Friday, March 30, 2012

And still more planning...

Am I bordering on obsessive yet?  Probably not.  There are most likely many homeschooling mothers who are putting this much time into planning their children's kindergarten year.  I hope.

My latest bout of schedulitis was brought on by the arrival of Henry's Saxon Math 1 Home Study Kit.  How much do I love that he was jumping up and down as I was taking it out of the box?  He wanted to dive in and get started, but I reminded him that we still needed to finish Saxon Math K.

"Awwwwwwwww."

I hope that enthusiasm doesn't ever go away.

Anyway, I started thinking about how to break up the lessons over the school year and that started me in on what next year was going to look like all together.  Three desires sprang to mind.
  1. The school year needed to work in concert with the liturgical year.
  2. We need to move to a more year-round model.
  3. We need both scheduled breaks and enough flexibility to accommodate things like appointments, visitors, and days when we just want to play hooky.
Here's what I've come up with.  Three sessions of school with breaks in between.

First Session: August 13 - December 1, 2012 (16 weeks)
Advent/Christmas Break: December 2, 2012 - January 6, 2013 (5 weeks)
Second Session: January 7 - March 23, 2013 (11 weeks)
Easter Break (Palm Sunday to Divine Mercy Sunday): March 24 - April 7, 2013 (2 weeks)
Third Session: April 8 - July 26, 2013 (16 weeks)
Summer Break: July 27 - August 11, 2013 (2 weeks)

This will give us a good beginning to the year before heading into a period of lighter work from December to April, followed by another four months of steady work with a short break before starting first grade.  It's 43 weeks of school and 9 weeks of break (not including days off for birthdays and random holidays and so forth).

Subjects for all sessions:
  • Saxon Math 1 - There are 130 lessons in this level, so I'm planning on three lessons per week.  This gives us another two days each week for any needed review, to play math games, and to read "living math" books.  The Well-Trained Mind has a nice list of these types of books.  I also found this great list via Pinterest.
  • Religion - This will, of course, be covered during breaks also.  We'll just follow the liturgical year.
  • Art and Music - This is pretty much a given!  We'll also cover these during our Advent/Christmas and Easter breaks, but they will be seasonally appropriate.
  • Philosophy - At least for now.  I won't know for sure what kind of time we'll need for this until I can get my hands on the Elfie teacher's manual and that won't happen until at least May.
First Session:
  • Hooked on Phonics Learn to Read, First Grade, Level 1  - This is very relaxed.  There are only three units with 15 lessons.  There's no way it will take us the full 16 weeks to get through.  This schedule does leave us with plenty of time to read, though, and that's what I want Henry working on most of all.
  • Zaner-Bloser Handwriting, Kindergarten - I haven't purchased this book yet, but based on the online sample pages, I don't think Henry should have any issues completing it during the first session.
Second Session:
  • Science - Since The Well-Trained Mind doesn't really even really push science at this level, I thought having a solid period of science would be okay.  We have seven lapbook studies to complete and 11 weeks should be an ample amount of time.  Henry will, of course, get lots of practice in other subjects through the creation of the lapbooks (art, handwriting, reading). 
Third Session:
  •   Hooked on Phonics Learn to Read, First Grade, Level 2
  •  Zaner-Bloser Handwriting, First Grade
One final resource that will probably get added in is The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading.  It's by Jessie Wise, one of the authors of The Well-Trained Mind, and it's an extremely thorough phonics program made up of 231 daily lessons.  While we all love Hooked on Phonics and I see it as a very effective "learn to read" program, I would like to have a better foundation for teaching the actual rules of phonics.  It's hard to plan on how long it will take to make it through the book, especially since Henry is already reading and more than a few of the beginning lessons will be review. We'll have to see how it will fit in once I get my hands on a copy.

Maybe I can relax now.

Update:  Maybe not.  I just kept looking at that five week break for Advent and Christmas and thinking it's going to be too long.  Changes are as follows:

First Session: September 2 - December 22, 2012 (16 weeks)
Advent/Christmas Break: December 23, 2012 - January 6, 2013 (2 weeks)
Second Session: January 7 - March 23, 2013 (11 weeks)
Easter Break (Palm Sunday to Divine Mercy Sunday): March 24 - April 7, 2013 (2 weeks)
Third Session: April 8 - July 26, 2013 (16 weeks)
Summer Break: July 27 - August 11, 2013 (2 weeks)

That gives us a couple extra weeks before we start to make sure Peter/Violet is settled in nicely and tightens up Christmas break.  I'm keeping our end date and summer break the same for now.  There's no point in trying to figure out what first grade will look like this far in advance!


3 comments:

  1. Lovely blog. (I came over from the WTM forum after talking about felt saint dolls). We have a similiar flow to our school year. We've moved to a more year round model to allow more flexibility in daily life and around holidays. I think your plan looks fabulous!

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    Replies
    1. Maria, I'm really glad to hear that this type of schedule works for you. I hope it works for us, too. Thank you again for the information on the felt saints!

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  2. How thrilling to have found a resource of other Catholic Moms. I have a blog that posts a link up once a month for other bloggers. It’s called “Pay It Forward” and it highlights your posts or the posts of other bloggers. Click on over and check it out and link up one of your own posts. . Plus, if your looking for Easter activities for children and families you’ll definitely need to stop by. Please pop over and link up with other Catholics moms. http://alife-sizecatholicblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/pay-it-forward-april-2012.html

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