Our 2013-2014 Homeschool Curriculum

This year, Princess P will be in 3rd grade and Lego Man is in 4th/5th grade.
Here is what the kids will be working on this year!


Religion
Following Mater Amabilis religion for Level 2
Faith and Life 4 Jesus Our Guide from CHC
Catechism~ Our Holy Faith book from Neuman Press

English
First Language Lessons Book 3
Teacher's Text and two student workbooks

Latin
Princess P Little Latin Readers Primer A Puella Romana 
Lego Man Little Latin Readers Primer B Britanni et Galli

Spelling and Phonics
McGuffey Eclectic Readers



Princess P My Catholic Speller Level B
Lego Man My Catholic Speller Level C
Writing Road to Reading 6th Rev Ed.: The Spalding Method for Teaching Speech, Spelling, Writing, and Reading

Writing
IEW Geography Based Writing Lessons using the books by Holling C. Holling

Geography
CCM Maps
Holling C. Holling Geography Study Guide

Math
Princess P Saxon Math 3
Lego Man Saxon Math 54  We are finishing up the book from last year.

Handwriting~ Cursive
Seton's Handwriting for Catholics 4

Science
Classically Catholic Memory Beta Year
Earth Science and Astronomy
We will be following weeks in the book, but I will be adding on with free stuff I find on the web, crafts, projects, experiments, and books from the library.

Ancient History
Classically Catholic Memory Beta Year
Birth of Christ to the early 1500's
We will be following the CCM weeks. I will be supplementing with books about the time period and fun lessons and crafts.
Additional Resources:
The Old World and America
Story of the World Volume II
Write from Medieval History

American History



The Prairie Primer Binder-Lapbook Guide from Currclick

United States~ State Study
We will be working on our State Scrapbooks.

Art
We will study an artist for 9 weeks. We will do a picture study, create artwork inspired by these artists and learn about their lives.

• Paul Cezanne
• George Seurat
• Henri Rousseau
• Vincent Van Gogh

Music History
We will study 3 composers over the 36 weeks. We will study them for 12 weeks each. The kids will be exposed to their musical compositions and learn about their lives.

• Johann Strauss
• Richard Wagner
• Peter Tchaikovsky

Music
Gregorian Chant~ The Chant Kit

Virtues
Free Program from the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia



Both kids are joining 4-H this year. They are joining the Paws and Claws program , so they can show their sweet chickens next year at the fair.

Both will continue soccer with a home school soccer group that meets once a week.

Princess P will continue with her violin lessons...at least that is my goal.

Homeschool Mother's Journal/Weekly Wrap-Up

In our homeschool this week.....still preparing the lessons for next year. I am almost done. My goal was to be done by August, but that didn't happen. Now I know why I start in March normally. I miss my "summer break." The kids were so kind of to remind me that I will get a vacation when we go on vacation in a few weeks. Princess P said, "You'll get 7 days off!" WOW! Seven whole days....I guess I should feel privileged. The best part is that they have been complaining that summer is almost over. I find it funny since the "official" school year doesn't start until Labor Day.

In our life this week...cleaning and purging of unused and unwanted items! We have done the bedrooms and bathrooms. The kids worked on the basement(which is a family/play room) We organized a small you we use for storage. We inventoried the leftover supplies from our co-op and made a list. Now, we can start preparing to make list of new supplies we need for the upcoming year. Not too many weeks left before co-op starts, the kids are actually getting excited about it.

On our little homestead....the girls have started laying eggs.

Two of our girls are laying. Boy do they like to make a ruckus when they lay an egg. The cluck and sing so loud; it freaks the dog out.

 He runs outside and makes sure no one is hurting them. He is becoming a good watch dog, which is better than him trying to eat them.

In our garden.....Not much! We are getting plenty of squash and zucchini. We have two cantaloupe growing well. The tomato vines are full of green tomatoes, but they just aren't turning red. I don't see much canning in the future if they don't turn red. The corn is taller than me and looks great. 

We can't wait to try some. The green beans are having a hard time this year. We have been having cool weather here at night. I think it's affecting the growth of our plants. It didn't help that we got a late start to the garden because of cold weather in the Spring. 

What I'm reading.....textbooks, lesson plans, science books and history books from the library. I have been reading a variety of books to plan the lessons, projects,and activities for the upcoming year. I will be so happy when I get done.

Two books I discovered, to help with the kids writing and spelling, are The Writing Road to Reading and The ABC's and All Their Tricks.

                                                            


What the kids are reading...... Lego Man is still reading Peter Pan.

                                                     

Princess P is reading the the My First Little House Books.

              


What the kids have been doing.....traveling with the garden Gnome. Our local library encouraged children to take home a garden gnome and take pictures of them doing fun, exciting, and odd things. Parents then can download them onto the libraries facebook page. We took home Jeffery.

.....in the yard

....on the woodpile

....near mama's flowers

Linking up with....The Homeschool Mother's Journal, Weekly Wrap-Up, 7 Quick Takes, Friendship Friday, No Ordinary Blog Hop, Homeschool Review, Family Fun Friday, and Live and Learn