Curriculum, curriculum, curriculum!

Lisa and I have been talking curriculum for days!!....and loving every minute of it! She has decided on the history curriculum she is going to be using next year. I am going to continue Beautiful Feet Early American History and also incorporate a geography curriculum into the year.
This year, because Kyle was doing a 2nd grade curriculum, we took things slowly. So next year we will be picking up where we leave off at the end of this year in a few subject areas.
I have purchased his third grade curriculum, but we may not move into it until a few months into the new school year. I'll be able to better judge this at the end of this school year.
We are not doing evals this year, as they are definitely not necessary. But we will be doing school through June 30th and then taking 8 or 9 weeks off for summer break...starting school again on Sept. 2nd (the day after Labor Day). I would like to stay with the ritual of the first day of school being a field trip....so...I will be looking for something fun for us to do on 9-2-09.

As for the rest of this school year....we are enjoying it more than ever before. Hayleigh is doing History with Kyle--he really enjoys having someone to do this with. We just finished the study on Leif Eriksson (Leif the Lucky) and will be doing lapbooks on it this coming week. The following week we will begin a study on Christopher Columbus and then lapbook on him before moving into an in-depth study of the Pilgrims.

We are just plugging along in Math, Spelling, Handwriting and Bible.
As for English, Kyle learned this past week the meaning of the word paragraph, what qualifies as a topic, and what supporting and non-supporting sentences are for a paragraph. He has also added to his classification of sentences a skill builder check. For each sentence he classifies the normal: subject noun, verb, adverb, adjective and article adjective. But he is now also identifying each noun as singular or plural and common or proper. (btw, he feels the need to inform that he thinks this is "SO EASY")

He LOVES his reading and we are moving along in that as well. We just finished a story called "Little Bugs Trip". This story talked about pride and bragging. It was a good lesson, referencing several Bible scriptures.
Monday we will be beginning the story "Samuel, Servant of God".

We will be heading back into our Science curriculum in the upcoming weeks, finishing our study on rocks and minerals and moving into the unit on Weather. In that we will be covering climates, temperature, humidity, precipitation, the equator, hemisphere, molecules (in relation to weather), vaccuum, cirrus clouds, cumulus clouds, nimbus rain, stratus, light and the term "omnipresent".
I would also like to complete the unit following weather, "The Plant Kingdom", before we stop for summer break. That will leave beginning next year with "The Animal Kingdom". (Which is a HUGE unit, that may very well take all of next year to complete).

Tomorrow we are trying out a church here in Fernley. They have an established childrens ministry and even have Awana on Wednesday nights. (Kyle was involved in Awana when he was 4, so this is great!) They also have a small group ministry and a Women's Ministry. Of course, we don't really know what it's like until we attend, but I did read their doctrine and listened to a sermon from the pastor and it seems like the type of church we will enjoy. So say a prayer for us as we attend tomorrow, for God's guidance and wisdom in evaluating if this is the church for us.

I'm off for now!
xoxo