MATH
An ability-appropriate level math textbook for each child. 4 days per week. — I am completely against math texts for young children, instead I would recommend a workbook, or series of worksheets.
Drill work on math facts, 3-10 min/day, 5 days per week (while learning math facts). — Starting as simple as rout counting.
Math reading: Each Friday or 2nd Friday of the month, as needed.
LANGUAGE ARTS
Phonics: (for beginning readers), daily.
Handwriting: (while learning penmanship), 2 days per week, Tuesday & Thursday.
Spelling: Monday, Wednesday & Friday. —To begin only AFTER ‘cvc‘ words have begun to be mastered.
Grammar: 2 days per week, Tuesday & Thursday.
Reading Practice and Literature: (read-alouds, personal reading, fluency reading, vocabulary development, reading comprehension, american and world literature) daily, integrated into other subjects.
Composition: 2 – 3 days per week, Monday, Wednesday & Friday. Use compositions to reinforce grammar instruction as well as for additional handwriting practice while your child is learning penmanship. —-NOT until fluency in reading is established.
Vocabulary: daily integrated into reading/literature, as well as other subject areas as needed.
HISTORY/CITIZENSHIP
Use a grade-level history (textbook daily or) complete 3 to 6 history history units per year. If doing units, spend 1-1/2 to 2 hours per day, 2 days per week (Tuesday and Thursday) for 36 weeks, incorporating reading, hands-on activities, art, music, and composition, as appropriate.
Integrate citizenship into history curriculum or complete one or two special classes per year.
Geography and Mapping Skills: Mondays
Current Events: daily
SCIENCE
Use a grade-level science (textbook daily or) complete 3 to 6 science science units per year. If doing units, spend 1-1/2 to 2 hours per day, 2 days per week (Monday and Wednesday) for 36 weeks, incorporating reading, hands-on activities, lab work, art, music and composition, as appropriate.
ART
Each Wednesday, as needed.
MUSIC
Each Monday, as needed.
COMPUTER SKILLS
Each Saturday and/or integrate into other subjects, as needed.
Keyboarding: daily (after child has learned to write in cursive and until he can type a minimum of 40 wpm with only 1-2 errors).
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Keep track of 75 minutes of physical activity per week.
Attend one or two special classes on Tuesdays, as needed.
HEALTH/SAFETY
Integrate into science curriculum.
ELECTIVES:
Bible: daily
Foreign Language: briefly integrate into lessons daily, as needed.
Field trips: Fridays or occasionally substitute for Monday – Thursday school day, as needed.
Social Activities: daily play time with friends after school, during field trips, Fridays, special classes, or weekends
Showing posts with label Curriculum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Curriculum. Show all posts
Friday, September 23, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Scheduling for Homeschooling
A traditional school year is five to six hours a day, 5 days a week for 36 weeks or 180 days.
As a home-schooling family, we could have chosen to follow the same schedule of the local school, but we chose to customize a schedule to suit our family’s needs.
According to the state of Connecticut, we do not have to do every subject every day of the school year.
I have been struggling with the amount of activities in which to enroll my children and just beginning to face the realities that I do not have to enroll my children in every class or outside activity that their/my friends do.
I have decided to enroll each child in in only one pay activity per week. Of course I will schedule play dates and the like, and invite other children to sit in some of our activities and lessons, but I do not want these things to interfere with the educational purpose of home schooling.
Our Fridays will continue to be left for field trip days whereas, Monday through Thursday will hold the highest concentration of academic study. I do however, plan on teaching some things on Fridays and Saturdays.
I am such a planner that I cannot help myself about planning out everything. Of course, I do not anticipate a play-by-play daily run-down, but I will specify subject area topics for each day.
The amount of time spent on each subject depends upon the age, small motor skills, learning style, and abilities of each child (ranges as follows: 3-5 minutes for preschoolers, 10-20 minutes for 1st -3rd graders, 20-45 minutes for 4th – 6th graders, 45 minutes or more for 8th – 12th graders). Although Jonathan is at a preschool age, his attention-span, learning style and abilities enable lessons to run approximately 10-15 minutes.
The total number of hours spent each day in one-on-one instruction ranges as follows: thirty minutes in Kindergarten (broken up into several five-minute sessions), one to two hours in grades 1 – 6, two hours or more in grades 7 – 12. Again, more can be accomplished orally than handwritten for children with handwriting difficulties. In our planning, our TOTAL home-schooling daily agenda is two hours — which conveniently is the amount of nap-time for the baby.
The remainder of our school day is spent in independent book exploration, free play activities with his siblings and friends, complete own “chores”, exploring an instrument, create an art projects, and/or participate in any other activity that can be done independently. The television and computers are not available during the school day, and are limited to ninety minutes weekly, other than for educational purposes.
Some states require an excess of four to five hours of home schooling daily, thankfully Connecticut is not one of them. However there is a difference between “actual teaching time” and “school attendance” time.
As a home-schooling family, we could have chosen to follow the same schedule of the local school, but we chose to customize a schedule to suit our family’s needs.
According to the state of Connecticut, we do not have to do every subject every day of the school year.
I have been struggling with the amount of activities in which to enroll my children and just beginning to face the realities that I do not have to enroll my children in every class or outside activity that their/my friends do.
I have decided to enroll each child in in only one pay activity per week. Of course I will schedule play dates and the like, and invite other children to sit in some of our activities and lessons, but I do not want these things to interfere with the educational purpose of home schooling.
Our Fridays will continue to be left for field trip days whereas, Monday through Thursday will hold the highest concentration of academic study. I do however, plan on teaching some things on Fridays and Saturdays.
I am such a planner that I cannot help myself about planning out everything. Of course, I do not anticipate a play-by-play daily run-down, but I will specify subject area topics for each day.
The amount of time spent on each subject depends upon the age, small motor skills, learning style, and abilities of each child (ranges as follows: 3-5 minutes for preschoolers, 10-20 minutes for 1st -3rd graders, 20-45 minutes for 4th – 6th graders, 45 minutes or more for 8th – 12th graders). Although Jonathan is at a preschool age, his attention-span, learning style and abilities enable lessons to run approximately 10-15 minutes.
The total number of hours spent each day in one-on-one instruction ranges as follows: thirty minutes in Kindergarten (broken up into several five-minute sessions), one to two hours in grades 1 – 6, two hours or more in grades 7 – 12. Again, more can be accomplished orally than handwritten for children with handwriting difficulties. In our planning, our TOTAL home-schooling daily agenda is two hours — which conveniently is the amount of nap-time for the baby.
The remainder of our school day is spent in independent book exploration, free play activities with his siblings and friends, complete own “chores”, exploring an instrument, create an art projects, and/or participate in any other activity that can be done independently. The television and computers are not available during the school day, and are limited to ninety minutes weekly, other than for educational purposes.
Some states require an excess of four to five hours of home schooling daily, thankfully Connecticut is not one of them. However there is a difference between “actual teaching time” and “school attendance” time.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
...Of the day
Each day has a theme… basically following REAL holidays: http://brownielocks.com some are a bit ‘tweaked’ or a day early or late, to be sure EACH day has a theme. My favorite themed days are: Talk Like a Pirate Day Johnny Appleseed Day Teddy Bear Day Candy Cane Day Rubber Ducky Day Tooth Fairy Day Each day has several other focuses as well:
Letter (recognizing, printing, sounds, words)
Shape (identifying, counting sides/angles, drawing)
Number (counting,naming, printing)
Color
Graph/Tally/Chart/Question (based on the theme)
Displayed each day are a series of poems or books based on the theme, often the children are able to select which will be read and shared aloud.
Letter (recognizing, printing, sounds, words)
Shape (identifying, counting sides/angles, drawing)
Number (counting,naming, printing)
Color
Graph/Tally/Chart/Question (based on the theme)
Displayed each day are a series of poems or books based on the theme, often the children are able to select which will be read and shared aloud.
Monday, August 1, 2011
The start to each and everyday…
I remind the children that the “learning” will commence and usually give a “five minute wrap up play-time” warning. Throughout the ‘meeting’, I refer to the children by a different adjective (smarties, sillies, super readers) and proceed to follow the THEME of the day (in some cases week) in a short hint of what’s ahead.
Throughout the ‘meeting’, I refer to the children by a different adjective (smarties, sillies, super readers) and proceed to follow the THEME of the day (in some cases week) in a short hint of what’s to come for the day.
(ex.: balloon day — “Good Morning Aviators, we’ve got to fly through our work today so that we are able to float way up to the clouds).
Opening Circle Song:(sung to – Farmer in the Dell)
Hello to everyone, ( wave to children)
and how are you today?
We come to our circle time,
to laugh and sing and play.
And when you’re up you’re up, (hold hands in the air)
and when your down your down, ( place hands on floor)
and when your only half way up, (hold hands about chest level)
your neither up nor down. (throw your hands up and down quickly with words)
So roll your hands so slowly, (make fists with hands and roll about chest level like your punching a bag)
and roll your hands so fast, ( same action as above except fast)
give your hands a clap clap clap and fold them in your lap tap tap. (follow directions in this line)
Once the song is complete, and we’ve stretched some stretches, we take a look at the calendar, and weather and make predictions of the activities we’ll be doing for the day.
Calendar Song: (Sing to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”)
When we do the calendar
We learn the month the date the year.
Every weekday has a name
There are lots of numbers that look the same.
So let’s begin to show you how
We do the calendar right now.
Identify the MONTH of the year.
~~Month Chant~~
January,February,March,April,MayJune,July,August~~Hooray! Hooray!
September,October,November,DecemberThese are the months that I CAN REMEMBER!
Identify the DAY of the week.
~~The Today Song~: (To the tune of “Frere Jacques”)
Today is _______.
Today is _______.
All day long, all day long.
Yesterday was ______.
Tomorrow will be _______.
Oh what fun!
Oh what fun!
Weather
Weather Wheel
What is the weather the weather the weather
What is the weather like today?
(Childs name) says its (weather)(weather) (weather) (childs name) say its (weather) out today!
Once the calender and weather is completed, we do a little movement.
Form a Circle by joining hands. The children take a step
back until their arms are fully extended. Drop hands.
Say the following poem with activity motions:
Two little hands go clap, clap, clap.
Two little feet go tap, tap, tap.
One little body turns around and around.
One little child sits quietly down!
Throughout the ‘meeting’, I refer to the children by a different adjective (smarties, sillies, super readers) and proceed to follow the THEME of the day (in some cases week) in a short hint of what’s to come for the day.
(ex.: balloon day — “Good Morning Aviators, we’ve got to fly through our work today so that we are able to float way up to the clouds).
Opening Circle Song:(sung to – Farmer in the Dell)
Hello to everyone, ( wave to children)
and how are you today?
We come to our circle time,
to laugh and sing and play.
And when you’re up you’re up, (hold hands in the air)
and when your down your down, ( place hands on floor)
and when your only half way up, (hold hands about chest level)
your neither up nor down. (throw your hands up and down quickly with words)
So roll your hands so slowly, (make fists with hands and roll about chest level like your punching a bag)
and roll your hands so fast, ( same action as above except fast)
give your hands a clap clap clap and fold them in your lap tap tap. (follow directions in this line)
Once the song is complete, and we’ve stretched some stretches, we take a look at the calendar, and weather and make predictions of the activities we’ll be doing for the day.
Calendar Song: (Sing to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”)
When we do the calendar
We learn the month the date the year.
Every weekday has a name
There are lots of numbers that look the same.
So let’s begin to show you how
We do the calendar right now.
Identify the MONTH of the year.
~~Month Chant~~
January,February,March,April,MayJune,July,August~~Hooray! Hooray!
September,October,November,DecemberThese are the months that I CAN REMEMBER!
Identify the DAY of the week.
~~The Today Song~: (To the tune of “Frere Jacques”)
Today is _______.
Today is _______.
All day long, all day long.
Yesterday was ______.
Tomorrow will be _______.
Oh what fun!
Oh what fun!
Weather
Weather Wheel
What is the weather the weather the weather
What is the weather like today?
(Childs name) says its (weather)(weather) (weather) (childs name) say its (weather) out today!
Once the calender and weather is completed, we do a little movement.
Form a Circle by joining hands. The children take a step
back until their arms are fully extended. Drop hands.
Say the following poem with activity motions:
Two little hands go clap, clap, clap.
Two little feet go tap, tap, tap.
One little body turns around and around.
One little child sits quietly down!
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