Year Overview 2010 – 2011 Part 2

Moving on, here are Jessie’s subjects. Wait! One thing I forgot yesterday is our group hand crafts… to work on hand sewing skills I thought we’d make small catnip sachets and donate them to the humane society or second chance. We’ll probably change and do something else at some point but that is what we’ll start with.

Narration: will happen. I will be asking her more specific questions along the way but nothing more formal than that.

Hand crafts: Jess wants to do weaving. I’ve got inkles, hand looms and potholder looms. Want to make a weavette-type bookmark loom so that she can make gifts from all this leftover sock yarn I have.

History: Ancient History. Discovery Ed has a brief lesson plan and I have History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations. I hesitate with this because I anticipate covering this area again in only 2 years so that both kids are studying the same period of time. If something has to wait, this might be it.

Instrument: Ukulele. Yes, she WANTS to play it. We have one that was her grandfather’s and the library has some books. Wish me luck on this one. Have a line on someone who knows how to play and might be willing to give us a lesson or two to get us started. (fingers crossed)

Handwriting: Going to go back through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, this time doing their handwriting sections. Donna Young has handwriting worksheets that correspond with the chapters too! Jess has really done well with the reading lessons in TYCTR. She’s very interested in writing now which was my biggest hesitation last year. Last year she wanted to learn to read IMMEDIATELY! LOL! Now she brings me snippets of writing frequently. Yay!

Spanish: Spanish Fun Activity Calendar. In addition to the family lessons, Jessie will be doing this. Heck, we might all do this! So much for an individual item. LOL! Looks like a good way to reinforce counting, days of the week, months, etc.

Reading: Bob Books. I have 3 of these sets from when Sam learned to read. I remember him going through these so fast! I don’t think it will take her all year to go through them so I might buy more or if she’s reading well, use easy readers from the library based on her interests.

Literature: Will follow her history lessons… or not. The DBRL library has a great website where I can make reading lists. I’ll post hers later.

Math: Math will be for Jessie as reading was for Sam. I’ve been so impressed with Singapore Math in Sam’s lessons that I’m going to try it with her. I’ve bought their Essential Math Kindergarden A workbook but worry it will be too easy.  There is a lot of matching at first but later on it gets into some number correspondence and I think she does need a little work there.

Phys Ed: The local track club has a kids group. Jessie is very interested in this!

Science: She’ll be doing much of this with Sam but at her own level. Found Here Comes Science by They Might Be Giants at the library and planned on using it with her but the kids got a hold of the it and have already listened to it all… over and over… and over. Good stuff but beware that once you hear them you’ll be singing them! As the year goes she’ll probably have various lapbooks on science subjects she’s interested in… like aquatic dinosaurs. Specifically, aquatic ones. I dunno why!

Social Studies: National Symbols. This comes from her Grade Level Expectations but is something good to cover regardless. Found this lesson plan I like. Instead of the CA symbols part, we’ll do MO of course. Hmmm… maybe we’ll do a lapbook for it. Jess seems to like those.

Social Studies: Maps. Well shoot! I can’t find the resource I’d written down for this. Blarg. “K-2 Maps Rev 1.pdf” is what I put there but I can’t find it anywhere on my computer or online. Blarg. Beginning Map Skills looks interesting but my lost resource was free. This looks adaptable (and is free). Will find something. This is another from the GLEs.

That’s all! Seems like soooo much but I know the lessons are 10 to 15 minutes at most and not all of them will happen every day. (deep breath in…. and oooooouuuuuut)

More soon…