I have spent quite a bit of time going through the curriculum I purchased and though a number of homeschooling sites that I have come across, in an effort to come up with a lesson plan that will be fun and educational for Madison. I think I have come up with a general format that I want to follow for teaching Madison, for now. I know that things will likely change as we get into a routine and I see what works and what doesn't work for Madison and myself. I am open to that change so that's why I've labeled our schedule a "general format".
I have decided that I am not going to put time restraints on the subjects we go through. I think it's far more important that we cover the subjects in the amount of time needed to make sure there in comprehension and learning taking place. If Reading takes only 20 minutes but Science takes an hour, that is fine with me. Or if I discover that Madison is experiencing a great deal of frustration with a subject, and we are gaining no ground, I'm fine with leaving it for the time being, and coming back to it later. I have already found, in just the small amount of preschool homeschooling we have done with her, that Madison is a perfectionist. If things are not done perfectly, to her liking, the first time, she has the tendency to become very upset. We have had many conversations addressing this, but I do see this as an issue that will continue to surface as we work our way through the school year.
I also want to allow the opportunities for those "teachable moments" that will likely arise. I'm fine with pitching out all or some of our planned lessons for the day if one of those moments come up. So many things can be learned during those opportunities, and I don't want to just let them pass in exchange for keeping with our schedule.
In looking through the My Father's World curriculum, I discovered that Madison already knows quite a bit of the things that they teach. Instead of making her go through it all from the beginning, which would probably be a little boring for her, I decided to supplement the curriculum with some other activities and lessons from some websites I have come across. There is so much information out there and a lot of great sites dedicated to helping homeschooling families. It has been so much fun scouring the sites and finding things that I think Madison will enjoy, as well as learn from.
So having said all that, here is what I have come up with. While looking through it again, I'm wondering if what I've planned will be too much to accomplish in one day. But if that's the case, I'm okay with things spilling over to the next day. Like I said, I'm not concerned with keeping to the "schedule".
Bible/Art
My Father's World(MFW) - the first 10 days we will be doing a Creation study. We will be going through the creation account in Genesis and we'll be making a creation poster and a creation book.
Math
MFW - doing the 100 chart, which obviously, helps the student learn all the numbers up to 100. There is a visual activity involved as well as a worksheet to complete.
We will also be doing Calendar Time each day - teaching Madison the months, days, and numbers on a calendar. We'll also be going through the concept of Today, Tomorrow, and Yesterday. I found the printable sheets for these activities on the Confessions of a Homeschooler blog.
Reading
Bob Books - Madison has already excelled in reading with these, and we love them! We'll continue to use them for as long as we can.
MFW - Since Madison is already reading, we'll only be doing a few of the worksheets and activities from here.
Also in MFW, they have a list of recommended books to read to go along with the unit study that is done. For example, Lesson 1 is about the sun. So there are various books to read and activities to do that relates to the sun. There are 26 lessons in the year, and the subject of each lesson is a different letter of the alphabet.
Another website I have found is homeschoolshare.com, which is a site where homeschooling parents can post books and unit studies that they, themselves, came up with. I plan on using a few of these unit studies throughout the school year.
Science
MFW - Go through the recommended supplemental books on the subject. Do a few activities to reinforce the concept. For example, with the Sun unit study, we will make raisins and also create a simple sundial.We will also be doing a weather chart each day, found on Confessions of a Homeschooler again.
Handwriting
MFW - do the worksheet that corresponds with the letter for the day. For example, on the Sun lesson, we will work on the letter S. Madison already knows how to write all her letters pretty well. She needs more work on the lowercase letters so we will really be emphasizing those.
Art
I like the concept of a stART. What's a stART? Simply put: A Story + Art = A Great stART! I discovered the idea from amommysadventures.com.
Totallytots.homestead.com does a great job at coming up with stART's. On the day we work on the letter S, we'll be reading this book:
and we'll be making this foam letter project:
There are both uppercase and lowercase examples of the letters, so I'm going to do the lowercase letters to help reinforce Madison's ability to write them. There are also a few other art projects that I have come across that I may add in as well, as time and/or interest allows.
So that is what I have come up with for our lesson plan. Having it all in written form makes it seem like a lot! Like I said before, I'm not expecting all of this to stay just as I have planned, for the entire year. I'm hoping we will tweak it and discover new ideas that work better for us.
I'm thinking we will start our first official day of school on September 1st, so I will keep you posted on how things go!
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