2009-2010 School Year

I don't have our official date for when our next academic year will begin but I do have my curriculum choices ironed out. I will be teaching second grade and kindergarten next year.

Kindergarten:
Math: Saxon K
Reading: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, Bob Books Box 1
Handwriting: Seton Handwriting K
Religion: Catholic Children's Picture Bible and Leading Little Ones to Mary
(History and Science, I will not formally teach at this age but the K'er will be able to participate with the 2nd grader)
Literature: Fairy Tales and Nursery Rhymes

Second Grade:
Math: Saxon 2
Reading: McGuffey's Eclectic Readers, National Catholic Readers, Faith and Freedom Readers and books from the library at appropriate reading level
Handwriting: Seton Handwriting 2
Spelling: Spelling Workout B
Grammar: First Language Lessons (pt. 2)
Writing: Writing with Ease (I don't know if we will like it but I'm going to give it a try)
History: Story of the World 2 (Middle Ages), plus a study on lives of the saints, popes and some councils in this time period
Science: Geology, Astronomy, and Weather, various books and experiments
US Geography: State capitals
World Geography: North American (including Latin America) countries
General Geography: Maps, Charts, and Graphs Level B
Art Appreciation: Child-Size Masterpieces
Art: Drawing, still undecided
PE: Hopefully we'll be doing either bowling or swimming
Music: Listening to Classical music, piano lessons still pending necessary funds
Religion: Our Holy Faith book 1, preparing for First Holy Communion in May or June of 2010.

Literature will be books that fit in with curriculum, independent choices and read-alouds from classics

Christmas Break, In Pictures

Wordless Wednesday-- "The Naughty Chair"

Memory Work- Where we are

Boo has learned the following:

All memory work up to lesson 65, in First Language Lessons, minus one poem because I wanted to do a different version.

O Sacrament Most Holy

Act of Faith

The Pledge of Allegiance

Act of Hope

Eternal Rest
O Come O Come Emmanuel

Up and coming: We'll be learning the Act of Charity (and other basic prayers to prepare for 1st Holy Communion), An Advent/Christmas poem, and a few other little moral, Mother-Goose type rhymes. We will also be learning more of the Stabat Mater during Lent-- I think this is turning into a tradition.

Here is the Advent Poem, with special thanks to MO, for sending it to me.

Like foolish folk of old I would not be,
Who had no room that night for
Him and thee.
See, Mother Mary, here within my heart
I've made a little
shrine for Him apart;
Swept it of sin, and cleansed it with all care;
Warmed it with love and scented it with prayer.
So, Mother, when the
Christmas anthems start,
Please let me hold your baby--in my heart.

Sr. Maryanna, O.P.

Phonecian Bread from STOW

We all enjoyed making the Phonecian (pita) bread in the Story of the World Activity Book.

Recently, Boo built a seige tower for the chapter on the Assyrians. This led to both Meenie and Boo looking up seige towers on the internet with their father. Afterwards, Meenie proceeded into the kitchen to give me an oral report about seige towers and how they work, while I was baking cookies. It was from the perspective of a three year old, so it went like this:

Siege towers, yeah, um the bad guys had a seige tower and then they tried to
get over the wall. The other guys were shooting arrows. The they had a door
knocker to knock down the wall. Yeah, they were bad.

Trip to the Museum of Science

We had been meaning to do this for a long time. So this week, my husband took some vacation days and we went into the city via the T, to the Museum of Science.

It was great, we really enjoyed the Lightning Exhibit and the Butterfly Garden. Much of the extra stuff was expensive, even with our library discount pass, so we did not see any of the films or the planetarium.

It really re-inforced some of the things that we have already learned this year. My son and I enjoyed putting together and taking apart the models of the eyes, teeth and other parts of the body.

I think that next year we will go back and focus on the exhibits that relate to what we will be studying. I really liked the mathematics exhibit, which is not something that would normally thrill me. Overall, I thought it was really well-done, and it was clean and well kept. I regret that we did not take more pictures, most of them are from the Butterfly Garden.

Weekly Update

Now, it is time for our not-so-weekly update. I am really trying to keep up with this, it is just that my cooking blog is more interesting :)

Language Arts:
We are on book 20 of the Now I'm Reading, purple set.
We began the yellow Bob Books set, but cannot find some of the books because Meenie played with them.
We're on Lesson 120 of OPG, and reviewing some of the consonant blends.
We're doing the Act of Hope for our memory work
We're on Letter G in Seton's Handwriting for Young Catholics 1.
We just finished Lesson 44 of FLL 1 and we are doing any suggested copywork, plus some other random copywork.
We're on Lesson 12 of SWO A.
Our Read Aloud is currently Huckleberry Finn.
Meenie is learning letters C and H, and getting past the humps of reciting the alphabet.

Math:
Saxon 1-Lesson 48
Meenie is learning to count 1-10, somehow she was able to count from 1-19 but forgot. I don't know how but I believe the explaination is that she is two and therefore insane.

History:
We're on Chapter 11 of SOTW 1, and finishing up our spider project plus getting ready to read about Ancient Africa in our library books.

Geography:
We're still memorizing the locations and names of the states. We're about half way done. I think Boo knows at least 27 of them, Meenie knows 6-8.
We're on pages 17-18 of Maps, Charts, and Graphs A

Art/Music/PE:
We kind of just take this as it comes, it is usually integrated with another subject. We listen to plenty of classical music. Walking is our main form of exercise though sometimes the kids like to dance to music. I don't really know what else to do when the weather gets cold.

Religion:
We're on Lesson 4 of the St. Joseph First Communion Baltimore Catechism, this month we'll be focusing on the Holy Souls.