Our Curriculum 2010-2011

This is such a great time for moms...homeschooling or non-homeschooling. It's a great time because going back to school means one HUGE thing...routine! I love routine...I crave routine! I have to have it....need to have it!! I do love the "carefree" days of summer, but they quickly turn into the "running ragged" days of summer. Between camps, sports, vacations, and other obligations it seems like summer can get old fast....but I do love it. :)
The anticipation of a new school year is also very exciting. Making plans for a great year of teaching and learning is so much fun. I usually have to share my plans with someone so I share them with Jarrod, and I have already. Not that he's not super excited for school like I am, but somehow I think you {homeschool moms} will be a bit more enlightened :)
So, here's what we're going to be doing this coming year:

{Jack}
Since he just turned 5, I would not be sending him to school even if I sent my kids to school. So we're going to be doing some preschool stuff this year.

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
This will be a book we'll start with and see how it goes. He can recognize numbers and letters, but I can't decide if he's ready to start reading yet. So we'll start with this book and see how it goes.

{Peak with Books}
I love using literature to teach and this looks like a great book. It's also new to me this year, but I'm excited to use it!

{Explode the Code Series}
I really like these phonics books. I've used them every year and still really like using them. They're simple and easy, but do a great job!

{Subjects everyone will do together}

For Nature Study, we'll be using NaturExplorer units from Shining Dawn Books. We'll have a different focus each month, like owls or hibernation.

History- Middle Ages- We're covering a lot this year in history, but I'm super excited! We'll be using The Story of the World as our spine and lots and lots of living books and projects. We're using a ton of activity books, but I'll tell ya what those are as we use them.

Artist Study-We've studied famous artist for the past two years and this year we're trying something different. Using the book Storybook Art, we're going to be studying a different children's book illustrator every month. I think this will be a great way to study art in a new way.

Science-This year we're doing a whole year of physical science. We'll be alternating history and science units. I tried to do history and science at the same time last year and I think it was really hard, so we're changing it up...because I can do that :) So...we're covering Simple Machines, Inventors, and we're doing a unit on Flight.

{Noah-3rd Grade}

Math- Saxon 3....love this curriculum!

Language Arts:

Learning Language Arts through Literature...new to me this year, but it looks like it'll be a good fit for us.

Spelling Power....not so sure on this one yet...we'll see!

Easy Grammar

Wordly Wise vocabulary

We'll be busy, but I've got lots of fun things planned and I'm excited to get started!