Our first day of first grade!

We had a great first day! Both boys were super excited to be getting back into our school routine. I wanted to make the day special, so after our morning prayers I gave each of the boys their own prayer books, which I had made for them, all wrapped in golden wrapping paper (remember I posted about making them a while back? Well, I decided to keep them for a special occasion…which turned out to be back to school day!). They loved them and Rylan wanted to read the entire prayer book, after two, though, Damian told him it was time to move on! ;)

Here is a look at the corner of our school area, which is devoted to circle time:

Our circle time usually goes something like this – we each say a prayer and then all sing the one we are currently learning together, then we sing our calendar song (I modified this one a little, it no longer involves ice-cream, but is rather about loving each other all the days of the week/months of the year, we also sped it up a bit), at the beginning of the week we add the dates and activities onto the calendar for that week.

After the calendar song we sing the “every week” song and Rylan and Damian stick the days of the week onto the laminated charts at the bottom of the picture (they come on and off with the use of velcro dots). The charts and song can be found at 1+1+1=1. Then we move onto skip counting. Those charts can be found at Homeschool Creations. To finish off circle time we have the daily installment of our virtue lessons (you can see the current Virtue Project card up in the top right corner). This week we are studying “caring”. As the year goes on we will add different things to calendar time as needed (the rest of our 2010-2011 curriculum can be found in this post).

Here is the other side of our school space. Map (animals of the world) from Costco, animal evolution time line beneath it from Zoobooks (the dino chart over the map is also from Zoobooks), the two little charts next to the timeline are a Handwriting Without Tears guide to writing capital and lowercase letters and numbers and a copy from Drawing With Children on the elements of drawing. There are our workboxes which I bought at Walmart, with an abacus (cannot remember the brand) and our Oregon Scientific Smart Globe. The bookshelf next to the workboxes contains all our supplies, books, additional materials, schedules, etc. Oh! And the table and chairs are from IKEA.

Although we have this space, we still do our learning in other areas of the house as well. All depends on what we are doing and where we feel like working.

We ended our first day back to school (after swimming lessons, and dinner) with a yummy spice cake which we made using another of my Grandma’s recipes. The boys went to sleep with happy hearts and happy bellies, and I have to say, despite my total enjoyment of our unplanned summer break, I am loving being back into our routine again!

Weekending and what we’ve been up to…

Yesterday we spent a fabulous day on this lovely beach.

We snorkeled, swam, splashed, built, had water fights, and fish nibbling our toes while we sat in the shallow water at the shore. A perfect family day and the last of our summer vacation!

I have been posting a lot about our summer travels and not so much about what we have been doing the last couple of weeks. That’s because I had nothing completed to write about. We were waiting for curriculum to arrive, and it did, all on the same day. My hubby came home from the post office with five boxes piled in his arms and Rylan and I squealing with excitement.

Since that day I have spent hours and hours familiarizing myself with the material, planning our new daily schedule, and planning in detail the next two months of school. I now have planned lessons, materials ready (or notes to remind me what to prepare for a particular lesson the night before), even craft projects planned for the next two months (I am planning to have one afternoon for a planned craft project every week). I am sure I will make adjustments to the schedule as the year goes on, but for now we have what we need to make a good start. And I have lots to share here!

We are all very excited about beginning the new year together, Rylan has been counting down the days all of the past week! Gotta love an enthusiastic learner!

More to come on our first day of first grade and what our school area looks like (I have been working on that too, since it became a bit of a storage area over the summer!)…hopefully a little later today. Stop in and take a peek!

Our 2010-2011 curriculum

Over the last week I have been doing a lot of research, sifting through catalogues, books, and websites; and have finally settled on an outline for our upcoming year. I ordered everything we did not already have yesterday, and both Rylan and I are eagerly awaiting their arrival (yes, I know we are total nerds! ;) ).
Here is Rylan’s 1st grade curriculum (oh my gosh, I have a first grader!?! Where did the time go?) Although I have this outline to follow, everything is subject to revision if it doesn’t work for us:
Reading: I purchased Rocket Phonics last year, and we worked through the first few lessons. Although I like what I have seen so far in the program, and we may continue to work through some of it, Rylan has by in large taken learning to read into his own hands and doing very well, so we will see if is is necessary to add this into our days. Either way, I don’t mind having purchased the program because I will use it for Damian eventually.
English language and writing skills: we will be starting with First Language Lessons this year. As well as using The Complete Writer: Level 1 Workbook for Writing with Ease.
Math: we will continue working through the Math-U-See program. I will also incorporate math work into other areas of study, as I have before, because Rylan does tire of working on math only through the workbook.
Handwriting: We will continue with Handwriting Without Tears, this year using My Printing Book.Spiritual/religious: We will continue with our virtue lessons as a part of our daily circle time, as well as learning new prayers. In addition, we will continue reading through "Children’s Stories From The Dawn-Breakers" and Rylan will also be working through the Baha’i Children’s Workbook.Spelling: We will be starting with All About Spelling using Level 1 of the program. I am very excited about this program because I have heard a lot of great things about it from many people.
History: I just ordered The Story of the World and its activity book.
Geography: For now we will continue moving through the continents as a general introduction to world geography.
Science: I read through Rebecca Rupp’s Home Learning Year by Year as a general guide for what should be covered for science in first grade, and to be honest Rylan has already covered most of the areas, since he has such a passionate love of science related subjects, especially animal and nature studies. So, I am not investing in a science curriculum of any kind. We are going to stick with interest led learning here, although I think I will plan a unit on the human body at some stage during the year.
Spanish: I just ordered Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) Homeschool Edition Level 1. And I am going to do it too! :)
Art: We will continue working through Drawing With Children. I am also looking into using Discovering Great Artists to incorporate some art appreciation (thank you Jolanthe for pointing out this book!).Music: Music appreciation with Ramtin on weekends, focusing on classical music.
PE: Rylan will continue with swimming lessons and gymnastics during the year.
Damian at 2 1/2 will have no set curriculum, of course, just lots of play and reading time! He will, however, participate in much of what we do, like virtue learning, prayers, circle time, and so on and so forth. As he gets older and I see the need for more focused learning I will incorporate it into his days, but what is most important for him now is to learn through play and to continue to develop a love of reading, so that will be our focus.
And I think that is a wrap! I am super excited about this year and cannot wait to get started! I am aiming to start in about two weeks, we have to wait for the materials I just ordered to arrive and for me to get a look through them and a feel for how to use them. I also need to fix up the school area. Over our unplanned (but much enjoyed) summer break our school area has become a storehouse for various items I have piled up to go be sold on craigslist or go to charities. I need to actually get those things out the door so we have a nice, organized space to work in again!

Curriculum choices and starting some of the projects

I have been doing some research on reading curriculum. Rylan is doing really well right now with Bob Books as a general review, but call me a newbie to homeschooling, I still feel like I need to follow some general curriculum path. I think I found something suitable. I have included Rylan in the selection process, because I want him to be involved in his learning path, this is one of the amazing things about homeschooling.

This afternoon the boys and I went to fabric stores and craft stores looking for all the odds and ends to work on our upcoming decorating projects. Cannot wait to get started!
We are going for a spring motif, and I couldn’t resist throwing in some Hawaiian prints as well…the Aloha spirit is highly infectious! I love all the bright spring colours (as a contrast my home décor is mostly subtle beiges, creams, blacks and browns, which I also love), but really, I am a sucker for colours, just look at my embroidery thread boxes.

One day I will post about my embroidery…

While at the fabric store the boys spotted this and absolutely had to get it. Rylan already has several projects in mind for it…we will see what we come up with!

Happy weekend to you! May it be a creative one!