First Grade is Almost Here!

I have not blogged in over two weeks! Every moment I thought about doing it, I had something more important to do. What can possibly be more important sharing with the homeschool community? Planning FIRST GRADE.

Most homeschool parents seems to follow a traditional school year calendar; which results in approximately 3 months to plan, gather, and construct the upcoming school year. Well, I only plan to take 2 weeks between grade levels. Guess what that means? I have only 2 weeks to do everything!

Fortunately, I realized this a couple weeks ago and been consumed with getting everything together. Especially because we only have 1.5 weeks between grades this year.  YIKES! I am very relieved that I purchased Math, Phonics, and Handwriting for our first grade curriculum in May and kind of already have Reading, Writing, Social Studies, Art, Sight Words, and Spanish planned out. The main cause of my stress is Science, History, and Geography. I have NO CLUE what curriculum to choose!

SCIENCE
It is a toss up between Nancy Larson Science One and Real Science-4-Kids Pre-Level 1 Chemistry. I have spent days comparing the two and keep going back and forth. One great thing about Real Science is that I can download individual chapters {for $3.50} to try out. But do I really want to focus solely on Chemistry? For this reason, Nancy Larson comes out on top because it teaches life, physical, and earth science {with emphasis on life science}.

GEOGRAPHY
At the homeschool convention in May, I purchased Cantering the Country {US Geography} and Galloping the Globe {World Geography}. I have read about Galloping on several blogs but did not find anyone that uses Cantering. Galloping seems like a TON of fun but shouldn’t I make sure she knows more about our country?

HISTORY
I have spent countless hours searching websites and have not found a single curriculum I fancy. I am thinking of using the state requirements as a guideline and putting together my own thing.

Please, please voice your opinion in regards to what you think is best for Science, Geography, History. I would absolutely LOVE to read your thoughts.

Hope your school year is off to a great start!

Telling Time

The past couple of weeks, I have been teaching Kangaroo how to tell time. We have been focusing on the hour, half-hour, and quarter-hour. Of course telling time to the hour has been a cinch, but the others are a bit more challenging.

This week I made her a Telling Time Booklet . The first several pages are clocks with only the minute hand on them at 5 minute increments {5, 10, 15, …} and the remaining pages have clocks with various times to the hour, half-hour, and quarter-hour. {I plan to include additional pages with clocks at 5 minute increments later.}

To make the booklet:

• print each sheet on 4x6 cardstock
• laminate
• hole punch the top
• secure with ribbon
• {Please note, if you print on 4x6 cardstock, go to the Adobe Reader Print Menu and select Choose Paper Source by PDF page size. Also, remember you can print front-t0-back to save laminating sheets.}

You could also:

• print on letter-size paper
• insert in page protectors

I prefer to use Vis-a-Vis markers to write the answer. Make sure you use a damp cloth to erase.

If you are interested in downloading, check out the Scribd box below :)

 

Enjoy!

 

Telling Time Booklet

Our Homeschool Calendar

One major thing I failed to do when we first began homeschooling was plan a calendar for our school year. Well, I kind of had a plan: We would finish Kindergarten on date XYZ. Did I mention I did not schedule breaks {besides Thanksgiving and Christmas}? After finally realizing my mistake, I looked online to find out what other homeschooling parents were doing and used 5J's.com as a guideline.

After months of trial and error I have finally figured out a schedule that we plan to implement when we start First Grade {November 1, 2010}.

• Term 1 (7 weeks)   November 1 – December 21
  • November 24-26 off for Thanksgiving
  • December 22-24 off for Christmas
    
• Term 2 (6 weeks)   December 27 – February 4
  • 1 week break February 5-11
    
• Term 3 (7 weeks)   February 14 – April 1
  • 1 week break April 4-8
    
• Term 4 ( 7 weeks)  April 11 – May 23
  • 1 week May 30 – June 3
    
• Term 5 (9 weeks)  June 6 – August 5
  • School year completed!
    
• Start Second Grade  August 22 or August 29

We will only take a 2-3 week break between grades because I see no reason for us to take months off from school.  We get antsy! If we have to miss a day of school because of an illness or such, we will make up that day on the weekend.

The breaks that are scheduled during the school year will be used for family trips or personal trips. The GREAT thing about homeschooling is that we can take vacations during the off season and save $$$.

In case you are wondering why we are starting First Grade in November, it is because I decided to restart Kindergarten in January 2010 {we originally started August 2009 but the previous curriculum was too easy and Kangaroo learned nada.}

What is your school year calendar like? If you are up to sharing, I would love to read about it!

Winners! Curriculum Clean-Out Giveaway

Hi there everyone! This late afternoon I emailed the four winners of the curriculum giveaway. Make sure you check your email!

Many thanks to all of you that entered. It is great to know that you all were very interested in the giveaway and that I am able to bless a few of you.

Please know that this will not be the last of the giveaways! I am pretty sure I will find additional items that need a new home.

I also want to thank those that are now following my blog and want to apologize for the trouble you encountered. Hopefully there will not be any hiccups during the next giveaway :) I finally have an audience!

Had trouble leaving a comment?

Hi there! My apologies to anyone who had a problem leaving comments for the Curriculum Clean-Out Giveaway. Apparently, the word verification is not visible if the blog is viewed using Internet Explorer.

I have disabled the word verification so you should not have any more problems entering the giveaway {keeping fingers crossed}.  If you are still having problems, please email me & I will enter you in the giveaway myself.

Thank you for being patient with me!!

Ps. I think I should change my blog title to “Journey through Blogging”