're both chronologically anchored but I don't have to plan the history lessons at all.   This is my best shot at language study time!!

Science:
We'll look a bit more at the 106 Days of Creation Studies, from Simply Charlotte Mason.  This simple plan relies heavily on Christian Liberty Nature Readers.  We also have several Usborne books about Water, Outside, Weather and Apologia about Zoology and I just got two free apps on bird identification (National Geo.)  and plant identification (Leafsnap)....  my plan for science is pretty wide open at this point.  We might get to a more developed plan at some point or we might just leave it fairly open, fill it with as many living books and explorations as we possibly can squeeze in.

Memory:  
Every week, we're trying to tuck in a new Fighter Verse (we love the app for iPad, which includes a song for each verse!) and I'd love to be able to get them in Chinese and English but I don't know if that's going to work?  We'll see...  For our family time, we're also trying to memorize the New City Catechism.

The other main part of "memory time" is what our kids are memorizing from the Classical Conversations (CC) app.  The idea of classical education, the trivium, and even catechism learning is that since kids are so good at memorizing things in their early years, we ought to take advantage of this natural ability, this stage of development, by giving them lots of good things to memorize that they can digest and use and understand all the inter workings of later, as they grow.  "It's like laying logs in the fireplace of their minds.  Later it will take flame." (That's how the New City Catechism explains teaching young kids.)   So, we use the CC app to memorize Geography, History, Math and Science.  For the Timeline they are learning a parallel version- a similar song- from their VP history course.  And for English grammar, I just can't put my kids through learning English like that.  I love English too much.  And I love my kids waaay too much.  Charlotte Mason's approach to learning the art of language is just more winningly beautiful to me.

For us, Latin doesn't make the cut.  We will be working on English, Chinese, and the minority language around us.  Once we're swinging well in all those, I'm eager to study Greek with our kiddos, or possibly Hebrew.  That would be sweet to track with the translators who are currently working to translate the Good Book from Hebrew into our neighbors' language!

One other tiny bit to mention:  I know there are better-researched educators out there than I am, but I am not comfortable with some of what I see in the Classical Education world of what seems like stockpiling so darn much in our kids' minds that it is - in my opinion- too disproportionate- with what they actually know, comprehend, what they thoroughly understand at their ages.  I want my kids to "get" that the point of education is understanding, not regurgitating.  Also, Sonya Shafer has a great post over at simplycharlottemason.com about the pledge of allegiance which reminds me of why I value living stories and narration (I know, I'm a CM junkie :)  ) and not only, or not toooo much mere memorization.

How well do you know The Pledge of Allegiance? I’m pretty sure most of us can recite it.... But how well do you knowThe Pledge of Allegiance? Try putting it in your own words.

No, don’t just keep reading here. Stop and try to put The Pledge in your own words. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Did you do it? Now, here’s the $10,000 question: Which of those exercises displayed true knowledge?

Piano:
We're using PianoMarvel and so far we're very grateful.  The kids feel motivated to keep advancing through these video and even Vivi has been able to sit up to a few little lessons!  I'm wanting them to practice at least half hour a day.  I can see that this lacks a little from meeting with a teacher but we are thrilled with the amount and the way that the kids learning is fitting into our lives and budgets with this teaching method.  So grateful!  (And if you want to go get your free trial or subscribe to piano marvel too, then you could use the Piano Marvel link right here or this one to see about taking them up on a free trial and we will benefit from your subscription too!  Yea for all of us!!)

Specials:
Once a week I want to leave open time to cover some special stuff....  Honor class (to discuss character, virtue, manners), Art or Music Appreciation, Handicrafts (Isaiah's loving wood carving and Marian is learning some sewing).  Today we wrote letters to our Compassion kids.  And then there's always baking together or iPad play time as pure reward for awesome diligence for the week of studies.   (They get 15 minutes-  I'm stingy screen time  for our kids, there's just too much LIFE to be lived!  But for our kids, 15 min is normal and they hardly think to ask for more and I'm super happy that's our pattern.)

Chinese, Math, minority language:  (I put them together b/c they're both taught by Chinese teachers.)  Chinese in the morning (4 days, no Wed) and math is the same in the afternoons )no Wed. Our kids are both math minds, doing very well in local textbooks, even the tough level stuff.  We're so thrilled for both of them and so glad that they can advance at their own comprehension speed since their class is just them and a teacher.... they don't need to go anyone else's speed.
For minority language class, the kids have game time 2 afternoons a week and I'm hoping to arrange a language exchange for them with local kiddos 2 more afternoons....  the more play the better.  I'm so glad for how quickly they are learning this local language already!
I didn't even put the minority language on the sheet for the kiddos because the goal at this point for them is simply conversation.  They'll have no assignments but just exposure and opportunity to practice and play in this beautiful new language!  I'm amazed and crazy joyful happy for how motivated and how much progress they've already made in their third language!  Thank you Lord for this!

My Read Aloud:
Following Tapestry of Grace's suggestions mostly to fill out factual history with fiction alongside it... And we'll throw in a few books for fun too...(the goofy Mrs. Piggle Wiggle right now!  Thanks to BookEnds!!!)

On Fridays I'll do a memory check with them and we'll plan if there's something worthy of making a presentation to the family... a memorized poem or summary of history or sharing a science discovery.
I'm also excited to hear from the kids on the right side of their weekly assignment sheets:  J.O.Y. goals are Jesus, Others, Yourself...  How can we show love, make beauty, serve for eternal gladness?

We're running school 4-5 days a week.  Saturdays are just no fun for us to go to the park or run errands and we're planning  (hoping!) to be busy as a family with the sports company once that's running so we're taking one day off every other week.  Homeschoolers can do that!  Yipee Hooray!

Tucking Marian into bed this evening, day #2, she thanked me for teaching her.  I smiled at her and she nodded, "I'm so excited for homeschool this year."

Me too, babe.  Me too!

Kindergarten for John & Pre-K for Vivi!

How amazing that this pair is up and off to school already!  Well...  off to school as in...  they're beginning.  They're at home for school and that's a joy for me!

***  So much for that week and half! Plans have changed and now John and Vivi are in morning preschool (for John, his kindergarten year) in our complex preschool.  ***

3 hours of Chinese in the mornings.... then a reading lesson with mom, for John.  We're well into 100 Easy Lessons to Teach Your Child to Read (which worked like a charm for Isaiah and not so super great for Marian... but it looks like it's hitting near target for this guy).    For reading lesson time, Vivi's free to play!   I will go over a Kids' Foundation Verse (from the Fighter Verse app.) with them both in English and Chinese (I'm meeting with a tutor for help on our weekly verses- in all three languages!)

Two afternoons a week, the little two will get to join the biggies and one other friend who will have a minority language class with us.... That will basically just be game play time in this next new language.    I hope it will be a cheery fun time for all!

And that's it.  That's our plan for Kindergarten and Pre K for our sweet little two!  I'm so grateful for a way to keep them engaged in books and life-learning hopefully, growing bilingually, and just covering the basics and keeping it simple.  The Word and reading lessons and not too much else but a bunch a fun.....  that sounds like a good kindergarten year to me!  May it be Lord.... by your grace, for your glory!

a new school room!

Isaiah's starting Third Grade and Marian begins Second Grade in just over a week!  We had hoped to start earlier but 我们束腰装修房子。  (It just sounds better in Chinese. We're doing some work at our house to make room for a new school room!)

So, we moved to this town thinking that we would educate our kiddos alongside another family whose kids are perfectly matched age-wise with our learners.  We thought there'd be a tiny school, we'd rent a small apartment for our 7 students (Arrow Academy, gotta jump on a chance to use Arrow... for something :).  But those guys wisely headed back to their home country for mama to give birth to their fifth little one.  So we're at it alone now.

We sure don't need to rent a separate space to school our four, but with not an overly spacious 3 bedroom apartment and the reality of no libraries, no kids museums, no place else to go for class time, we wanted to try to rig some way to have a designated learning place for our kiddos.  Our little two will meet with a Chinese teacher while I try to teach the big two their English subjects and we just wanted PLACE for all of this....  Plus, Matt's little start-up company got registered in our home (this is a huge grace from the Lord, that this was approved!!).  We thought we'd be paying for rent for two other little places..... but now, no extra rent at all!

With all this, we decided to finish off one patio off our upstairs.  It came ready to be finished- had three walls and most all our neighbors have finished off that patio as a room already.  We got the basic model home (which we were thrilled for, to get to design things to suit us best) and with the money we're saving from not needing to rent and from going with the trash-truck movers (not really, but they were so bad to our stuff... good thing they were so cheap!) we are finishing off that needless patio to turn it into a little cave-like room for Matt and I (it's not too spacious and the ceiling is quite low- but it works!!).  That means the first glorious room upstairs will be the new school room.

Friends, I still feel shocked to enjoy this room so much, and that this beautiful place is in our very own home!  I've never been in a room that I think would make a nicer school room for our kids than this....

Our apt. was a 3bed- 2 bath.  Now the upstairs room will feel more like a second living area.  A wide open, spacious, gracious, lofted-cieling (incredible, eh!?   Here in China? Yes, amazing isn't it!?) family room/school room.  Our new little bedroom is off that back hallway- near the door to the bathroom.

The big room is so much better as a school room than as our room.  As it is now (we're just half way through building the new room) I rarely go in our room all day long.  But it is such a light, bright, beautiful room, it's a pity to not have an excuse or an opportunity just to be there.  But as the school room.... we'll be there lots :)

The whole deal is a gift- that we're able to build it, the kids all enjoying the process of watching the workers, the cute little bed shelf we'll have over in our new room, and the fantastic new space for our family.... space I'm also super eager to fill with cute neighborhood kids playing and learning together...

We are so grateful for this gift from the Lord!!

Here's a pictorial view of our process...

the patio- with three walls.  The door was maybe 5.5 feet tall...

in the building just beyond you can see our neighbors have already built in their patio-rooms

our nice construction guy (who worked alone with his wife for almost the entire 2.5 week project) jackhammered up just the right amount of cement floor to lay down the floor heating (water tubes) and then recover with cement to make it nearly match the floor one step down from the original two steps that led out to the original patio.  If I could only explain how chabuduo (literally, "about", it means Not exact, Not precise) jobs are here usually, you'd know that it was a treat to see the floor completed so well!  

see the floor all one level from the first step?  :) 

Our kind worker friend, Mr. Yang, is about 5.4 I'd guess.  And the ceiling looks a bit goofy or angle but it's only the sides that have low, low angles to them, the rest of the roof is flat and just high enough for me to nearly flat palm it.  It's cozy and sweet....  and here's my favorite part....

the window sill - bedside table.   Pintrest said that small bedrooms need built-ins and that's handy b/c this one built-in was ready to go from the railing that was there earlier.  

Look at these amazing cleaner helpers!  

And I guess I have to have two favorite parts...  I love the floor!  Who knew that cheap fake wood could look so nice!?  I am one grateful mama!

UPDATE:  This room is such a sweet provision for our family!  We could live just fine in a 3 bedroom place... but with Matt's company running in our home, and our 4 kids homeschooling (and our super desire to get to do co-ops with homeschooling friends here), it is a fantastic gift to have a place for everyone!  Today, the second day of school, Matt was sick in bed all day with sinus trouble. I am so happy we could close him in a private place and give him some rest while all the madness continued just outside his door!  The little kids with their Chinese teacher upstairs and the big kids for English lessons with me and piano and history lessons all running on computer downstairs...  It worked!  I'm so happy-grateful-humbled-amazed....  such a gift- this space!!!

Maybe I'll get around to posting pics of our new bedroom all moved in and of the new school room.... but honestly, pretty pics of our home are sometimes hard to come by.  Guess I'll just have to eat my pride and post some regular life pics.  I'll try!  I'm sure eager to share what a joy and a blessing this home is to our family, sports company, homeschool kids and homeschool community!  

that second semester...

...or third trimester.... or whatever.

It was a mess.   Chinese New Year vacation and a passport-run (+vacation) for our family to Hong Kong.  Then we learned the kids' brilliant Chinese teacher didn't yet feel ready to return to teaching from maternity leave (her baby was 3 months.  I totally get this!  But we didn't expect it and we were unprepared.)  By the Lord's grace, we had a sweet teacher step in for about 6 weeks of Chinese and Math with our big two (John and Vivi were finishing well at their local Chinese Christian preschool.) And by the end of March we were mad with moving.... our hose in total disarray, good-byes every day with dear friends.  All of April was driving across China, hoteling while we house-hunted, and then more moving/dodging repairs/cleaning/unpacking.

So by the beginning of May I think we did a bit of homeschooling again...  But right now, honestly, I can't think of what it was!  Language arts in their Scott Foresman workbooks, copy work on Bible verses, math worksheets printed off the web (their normal math is to go through a Chinese textbook so I just kept running with the next lessons in a format I could explain to them!).  We barely touched science, except for reading aloud nature stories (easy science exposure from the Christian Liberty Nature Readers.)

I know that I skipped doing any more history.  We started the year doing ancient history with Tapestry of Grace and I LOVE ToG.  But for a dozen other reasons (Grandma and Grandpa's visit at Thanksgiving time would be a great time to study America and then we learned we would be moving to join up for school with a cool Canadian family, so this was our chance to grab for America lessons!), we switched to a unit of American history.  The Best Read Aloud for American history that we enjoyed-  40 Acres and A Mule.  5 star.  For the third trimester of Isaiah's 2nd grade year and Marian's 1st grade year...  yea, no history at all.   I think they're still breathing though...

We memorized Ephesians 6:10-18, the Armor of God.  And we really need to revisit Kevin Hartnett's unbeatable poem Honored be Thy Wondrous Word to keep those two passages parallel in our hearts and minds.  Lord may your Word be sharp in our souls, bearing fruit for your glory in and out of our lives!

Our kids have been busy bees this summer (since those last few months were so scattery) and they've both finished and gone beyond their math textbooks for grade level and they've been working on more Hanzi and pinyin still for Chinese.  It's super cool to see how excited and motivated our kids are to study the other language around us here.  Their pumped and ready to aim for being trilingual kiddos.  Isaiah's set his goal for Christmas, to be able to converse freely with all his local friends :)

This write-up doesn't encourage me so much...  so maybe I'll just end it quick.  I'm really looking forward to our next semester though!  It is not going to be at all what we imagined... but it's going to be good.  I trust the Lord for that...

Unit One Celebration

Oi!  I had high hopes of a beautiful post here with pictures and details of the yummy brunch we had a few weekends ago to celebrate Isaiah and Marian's first unit of 2nd and 1st grade homeschool this year.  That dream post isn't happening....  

Just for my own record-keeping, here's a quick list of what they learned... some of which showed up at the "museum" on the dining room table or in a sweet performance for Grandma and Grandpa and two "uncles" that our kids also love.  

Psalm 135- Isaiah and Marian recite it beautifully together.  A perfect passage to memorize to remember the Lord's sovereignty over Egypt, all the idols of human hands...

My Shadow- recited by Marian, Ships Sail on the Ocean- recited by Isaiah

Landform map- we made it out of salt dough in August I think.... it's pretty crumbly now!

Science art book-  we studied creation, land (continents) and water (oceans and irrigation and canals), our bodies- major organs, five senses, and we began studying the animal world with insects....
Tirzah book report.  My Help, song from Michael Card.... like the song of hope that Tirzah ends the book with.

Seder Dinner poster, 10 commandments and Ark of the Covenant

Ziggurat and pyramid clay models

Sumerian Cylinder Seal (out of a toilet paper roll)

Ancient peoples of the world book- pages for Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Egyptians, Sumerians, Harrapan, Ancient Chinese, Ancient Americans (3 groups- Mound Builder, Inuits, and Maya)

History timeline, Veritas Press and Classical Conversation cards, creation through ancient Americas, except Greece which we will do in our third trimester

I read several books aloud to them (including their main book report book, Tirzah- a spectacular book!-  but now I don't even remember all of them....   Brave Keepers, Little Pear, Caddie Woodlawn, Five Children and It, A Door in the Wall, and I think there were more...  (The kids fell in love earlier this year with Dahl's James and the Giant Peach and especially Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).  Matt also reads to the kids in the evening...  finished all the Chronicles of Narnia earlier this fall and now they're into the second book in Andrew Peterson's The Wingfeather Saga.  

Isaiah and Marian each also read to me every (or near every) day...  Isaiah:  Boxcar Children 1-2, Bears on Hemlock Mountain, Eat my Dust:  Henry Ford's First Race, and several more...
Marian:  Progressive Phonics #8-11 plus several short readers at home.  (I do love Progressive Phonics for the short, focused, humorous lessons.... and it's free!  5 stars!)

They didn't report on or share their math b/c their textbooks are all in Chinese and I can't help them present it very well!  But I love the Chinese materials they've been studying.  Both our kids run with math lessons quite quickly and easily.... such a grace.  They both love doing "number games" as we call them, problems in their heads.   I'm writing this a few weeks into our second unit, when we are using Math Mammoth in English, and they are both flying fast through the lessons one year ahead of their grade level.  

May the Lord be praised in their continued growth, their character development and their love for learning..... all by His help and for His glory.

Mid-Year Adjustment

Our favorite Chinese teacher, who comes and teaches our kids Chinese and Math 4 days a week, has just left on maternity leave.  We look forward to news of her baby and to having her back in Feb/ March!  For now, I'm excited for this natural breaking point to adjust our homeschool plan too.  (Man!  I find myself adjusting my plans pretty often.....  I am hoping that I can settle on a thicker pattern for us, that leaves less wiggle room, soon!)

So we took a stab at Tapestry of Grace and I love it.  I love the information, the heart, the resources they suggest for me to gather.   I look forward to using it with all of our kids when we've got upper grammar and lower grammar students together.

But for now, while our oldest two are in 2nd and 1st grade, I'm adjusting a bit again!  So far for ToG I had skipped about 85-90% of the info they present and I just don't need to have that much stuff before me yet! Mostly I'm just finding ways to simply what I've already been doing for my sake....  I think you will tell from our Unit 1 Celebration post (coming soon) that the kids have loved their first trimester (we did ToG Year one + the first three weeks of Unit 2 and called it our first trimester.)


For Bible:  The BEST help here: the Fighter Verse app on ipad.  We may work on Luke 2 for the Christmas season and we can enter it there and the kids can do typing games to remember the verses....

History/Geography, for our "Maternity Trimester" we will be going through Simply Charlotte Masons' Stories of America and reading some great read alouds and making a timeline of American history as well as studying some geography of North America.  I imagine that in the last trimester we will go back to the ancient world, using Story of the World... and all the supplemental reads I already bought from the Tapestry recommended list.  We try to tie lots of Reading Aloud usually to our history topic....  but occasionally our read aloud is pure fiction.  Regardless, I aim for at least 2 hours a day of reading aloud/ reading together.

For Language Arts, again:  keep it simple.   Copywork from Emma Serl's Primary Language Lessons and from Guesthollow.com and walkingbytheway.com and R L Stevenson's poems and the Bible, of course!  Here's the golden (free and fantastic!) find....  Scott Foresman's Language Arts workbooks for our grammar slot.  (just replace the number in the link at the top with your grade K- 6).  I love how these workbooks very clearly aim to help kids write well.  Yes, please!  We will also do one day a week of writing a letter, and one day of a journal prompt.

For Math:  Math Mammoth....  so good for us, downloadable and excellent and inexpensive.  May supplement with Khan Academy if I find he's got lower level stuff?

For Science:  We've been having a good time doing our own overview of our world....  I wrote up a list of topics (Our Creator God, Creation, Land and Water, then... our Bodies- overview of organs and systems... next we're onto the classifications of living animals and then solar system).  The internet worksheets and a few readers we've been graciously given are abundant enough.... but I also just purchased 106 Days of Creation Studies from Simply Charlotte Mason as another help.

~Honor~  All of us need a time for this!  Time to focus and discuss Honor, Character, Manners, Habits...  How loving Christ transforms our lives....  Having time for this with my kids is one of the greatest reasons I want to homeschool.

Extra!  I'm scheduling it in this time....  Friday mornings before lunch might be knitting, potholder weaving, baking, hopefully wood whittling, or even just ipad app time.... we have some great apps but we often go a week or so without playing at all!  Once a week is completely appropriate... especially considering how excellent, helpful these are!

Our kids will hopefully get Chinese story time with some neighbors at least once or twice a week while their teacher is gone.   And they attend a local art class Thurs pm which is a major highlight of their weeks.  Tuesday afternoons is also "sports class" with several friends.... and Daddy is a helper.  Super Stud Dad!  They also have a fantastic teacher for piano who comes to our home once a week (and practice daily too).   May all of their learning and all of our lives together be sweet and full for your purposes and your glory, God!

First Grade: Boiled Down and Thickened

"Ufda".....  as the North Dakotans in my life really do say.  And "Good night!"for you southern friends.    Homeschooling is tough.

We're finally nearing the end of first grade (first year at homeschool for both Isaiah and me) and I feel like I'm just now catching a vision of what I want first grade to be about for our next three learners.... I had a very shaky start for this first run at homeschool.  I know now that I don't need to blow money on fanciful curriculum and I really don't want to sweat over comparing me, my kids, or the methods and resources I've chosen to anyone else any more....  It has been so sweet to have such a great boy to learn with for this scary, fantastic, wonderful first year!!    (Yea... I really wish someone would have told me I did not need to buy any curriculum package for first grade or kindergarden!)

Because our boys are very close in age with their sisters just below them and because our family is majoring on building bilingual kids from these early years it seems to work well for us to have a ease-into kind of approach with first grade (perhaps especially for the boys).  The girls may get this plan of first grade squished and distilled even further in the summer before they start since they will be doing more of the second grade material we'll use with the big boys.  I'm so looking forward to Tapestry of Grace, solid classical Christian curriculum guide, and their structure which aims to make learning shareable between all ages in the family.  Our girls will do a bit different than the boys, but more of second grade stuff than I will give our boys when they're in first grade.  I'm imaging (hoping hard!) this will just work better for our crew...

1) Lots of reading.  Review the Dolch lists and the top 300 Fry words from k12reader.com.  Veritas Press primers and every primer we can get our hands on.  I read aloud too...  stories and biographies as a way of introducing history.   We've read The Tanglewood Secret (5 star), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sword in the Tree, Kingdom Tales (most excellent!), and Mr. Popper's Penguins, plus a few more less noteworthy ones...

    Language Arts.  Skip the spelling lists and heavy on complete sentences for every answer.  Learn spelling by way of reading and writing- complete sentences and narratives as much as possible.  Again, k12reader has some great Cloze worksheets and reading comprehension worksheets that even introduce other great subjects (some of the second grade ones introduce timelines, natural resources, rural vs. urban...).  Copywork and dictation:  love the Charlotte Mason idea of primarily leaning on correct and beautiful English rather than teaching particular grammar rules and wrongs.  Memorize or at least know well, at least 4 poems from this great list.

    Cover these essential topics:  Capitalization, Ending punctuation, Nouns (common and proper), Adjectives (more worksheets at k12reader), Verbs, plural and singular,  An vs. A, and plural -s vs. possesive -'s.  Title abbreviations Mr. Mrs. Ms. Dr.  Initials.

2) Learning about the world.  The months and days of the week.  The seasons and which months are in them.  Continents and Oceans.  Brief overview of major countries and cultures.  Explore topics of interest-  volcanos, jungles, snakes, solar system, theater...

3) Bible.  We're very simple for this in homeschool because Matt leads the bulk of our Bible learning in our family devotions time several evenings a week (and I read a kiddo devotion at breakfast.)  Besides that, we memorize Fighter Verses with the FV app which gives us a song to listen to for every verse, and a "typing game" as the kids call it (a quiz, actually).  (And I'll be honest, we've skipped a few verses b/c the songs weren't something I could listen to 20x a day.)  We also aim to make lunch time a prayer time for the world.... pray through Operation World, Operation China, our Compassion kids or orgs or churches or friends that we love...  great learning here!  How sweet too, to pray for current events around the world-  tornados, elections, diseases, abortion...

   I'm going to try to make a bit of a workbook for first grade for when I'm working with another learner and one child needs independent work.  Some of the sites I'm printing worksheets from are here... (all are free to print):

www.k12reader.com  I am really grateful for this site!  Such helpful resources and all well organized and useable.

http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2012/12/first-grade-sight-word-sentences.html  lots of great links at the bottom of the post

http://shared.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/phonics/1sightwordsentences.pdf  excellent for sight words!

http://www.turtlediary.com/grade-1-worksheets.html  I like the homophones pages as a fun way to introduce new vocab

http://www.worksheetuniverse.com/firstgradeworksheets.html  several basic ones...me/ I, plural/singular, nouns/ verbs...

www.worksheet.fun.com   just a few useable ones here

fantastic page of free copywork and writing links
http://homeschoolfreestuff.wordpress.com/english/writinghandwritingcopywork/

Wow--- I found this site from the last link (fantastic CS Lewis copy work) and she's got a beautiful creative writing course here too...  all free.  I love her. http://www.walkingbytheway.com/blog/creative-writing-week-1/

Aug 2013 update:  This is a biggie....  Marian has quite nearly turned the corner in her reading with these free online primers....  there's the fun appeal to them in they cute rhymes and looking for differences between pictures.  A few of the short stories we've skipped for undesireableness but most all of them have been just what we needed!  www.progressivephonics.com

4) I've got it sweet for Math b/c Isaiah's Chinese teacher who comes to our home 5 mornings a week teaches him Math using local workbooks (which costs 8Y = one dollar!) and I think it's excellent.....  exercises that make him think!  We also have and use as a backbone, Math Mammoth, which is very fine.  And Isaiah's sweet teacher, Chen Laoshi,  also reads aloud good literature and teaches him Hanzi (Chinese writing) and the Bible verse we memorize in English, in Chinese too.

That's it.

Nothing to sweat over but plenty to take joy in!  Oh Lord make our learning journey sweet for your glory!