Back to School - part 1

Hi everybody. Last week was our first week back to school. Everything went quite well. The only slight problem we had was there didn't seem to be quite enough school for Zoey. I learned from last year and knew that I should not over plan and keep the stress level to a minimum. I guess I went a little too light for Zoey. Not really a big surprise for the high-needs kid Zoey is.

This year we have some additions to our curriculum that are working quite well so far. We also have kept most of what we used last year. Here is a description of one of our new studies...

Adventures in America

This new program from Elemental History is a 36 week study of early America and the 50 states. It is set up to be done in three days with two days for history and one day for geography. What made me decide to purchase a separate history program was Zoey's growing interest in early America this summer. We started listening to The Little House on the Prairie series on CD in the car this summer. The whole family is hooked. Zoey pretends to be Laura or Ma and gets Sierra to play along also. With Zoey's quest for knowledge in this area I decided to go for it. It is a well laid out program. There is a hands on activity each week, two short stories to read, chapter book and picture book suggestions, coloring pages, dictation, and copy work. The copy work and dictation are optional. As an added bonus I was able to buy the program in digital version so I am able to print copies of coloring pages and other things for Sierra also. Since Sierra wants to do everything Zoey does this is a huge benefit. The only downside is I have the cost of paper and printer ink.

For our first week with Adventures in America we began by learning more about Native Americans. Before we even started this week Zoey was immersed in the books about Native Americans that I checked out at the library. The first Chapter book we are reading is Pocahontas and the Strangers by Clyde Bulla. We are supposed to read one chapter a day, five days a week. We read three chapters on Monday! The hands-on activity for the week was making Wampum beads. The girls really liked using the clay. We made beads and they quickly started making other objects. Zoey made Pocahontas and a coil pot. Sierra made a ????.

Zoey putting a hole in the Wampum bead.

Sierra's own creation and a pinch pot I helped her with.



Painting Pocahontas after a few days drying time.



Our state for the week is Delaware, the first state. The state study is simple which is just right for Zoey. We read a paragraph about the state written by a child from the book, Smart About Fifty States. Next is the coloring page. We put a star on the state where the capital is. Delaware's capital is Dover. Then we answer a few simple questions about the state, color it (Zoey added detail to hers, lol) and find the state on the US map. I also checked out a book from the library about Delaware. I think I was more interested in the book than Zoey but she did love everything else we did with Delaware. Oh, and we also added the state flag for Delaware in the corner of the page. I finally found state flag stickers online. Local school supply stores just didn't carry that sort of thing.

All of the papers that are completed with this program are kept in their notebooks, which each of them are very proud of. This also gives us a great chance to review. With the stories, coloring, and crafts this curriculum was a hit the first week of school. Hopefully it will continue this way. If you would like to see more of this program just click here.

Tomorrow...Introduction to Science.