chiguirre
12-17-2008, 02:28 PM
Well, it's the end of the year and it's time for my annual curriculum freak out!
:willy_nilly::willy_nilly::willy_nilly:
I've thrown in the towel on Winterpromise's Hideaways in History. It's just too much for us. In fact, I think we'll have to wait a bit to get the most out of SOTW. The kids like it, but it does tend to be over their heads. Sooo, I spent the morning going through my older versions of SL 1 and 2 and putting the history books in chronological order, culling the ones I don't want to read and getting ready to go in January. I think the old Usborne World History book and Gombrich's Little History are more appropriate for us. I haven't given up the hope of doing SOTW, but I think we'll have to do it in a couple of years. After Core K, I needed a SL break, but I guess the grass isn't greener after all, and we're back. Of course, by the time I get done with a SL Core, it doesn't look much like a SL Core :D.
On the LA front, it's time to take a break from LLATL Red. I knew that we would pause when we got about 2/3 of the way through and pick up the "getting ready for 3rd grade" lessons in the summer. After going through SL's LA 2, Pathway readers 2 and WP's first grade, the winner is WP! I'm a bit annoyed that they call this program 1st grade because all of the resources are listed as 2nd grade books, but I'll get over it :glare:. I really like the looks of Right into Reading 2 and I think ds is ready for the challenge of reading levelled readers that have lots of unfamiliar words. We'll be adding in WWE1 and either R&S 2 or FLL1/2, but I'm still undecided. I like R&S's layout but the religious content is very heavy and I'm not sure I can do it everyday for 150 days, KWIM? At least dd is easy. She loves cutting and pasting and will love LLATL Blue!
Math for ds is topsy-turvy too. I bought MUS alpha to see if the blocks would help him get a better understanding of math, but I'm not entirely sure if it's a winner yet or not. We still have R&S 2 and we could certainly continue that, but I'm not sure which is better, memorizing the facts but lacking a deeper understanding, or seeing math more clearly, but fumbling with actually spitting out the answer. In the end, I think it's just a readiness thing and math facts will eventually become cemented in his brain. I just need to be patient. Dd is doing well with R&S 1, but she likes to play with the MUS blocks so I think I'll combine them for her.
At least science is taken care of, in fact we're doing a lot of science between our weekly class and our monthly museum classes. Plus, my kids are big fans of Sid the Science Kid, who's turned out to be a worthy successor to Ms. Frizzle.
Well, thanks for reading my yearly curriculum cri du coeur! Any comments or commiseration would be greatly appreciated.
:willy_nilly::willy_nilly::willy_nilly:
I've thrown in the towel on Winterpromise's Hideaways in History. It's just too much for us. In fact, I think we'll have to wait a bit to get the most out of SOTW. The kids like it, but it does tend to be over their heads. Sooo, I spent the morning going through my older versions of SL 1 and 2 and putting the history books in chronological order, culling the ones I don't want to read and getting ready to go in January. I think the old Usborne World History book and Gombrich's Little History are more appropriate for us. I haven't given up the hope of doing SOTW, but I think we'll have to do it in a couple of years. After Core K, I needed a SL break, but I guess the grass isn't greener after all, and we're back. Of course, by the time I get done with a SL Core, it doesn't look much like a SL Core :D.
On the LA front, it's time to take a break from LLATL Red. I knew that we would pause when we got about 2/3 of the way through and pick up the "getting ready for 3rd grade" lessons in the summer. After going through SL's LA 2, Pathway readers 2 and WP's first grade, the winner is WP! I'm a bit annoyed that they call this program 1st grade because all of the resources are listed as 2nd grade books, but I'll get over it :glare:. I really like the looks of Right into Reading 2 and I think ds is ready for the challenge of reading levelled readers that have lots of unfamiliar words. We'll be adding in WWE1 and either R&S 2 or FLL1/2, but I'm still undecided. I like R&S's layout but the religious content is very heavy and I'm not sure I can do it everyday for 150 days, KWIM? At least dd is easy. She loves cutting and pasting and will love LLATL Blue!
Math for ds is topsy-turvy too. I bought MUS alpha to see if the blocks would help him get a better understanding of math, but I'm not entirely sure if it's a winner yet or not. We still have R&S 2 and we could certainly continue that, but I'm not sure which is better, memorizing the facts but lacking a deeper understanding, or seeing math more clearly, but fumbling with actually spitting out the answer. In the end, I think it's just a readiness thing and math facts will eventually become cemented in his brain. I just need to be patient. Dd is doing well with R&S 1, but she likes to play with the MUS blocks so I think I'll combine them for her.
At least science is taken care of, in fact we're doing a lot of science between our weekly class and our monthly museum classes. Plus, my kids are big fans of Sid the Science Kid, who's turned out to be a worthy successor to Ms. Frizzle.
Well, thanks for reading my yearly curriculum cri du coeur! Any comments or commiseration would be greatly appreciated.