Mill Creek Academy 2008-2009 Academic Year

A curriculum post again. Feel free to meander on to the next blog on your list if curriculum posts aren't your cuppa. ;)

I think I've nailed down our choices for the boys' next school year. Our school year runs from July 2008 until May 2009. We use short but frequent lessons, focus on read alouds, and try to keep lessons under 3 hours a day so we have plenty of time to be boybarians!

Einstein - 8 years old

Phonics, Spelling, Writing & Reading:
Explode the Code - finish this phonics series
Spelling Wisdom - a Simply Charlotte Mason product. It's spelling via immersion. Not rote lists, but rich language and prepared dictation using today's 6,000 most frequently used words.
Writing Tales 1 - A beginning writing program. Gentle but thorough. You can see samples here.
Lively Latin - Unlike some classical homeschoolers, my goals for Latin are for grammar and vocabulary. I hope a couple years of early Latin will open doors for modern language learning of their choosing. We won't start this until the ETC series is finished. I can only handle so many language programs at once.
Evan Moor's Daily Paragraph Editing - Despite its title, I plan to use this only 1 or 2 times a week to spot common errors in writing, if I feel we get enough of this in WT1 we might use it during breaks. They are pretty short, basic paragraphs; most of them are only 4-5 typed lines.
Reading choices - I won't lay out an exact plan, as I will let their interests dictate, but we will try to get through many of the choices at Ambleside Online Years 2 and 3 (except for Pilgrim's Progress. Blech. We won't be reading that.), Sonlight Core 3 readers, and some from the Caldecott/Newberry List.

Math:
No big changes here. We will continue on with Singapore Math, 3b and 4a. We will do Primary Math, Intensive Practice and Challenging Word Problems 3. I am considering dropping Horizons since he finally has a good pace without all the extras I was using to slow him down.
Primary Grade Challenge Math, by Zaccaro. We love love love this.

History, Geography:
Some of Story of the World 2 will carry over into the next academic year. Over spring break, I will begin working on customized go alongs for SOTW 3 that incorporate Catholic history, historical fiction from Sonlight Core 3, art and artist history and biographies, as well as notable architecture aligned both chronologically and geographically with SOTW 3. These will feature books suggested by Simply Charlotte mason, Ambleside Online and Sonlight, as well as the Magic Tree House books because my 6 year old loves them. For American History, the list from A Book in Time is an excellent resource.

Science:
We are doing Earth and Space Science. We will be using Discovery Education Streaming (formally "United Streaming") as well as several reading books. I will post them on my sidebars as we get to them. We're using everything from Dr. Suess to Magic Tree House research guide to big inflatable planets from Learning Resources.
We will also be using the Earth Science part of the curriculum put together by Jessica of Trivium Academy. It can be found here.

The rest of the stuff we will outsource: Einstein will continue art classes at the art museum. He will take religious ed at the church. His PE interests this year are swimming, karate and fencing (?). I haven't found a place that will teach him fencing yet. Not sure why anyone wouldn't want to teach an 8 year old how to use a sword. ;) Also, as an extra curricular, he is hoping to join the Junior Lego league.

Picasso - 6 years/7 years old

Phonics, Copywork, Writing, Reading:
Explode the Code - continue to work through this series at his own pace.
Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading -he will not be quite finished by May. I hope to finish this in Fall '08.
Copywork - Happy Scribe copywork, as well as this, which was written by two homeschool moms and published on Lulu.com.
Reading: same as big brother, above.

Math:
Singapore 2a and 2b. We'll also do Intensive Practice and CWP 1. Like big brother, he will participate in the Primary Grade Challenge Math problems up to whatever level he can.

History and Science will be done with Einstein, same plans as above.

As for extra-curricular, this is my shy one and at this point he is adamant he will not do anything outsourced. I'm going to try to get him to do swimming. He attended art camp last year and announced at the end of it, "That was fun mom. I'm never doing it again."

Trouble - 5 years old

Trouble's needs haven't been assessed. I will have a plan for him soon. He will be a preK specialneeds learner. His goals for 2008-2009 include:
recognition of letters and numbers
writing his name
basic math using math manipulatives
letter sounds

***UPDATE - Trouble's PreK learning materials can be found here.

Phew! Did you get all that? It should be an exciting year here at Mill Creek Academy!