So our original plans for this school year have already gotten scratched. Big surprise huh? We were just trying to do too much, move too fast, and nobody was happy. So SCREECH!!!!!!!!! We changed it all up again. Here's what we pulled now.
For science, we are using some ideas from www.letteroftheweek.com in the science of the week section. Next week we plan on using her pumpkin unit, and we'll do a lapbook and some other stuff for it. But mostly, we are just looking up stuff online that we are interested in and doing kitchen chemestry. We are making messes in the kitchen, mixing different things to see what happens. The girls LOVED making flubber, I'll post that recipe here later.
For social studies, we are just learning the basic details about our country right now. The girls can find the US on a world map, and can point out a few different states on a US map. That's pretty good for now, we'll continue to expand on that as we go the next few years. But we're about to take a little side trip to learn about the first thanksgiving and might make a lapbook for it too.
Math is still Singapore math, but that's only because I'm saving up for Math-U-See to do next year.
Language Arts................ now that is a fun one. We bought Sonlight LA K and are doing it. This is going very well for us. We lined up our handwriting books to go with the LA, so we are doing the same weekly letter in both books. The girls are having fun with this one, I'll have to share some pics my dad took of us when we did one of the weekly letter poster sheets.
Piano, well that is on a vacation right now. The girls love to do piano, but its just a thing that we had to put on hold due to other things. But to make up for the lack of music, they are in a choir for their grades and have practices once a week. So they are still getting music classes, just not what we had originally started with.
PE. Now this is a fun one. Melissa and Lydia both are doing gymnastics on Thursdays, and they LOVE it. Now, Lydia was doing a pre-ballet class at the ballet academy, but decided that she didn't like it so much as she thought she would so she tried her big sister's gymnastics class and absolutely LOVED it so we're taking a break from dance for her right now. She's just having so much fun with it, and I am really glad those two got into something they both enjoy and can do together.
Now, I mentioned UNSCHOOLING!!!!! We are indeed moving more toward that philosophy of learning, but still use structured materials. Right now, we've not done much of anything because the kids have been sick on and off since before halloween, but when we are back to it we'll be full force in math and LA, with the other stuff sprinkled in for good measure. We're having a blast with this approach, we aren't completely doing away with all educational texts but I'm definitely relaxing a lot more and starting to do more by following their leads instead of following my IG like its gospel. Its very hard though to not stress over the IG not being followed exactly.
