My Boys, My Dogs and Me

Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills

We still choose a variety of books from the library for self-reading, reading aloud and narration. I have August choose books from the "readers" section of the library. They are broken into small chapters. Then he can pick any story or picture books that interest him. I choose books to cover our science, history and social studies subjects. My youngest is free to choose from the books he is interested in.

Phonics

Pre-K: "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons"

Kinder: My Phonics Dictionary

My Phonics Dictionary

We use My Phonics Dictionary, which categorizes words according to vowel sounds, diphthongs, blends, etc. that we read through one – two days a week.

English/Language Arts

Pre-K: Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills

Scholastic Children’s Dictionary

Copy work - I create worksheets, letters to family & pen-pals with sentences to trace.

Handwriting – the boys work from the above noted workbooks and from free printables online for alphabet & numbers.

Narration - I read from chapter books and at the end of the chapter ask questions regarding the story for my son to answer. I help him with answers he can't remember by asking him questions about the text that he does remember. I am trying to get August to tell larger and larger “chunks” of the story by himself without my prodding.

Dictation - My son dictates stories and letters to me. I create worksheets for him to trace from the letters and the stories go in a book where he can illustrate the stories.

Foreign Language

Pre-K:

Kinder:

First Grade:

We have stalled here. We check out Spanish books and songs on tape from the library from time to time. I desire to purchase the Rosetta Stone Software, yet it is still out of my budget. I do have some Spanish Curriculum that I plant to begin- hopefully by winter 2009.

Science

Pre-K:

Addison-Wesley Science (0-201-25430-1)

We are following the suggested path of Life Science; Plants, Animals, Human Body from "The Well Trained Mind". We check out books from the library, we have flashcards from Blue Planet, we sometimes watch Animal Planet. Though, we also study our interests – even though they are outside this scope. For example we check in on NASA’s Mars Rover Explorer Program online.

We really enjoy The Magic School Bus Scholastic series and books by Gail Gibbons.

Arithmetic
Pre-K: Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills

Family Math (0-912511-06-0)

We are working through some workbooks. I have also printed worksheets from free printable sites offline (see menu at left under Math). We also use Cuisenaire rods with the Primary Idea Book and unix cubes.

Social Studies/Geography
Usborne Peoples of the World book. The book is internet linked, so we also use the internet to learn about cultures, countries and people around the world.

Pre-K:

The Complete Book of Maps & Geography

History

Pre-K:

A Child’s History of the World by Virgil M. Hillyer (Calvert School)

The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia

Art

Pre-K: Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills

This summer my Mother taught the boys Art. They put together a portfolio to display their work in primary, secondary, neutral colors, decoupage, sticker, painting, crayon work, portraits, modern art, etc.

My goal is to also teach from the book, Drawing with Children a Creative Teaching and Learning Method That Works for Adults Too by Brookes, Mona

Music

Pre-K: