School: Part Final

I've gone back and forth, and forth and back about what "curriculum" to use with Aubree this year.  It's been a fun process.  There are a million different curriculum options, philosophies, and suggestions, which can be a bit overwhelming, but I enjoy the planning aspect.  I've finally gotten all my materials and am gearing up to semi-officially "starting" home-school next week.  We've begun a few things already and won't get as structured as I'd like until we move and Aubree's no longer attending preschool, but next week we will start what will serve as our foundation.

Our core curriculum will come from the Five in a Row book by Jane Lambert.  It's literature-based and basically involves reading the same picture book once a day for five days and doing different activities each day in association with the book (geography, science, math, art, & social studies).  This program came highly recommended, offers a lot of flexibility, promises to be extremely enjoyable, and will allow us to include Bryce as much as possible.  I'm sure I'll supplement each week a lot with other library books on the same topics and most likely I'll end up learning more than anyone (it never ceases to amaze me how little I really know!).

For math, I've decided to use an Internet-based program called DreamBox.  It's an individualized, game-based program.  Aubree's been "playing" for about a month and I'm amazed at how much she's learned!  As a parent I get frequent emails about her progress and can easily track what she's accomplished and what she's working on.  As for Aubree, she thinks it's a ton of fun and enjoys earning the different rewards and accomplishing the varying tasks.  It does require a subscription, but if anyone is interested in trying it out, let me know because anyone I refer can get a free month and we'd get a free month too (anyone can get a free 2 week trial from the website).

One area I think we need to focus on is Handwriting.  Aubree's learned some bad habits in her writing that I think will be easier to correct sooner rather than later.  We've started using Handwriting Without Tears.  We just started last week, but are flying through the workbook.  Each letter only takes us a few minutes and Aubree is never content to just work on one letter; I have to force her to stop at two or three!  Even so, I've already noticed a big improvement in her writing.  I think it helped just to think about/be aware of how letters should be formed and how they relate to the lines on the paper.

Another area in which we can definitely use improvement, and that I'm really excited about, is in our gospel study.  Once Aubree's done with preschool (and on Tuesdays and Thursdays until that point), I'm planning on starting our school day with a devotional time.  This will hopefully include elements such as: prayer, songs, scripture stories, scripture memorization (one a week), stories from the 'Friend,' magazine, stories from the Book of Virtues, etc.

I also want to do a once-a-week cooking lesson.  

Of course, we'll supplement all of this with lots and lots of reading.  I've compiled a fairly long list of read-aloud chapter books and recommended picture books that we'll systematically put on hold at the library (Oh! How I love our librarians!).  If anyone has any favorite read-aloud or picture books, please - let me know!

I really hope that wherever we move has some kind of a home-school co-op, where other classes are offered to further broaden our options.  I'm sure over time I will modify these plans, as we learn for ourselves what works and what doesn't.  Eventually I hope to come up with a better plan of how to either involve Bryce in what Aubree's doing, or set up something special just for him.  Wish us luck!