Because most philosophies that frown on reproduction don't survive.

Friday, August 04, 2006

The Schedule

In an attempt to get more organized (more on that later, if time permits!) Darwin and I sat down last evening and created a little "curriculum" for the girls for fall. It's a simple list of what we want the girls to accomplish. Some of the resources we have, some are ordered, and some we need to find, but I think it's an achievable set of goals.

Noogs (4)

Religion
Writing
Math
  • Basic addition and subtraction
  • Learn to tell time
  • Study the calendar: learn the days of the week, the months, and the seasons
Reading
Personal
  • Make Bed
  • Put dirty clothes in hamper
  • Brush own hair and teeth

Babs (just about 3)

Religion
  • Basic prayers: Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, Grace before meals (she has these pretty much down, but it doesn't hurt to keep working on them)
  • Read Tomie De Paola's Bible Stories out loud.
Writing
  • Memorize alphabet and identify letters
Math
  • Identify numbers
  • Work on counting
Reading
Personal
  • Put dirty clothes in hamper
  • Potty training
  • Brush own teeth
Baby (5 months)
  • Cut that tooth!
Seeing it all written down looks a bit intimidating, frankly. However, I think that these are things we would be working on whether or not I consciously planned them out. And it seems that it can't be too soon to start documenting what we're doing, both for future reference and in case anyone ever wants to give us trouble about homeschooling (God forbid!).

14 comments:

Pro Ecclesia said...

Thanks for posting this. Since my kids are roughly the same age as yours, maybe Sarah and I will try to follow the same curriculum.

Jamie, my 4-year-old, will be going to Catholic preschool every day for half a day, so he'll be learning some other stuff as well.

Anonymous said...

Bridget is ready for kindegarten work. She prints her letters and knows all of their sounds, can count and write nmubers, but, I was telling Ricky that I'm not sure if I want to start teaching her to read. She still mispronounces words (like "wizard" instead of "lizard") and it's sooooo cute. She's our baby and I'll miss that.

Who thinks that's just wrong and selfish of me?

Jude has a few more lessons in the 100 Lessons book, but he really is past needing it. He's reading everything, now. We'll finish it when school starts again, though.

Barb Szyszkiewicz said...

Thank you for this.
I am planning to homeschool-preschool Little Brother (4) this fall. I like how you broke down your goals, because I was running into trouble figuring out how to get going.

Rhonda, you're not selfish. I mourn every time Little Brother learns to correctly pronounce something. Kids are rushed enough--we need to slow them down so we can relish the cuteness!

mrsdarwin said...

Rhonda,

I'd stopped making an effort to do 100 Easy Lessons because it seemed like she wasn't using it anymore. She reads all sorts of stuff, and is quite proficient at stories. I found, however, that when we started the lessons again, she'd gotten lazy on the individual word drills and didn't want to make the effort to properly sound them out. So instead of just going on to something new (as I'd been planning to do) I thought that she would benefit from the repeated drills even though she breezes through the stories just fine.

She doesn't print her letters and numbers, though, which is why I'm going to use the Seton phonics. I've had a chance to look over the book, and while the phonics are a bit basic for her, I think that she'll really benefit from the workbook format in learning to write. Besides, there are prayers and scripture passages included and many of the illustrations are by Ben Hatke, who illustrated Angel in the Waters. I enjoy his style.

Barb,

My little brother used to say "garjib" for garbage, and Noogs would say "waloo" for water. I confess that we all found ways of making them talk, just because it was so funny to hear. "Mommy, I need wa-loo!" Priceless.

mrsdarwin said...

Thank you, Steven. I do appreciate any practical advice like that.

My main thought was that since she seems so good at memorization right now I should give her good things to memorize. But I agree now that the Ten Commandments might not be the easiest to synthesize at such a young age. Perhaps Psalm 117 would be a better choice.

Anonymous said...

she can count and write nmubers ...but mother is a bit dyslexic at times.

Jude got bored with the 100 lessons toward the end chapters. He didn't mind doing the word lists, he just didn't like reading the stories twice.
I'm not sure what level of reading etc. I should start him on this next school year. After you're finished with 100 lessons, what level do you think you'll be looking at?

I'm glad to know that I'm not the only mother who tries to get her kids to say things just to hear them say it (or sing it) wrong.

Rick Lugari said...

I'll let Rhonda tell you what she did for the Ten Commandments, but I have to tell you it makes for some real entertainment. Often times one sibling narking on another becomes, "Daddy, Bridget broke a commandment," etc. Kind of funny seeing as the infractions don't quite fit into the categories; like not doing wanting to play the same thing.

Dorian Speed said...

Thanks so much for posting this! Are you getting more excited now that you have an Official Plan? (which is not to imply that you weren't excited before - I just love planning).

I had heard about the Teach Your Child to Read book but had forgotten all about it. I think I'll have to check that out. My son will be 5 in October and knows his letters and their sounds, can print a few words, and that's about it. He loves for me to read to him, though. I'm trying not to sweat *when* he'll start reading, but I do think it would be good for me to have some fun ideas to help him along when he's ready.

You could always have your daughter memorize the genealogy of Jesus. It would probably be fun to say "begat" a whole bunch of times.

Dorian Speed said...

Also - I love Tomie DePaola! We happened upon his Bible stories book at the library a few months ago and I thought it was utterly delightful. We currently own his St. Patrick book and the parables of Jesus. I want to buy the Bible stories book...and I think you just gave me the proper incentive. ;)

The Opinionated Homeschooler said...

I think that baby could be doing more. Don't you have some flashcards or something?

Seriously, sounds like a good plan. I bought the CHC lesson plan for Offspring #2, just because I'm not the kind of person who thinks "hey, making a fairy house out of clay would be good today," and like to have someone telling me fun stuff to do. Mostly I need a supply of busywork to keep her happy when I need to explain irony or azimuths to Offspring #1 and could use five minutes of no interruptions in which to do so.

But the "real" 3-year-old homeschooling curriculum is: lots of read-alouds, helping her pray a decade of the rosary with us during morning devotions (thank goodness #1 is very patient), fun with adding and taking away, and coloring those great pictures from Bellerophon's "A Coloring Book of Ancient Greece," featuring "A Hopping Hoplite" and "Zeus and a Goose."

Anonymous said...

By "the real ... curriculum" I meant the one we'll actually be doing, not the one anyone else *ought* to be doing (though in fact everyone ought to be having their 3yo's coloring Hopping Hoplites).

Anonymous said...

"color" not "coloring" durn it....

Darwin said...

And here I thought it was odd that I played hoplites all the time as a kid, marching around with the handle of a garden rake as a spear and a frisbee as a shield.

(Actually, it had a lot to do with Dad reading Xenophon's Anabasis to us as a bedtime read-aloud when I was seven or eight. And, of course, it didn't occur to me to think that was odd.)

Amber said...

You might want to take a look at Math-U-See for math stuff. Yes, it is all simple concepts and all at the beginning, but it is really nice to be able to do a couple pages in the workbook, play with some manipulatives and feel like you are building a good foundation in math. We've been using the Primer level for about 6-8 weeks and I feel like Emma has a much more solid grasp on numbers and number theory than she did when we were just doing little games and other counting and math related things on our own. Perhaps that speaks to my lack of creativity more than the benefit of Math-U-See, but I think it has been well worth it. I've been incorporating more number writing along with the math lessons (just having her write the number for every problem, whether she is supposed to or not) and that's really helped her number writing too. (Can you tell I'm catching up on posts??)