First of all, you have to get the littlest sibling working on something, right? They love to be included and feel like they are doing something similar. Math blocks are a special thing that is allowed out during school time and Finn loves creating with them. Roads are the fave thing right now.
Bible
I tried hard to find some bible curriculum for some time and I picked up some various books. This year I wanted to give the kids more choice so that they are excited and take initiative in what they are learning. I found this coloring bible at Chapters recently for Keiran. He can read and color the whole entire bible essentially, even the cover. I love that there is a visual aspect to his learning each story.
This is the book that Aiden picked for bible. I love that he has to use his bible to look up the verses and then doodle his thoughts about it. I am seeing and hoping for tons of growth in the kids' knowledge of scripture this year, as the older two especially are more thoughtful about things and maturing.
Gemma's book is similar. She can doodle and color, and also look up her verses. I am adding these to their morning English routine.
Mom's planner has a weekly bible plan and fighter verse and this was the one written in so we read this together this morning too.
Language Arts
Aiden chose this for his first reader. I had so much fun at the homeschool convention picking up all sorts of reading subjects, knowing my kids interests and preferences. Aiden loves the WW2 stuff.
Aiden's "Grammar and Punctuation Six," Evan Moor workbook.
My house read-aholic, Gemma, has already finished her first book and is on to the second. Here is her first picks for readers.
Gemma did a little write-up after her first book. I did not help her correct it as it was on her own initiative. I still need to photocopy some graphic organizers for the kids to fill out when they are reading, but she got ahead of me, haha. Love her enthusiasm.
Gemma's "A Reason for Spelling, Level D" wordlist.
My good friend had the idea to encourage Keiran's reading with an audio book. It is so great to discuss ideas and challenges with other homeschool moms. He wanted a funny book and I found this at Chapters. So far so good. It also frees me up from sitting with him as this is a busy time of the school morn with lots of instruction at different times. He has also picked some readers that we will balance him and mom reading together. His confidence is coming!
Keiran's "Skill Sharpeners, Spell and Write 3," by Evan Moor. He did awesome at this.
Keiran was brave this morn with his journal and didn't want mom's help at all. This is a perfect example of how and why we do journaling. I let the kids create and write whatever they want and keep it to just a couple of corrections. They usually copy around two words which helps them build spelling skills and this time around Keiran got some review phonics lessons too.
Science
I ended up changing my mind when I picked up our science curriculum this year. They didn't have my intended pick and when I saw this I remembered that Keiran has been saying he wants to be an underwater animal rescuer. What better way to engage his already big love for science? It is a nice change from our usual science picks.
Also, this science comes with a Junior Notebooking Journal. This was Gemma's activity that she was working on (Keiran had the same). And....
Aiden has a regular notebooking journal that requires more older thought from him. It was our first taste of the curriculum today. Mom read a lot of text, and the kids worked on their journals at the same time as they listened to a ton of information. Today's lesson was about nekton, benthos, and plankton; or the types of aquatic animals.
We kept it to those three subjects today and got our regular day sorted out into routine. More to come this week.
