~Our Curriculum 2010-2011~

Our Curriculum For 2010-2011

After much consideration I have decided that I will not be using My Father's World for Cainen this year. With My Father's World, Cainen would be going right into learning about other countries and cultures. Although I want Cainen to learn about the rest of the world, I felt that he needed to have a complete overview first of American History. Then when he is older he can of course go into more depth. Also, before he learns about other people's religion, I want him to have a full understanding of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. Cainen still has a lot of questions about God and I don't think throwing in Buddha at this point is such a wise decision. Although I do fully intend on teaching my boys about other religions so they can defend their own faith when they are older. I plan to pick back up with My Father's World later. We will be starting this fall where we left off in American History. He will be learning about the Civil War, the Conestoga wagons, the immigrants coming to Ellis Island and the Great Depression. He will also be learning about the Underground Railroad and World War II. Cainen is particularly excited about learning more about the Wright Brothers great invention and the hands-on fun he'll be able to do like gold panning, setting up war campaigns & spying out enemy secrets. I look forward to learning more about other countries with Cainen in the coming years. I can't wait till we learn about the brave missionaries and I want my boys be able to defend their faith. To know why they believe what they do. I want them to be fully equipped. As David Quine says, "Properly equipping our children to stand firm in Christ in the 21st Century is our responsibility as parents."

CAINEN - 3rd GRADE

BIBLE STUDY:

* Daily readings from the Bible
* The Old Testament & New Testament Activity-Paks from Homeschool In The Woods
* Leading Little Ones To God
* An Honorable Boy from Queen Homeschool
* The Armor of God: a Children's Bible Study in Ephesians 6:10-18
* Proverbs People

For next year, I would like to look more into Character Sketches. My friend recommended it to me and it looks really good.

CHARACTER:

We will be reading books from Lamplighter
* A Puzzling Pair
* Christie's Old Organ
* Teddy's Button
* The Basket Of Flowers
* Little King Davie
* Clean Your Boots, Sir?

We also will be reading books from Yesterday's Classics
* Tales and Customs of the Ancient Hebrews
* America First
* American History Stories, Volume I and II
* Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans
* The Dutch Twins
* Mother Stories
* The Burgess Bird Book for Children
* Among the Farmyard People

Beautiful Feet has a wonderful teaching Character Through Literature Study Guide that I plan on using with Cainen either this coming summer or next. I have the study guide and most of the books.

POETRY:

* A Child's Book Of Poems
* A Child's Garden Of Poems
* The Seasons
This is the best poetry book that I have come across for my boys. I found it at a homeschool resale shop. It truly is a gem! The poems were first compiled by Louis Lawrence between the years 1887 and 1890.
* A Book Of Americans
This is another wonderful poetry book. It was first published in 1933 and it has a poem for many great Americans.
* Lessons from Nature: Poems for Boys and Girls
John Bunyan the author of Pilgrim's Progress wrote this great poetry book.

READ-ALOUDS

While I know we wont have time to read all of these books, I plan on reading at least some this coming school year and carrying these great classics on over to the following school years. Cainen really loved Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island, so I am really looking forward to reading these with him.

* Pilgrims Progress
* Swiss Family Robinson
* 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
* Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes
* Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn
* Adventures Of Robin Hood
* The Call Of The Wild
* White Fang
* Oliver Twist
* The Red Badge Of Courage
* Tom Sawyer
* Knights Of The Round Table

Winter Promise also has their own readers that come with their Language Arts program that I will be getting.

COPYWORK:

We will be using Queen Homeschool for all of our copywork. They offer copy work for cursive, math facts for memorization, picture study, narration and poetry appreciation.

WRITING SKILLS:

* Story Starters

MATH:

* Teaching Textbooks
* MathTacular

HISTORY:

* American Story 2 from Winter Promise
* Time Travelers History Studies- The Civil War

NATURE STUDY:

* My Nature Journal
* Keeping a Nature Journal
* Handbook of Nature Study
* Fun With Nature


LANGUAGE ARTS:

* Language Arts 3 from Winter Promise
* First Language Lessons For The Well-Trained Mind
* Primary Language Lessons


SCIENCE:

I have some wonderful books from Answers In Genesis and Apoligia but I feel the books that I have are a bit advanced for my son. I plan on using them next year. So this year, I decided to use Winter Promises science program. Cainen wants to learn about animals so we are doing their Animal Habitats program.
* Animal Habitats
* ACSI Science Grade 3 Student Book
This science text book from ACSI and The Complete Book Of Animals looked really good to me and I thought that I could always use it along with Animal Habitats.
* Complete Book of Animals

ART:
* Artists Activity-Paks
* Come Look With Me
* I Can Do All Things
* Art Notebooking Pages

MUSIC:

* Composers Activity-Paks
* Beethoven and the Chiming Tower Bells
* Mozart, The Wonder Boy
* Handel at the Court of Kings
* I, Vivaldi
* Meet the Great Composers
* Famous Composer Pages
* The Story of the Orchestra Book

JONAH - K

Since Jonah will be done with My Father's World K by this summer and he technically doesn't start kindergarten till this fall, I felt he wasn't ready for MFW 1st grade. So I have decided we will be using Heart Of Dakota. I really love My Father's World and it is sad that I wont be using them this year but I look forward to trying Heart Of Dakota. They also use the Charlotte Mason method and I am pretty excited about using them!

* Little Hearts For His Glory

I am really excited about using all the books from Heart Of Dakota! The Singapore K math looks really good!
* Earlybird Kindergarten Math

The Reading Made Easy and the Hide 'Em in Your Heart CD looks really good too!

Jonah will be following along with Cainen in science as we learn about animals.
I bought him several books to correlate with Cainen's studies. Here are some of Jonah's books.

* Animal Habitats: Learning about North American Animals and Plants thru Art, Science & Creative Play
* My Big Book of 5-Minute Devotions: Celebrating God's World
* Eric Carle's Animals Animals

I wanted Jonah to do copywork as well so I bought him Language Lessons For Little Ones. I can't wait to get this in the mail! Queen Homeschools Website says this book has picture study, narration & poetry appreciation.

I am looking forward to a year school year!

Pilgrims Progress

I am really looking forward to doing this with the boys!

Answers In Genesis Science Books

I am looking forward to using these books this fall. I just got them at the home school conference! I got some really awesome books there! I must confess I am a curriculum junkie. I already have the boys studies prepared for this fall and I know exactly what they will be using for the following year! I just can't help it!

We are all ready for this fall!